Page 134 of Charity's Redemption

Charity had killed everyone who’d affronted her and this family. She’d found the traitor, Giovanni, inadvertently, but all the same. She’d killed her stalker, a hitman for the ICF, killed Jose and his nasty girlfriend, who sold her sister, her own flesh and blood, to an oligarch for her organs. Charity made an example out of her enemies to never cross her, yet they still kept coming like a bad action film, one at a time, hoping they’d be the one to strike the blow.

“What are you doing?” Luca asked as he peered over at my screen.

“Watching her. She stopped.”

“Are you going to follow her the entire time she walks home?”

“Yeah.”

“Careful, you’re sounding like an obsessive boyfriend.”

I laughed in a mocking tone. “Yeah, coming from the man who woke me up to check on her.”

“Extenuating circumstances.”

“Call it what you want. You worry just as much as I do, but you’re better at hiding it.”

Luca scoffed as though he were offended to be accused of worrying.

I watched her for a moment longer, her blue blinking dot in the same space it was ten minutes before.

“She still hasn’t moved.”

“Maybe she’s taking a break?” Luca jerked the phone from my hands and zoomed in on her location.

“It says she’s been there for fifteen minutes.”

Fear sank into my gut like a heavy stone in water. Even though she was in an upscale neighborhood, that didn’t mean it protected her from someone trying to hurt her.

I jumped from my seat.

“Where are you going?”

“To get her. A ten-mile hike, really Luca? She still has a concussion and got stabbed yesterday. Now you want her to walk her ass back home so you can what… make a point?”

“It was better than me drowning her in the pond.”

“Is that how disposable she is?”

“It was a metaphor. I’d never hurt her. You know that. Don’t fucking question me, Max.”

“With Charity, I’ll question whatever I damn well please. This isn’t business, this is about her. Your position in this family doesn’t apply where she’s concerned. Not anymore.”

The beat of my heart felt like war drums on a battlefield, pounding against my chest as it amped me up for the impending fight.

“You’re treading on thin ice.”

“Luca, we saw what happened when you made decisions about our relationship with her. I draw the line, right here, right now.”

He jumped from his seat and stepped toe to toe with me, his breath on my face. “Are you challenging me, Max? Are you so hellbent on the destruction you seek lately that you’re willing to throw it all away?”

“I’m not challenging your position in this family. I’m telling you, you don’t hold one with the relationship we hold with her.”

His hands clenched at his sides as the veins in his neck threatened to burst through his skin. He was mad, furious even, but eventually, he’d see I was right.

“You can choose to sit here and stew in your anger, or you can admit that you were wrong and come with me to get her.”

I turned away from him, putting my back to my Underboss, my cousin, and walked back out to my car. Slamming the door to my Demon, I let the purring engine cool me down while I waited for him to make a choice. Would he let his ego get in the way or let it go and get her?

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