Page 65 of Passion and Revenge

He takes me in for a moment. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you’re making a mistake. Do you know who I am? I’m protected by the Bando brothers, and they’ll haunt you into your next life if you?—”

His words end with a pained howl when I whip out my gun and fire one bullet into his kneecaps, blowing them out.

The older man drops to the ground, wailing like a little bitch.

“That is for making me wait for you for three whole days,” I tell him. “And because I hate the sound of your voice.”

“Who are you?!” he screams. “What do you want?”

“My name is Alessandro Mancini.” I watch his eyes widen, and it fills me with satisfaction. “I see you’ve heard of me.”

Tears fill his eyes. “I haven’t done anything. I swear! I’m innocent. I didn’t steal anything. I don’t involve myself with all that underworld shit. My brother is a cop.”

“I may have let you go if you had stolen from me, but what you’ve done is far worse.” I squat to bring us to eye level. “You made Sienna cry, and I can never forgive you for that.”

I ignore his panicked ramblings and breathless explanations. Rising to my feet, I cross over his body to where the block of knives sits on the counter.

Voila.

“Please! Please, I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. No, it was a misunderstanding.”

The blood rushing through my head drowns out the sound of his pathetic begging. I approach him with the sharp butcher knife and then haul him to his feet. He screams as he puts his weight on his damaged knee. Ignoring him, I undo his belt and wrap it around his wrists. Dragging him to the center of the living room, I attach the belt to the ceiling fan hook on the ceiling.

“You can scream as loud as you like, Tullio,” I say with a shrug, “but no one is coming to save you.”

I test the sharpness of the blade by slashing it across his cheek. The skin parts in a clean line, and blood pools down his face.

“Please, you don’t understand. She’s my niece. I love her,” the sorry excuse of a man screams. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I slice and nick and slash him, careful to avoid any veins that will end him too soon. His screams and pleas soon turn into unintelligible groans.

I keep Tullio in a place between life and death for six excruciating hours before I finally plunge the knife into his right eye and end him forever.

Violence thrums through my veins, and all I want is to bury myself deep in Sienna and let her make me feel like a man and not a monster again. The last few days without her have been, to put it mildly, difficult.

I can only imagine the rest of the years of my life stretched out before me without her.

I dig my phone out with blood-stained hands, take a picture of the mutilated man hanging there like livestock, and send it off to Ivan.

My phone begins to ring minutes later as I’m crossing the street back to my car. “Get rid of the body,” I order the suited man standing beside a blacked-out Jaguar.

“Yes, boss.” He nods and hurries past me.

“Hello, Ivan,” I say, holding the phone to my ear with one hand and opening my car door with the other.

“You bastard! It isn’t enough for you to kidnap my daughter? You had to?—”

“I didn’t kill Tullio for your benefit, prosecutor,” I tell him coldly. “I did it for Sienna. And it’s something you should have done a long time ago.”

He pauses, and I can feel his confusion across the phone line. “What are you saying?”

“I’m wondering if you even deserve Sienna,” I grit out. “Any father who was too blind to realize their teenage daughter was abused maybe shouldn’t be allowed to keep that daughter. I took the scum out. You’re welcome.”

His breathing becomes labored. “Tullio would never?—”

My hands tighten around the phone. “If you’re about to call Sienna a liar, I suggest you think again. I won’t hesitate to find you and give you the same fate.”

“Why?” he asks. “Why did you kill him?”

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