Page 27 of Savage Mafia King

Marco's head whips around in a panic. His eyes are wide. Now he knows what I'm talking about.

"I… uh, I don't—"

He tosses his cigarette to the ground and makes a dart for the door. I drop Isabella's hand and shoot my arm out in front of him, sending him crashing backward. He staggers, and I round on him, my eyes narrowing.

"Oh, so now you know who I'm talking about?" I snarl at him, rage rushing through my body.

Isabella tries to catch my shoulder and pull me back. "Marcus, he's not—"

I ignore her and catch the man by his lapels, then slam him back against the wall behind me. I'm still holding the lit cigarette in one hand, and I can feel the heat of it burning down toward my fingertips.

"Tell me what the fuck you know about the Castellano family," I growl at him.

He squirms in my grip. "I can't—"

"Either you fucking tell me, or I'll make your life a living hell for the short time you have left," I warn him.

I lift the cigarette, hovering it in front of his eye. He stares down at the smoldering tip, and the burning reflection is visible on the surface of his eye. He pulls back, but it's not far enough. He knows damn well that it will take just one wrong move for me to take him out.

"Jesus, man, I'm just trying to work," he protests, and I let out a bark of laughter.

"You want to work? How about you get up in that ring and go against one of my guys?" I demand. "Let them beat the fucking shit out of you, and then we'll see how loyal you are."

I inch the cigarette closer to his eye. He lets out a groan.

"They just wanted me to work here to keep an eye on you, man, that's all it was! I don't know what they wanted the information for, I never asked, I never wanted to know..."

"Oh, you wanted to pretend you didn't see anything?" I spit. "I can help with that."

And with that, I push the cigarette into his eye. He lets out a howl of pain, so loud it almost deafens me, and I hear Isabella suck in a sharp breath of shock behind me. I don't move the cigarette as it burns through the soft tissue of his eye. I need to punish him, not just for working against me, but for making me doubt her, too. For making me think, even for a moment, that she might be capable of working against me.

The commotion draws the attention of a couple of the security guards inside the warehouse. They appear at the door a moment or two later, just in time to see me toss the cig to the side and let Marco sink to the ground in agony. He clasps his hand over his face, curling up into a helpless ball on the floor.

"Get rid of him," I spit to them. "I don't want him to set foot in here ever again."

"What happened—"

"It's none of your fucking business what happened!" I explode at the guard who dared question me. "I pay you to do your jobs. Now do them."

I turn toward Isabella. Her face is pale, and I half expect her to run from me, but she stays rooted to the spot.

"You believe me now?" she demands, her eyes blazing as they meet mine.

I grab her hand and bring it to my lips, planting a kiss against the back of it. "I believe you."

And I mean it. Because she's still here with me right now, even though I can tell every part of her is screaming to run.

Maybe this woman has more strength in her than I ever could have imagined. Maybe she's more ready for my world thanI thought. Because the way she's staring back at me now, I can tell she's not going anywhere.

And right now, that feels like the only thing in the world that matters.

Chapter Fourteen—Isabella

He leads me back to his car, and I can feel every cell in my body trembling with terror after what he did.

I've always known, on some level, that he's capable of things I didn't even want to imagine. I'm not stupid. I've heard about his reputation, and I've seen the darkness of this underground world he oversees, but this? This is the last thing I could have imagined. Watching him push that cigarette into the eye of the man who had broken his trust, it's shaken something in me, seeing how far he will go to get revenge on the people who have wronged him and knowing that he gave me the grace to make a case for myself before he did the same to me.

We reach the car, which he parked in the darkness of the back of the warehouse, and he opens the door for me. I can barely look at him. He must be able to tell how shaken I am, but I don't know what to say. That he's gone too far? That he needs to take me home? That I don't want to be around him anymore?

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