Page 11 of King Of Order

I sent a prayer, whispering under my lips as the vehicle drew closer to the truck.

My stomach churned, tears running down my cheeks.

I sensed Chiara’s eyes on me, and for a moment, I flicked my gaze to hers, seeing the abject sorrow in her eyes.

‘Chiara, will you have the honor?’ her father called out.

In his hands, he held a remote control detonator, and my limbs froze as even more dread washed over me.

She shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t want to rob you of the joy, papa.’

‘No,’ I moaned. ‘Don’t do this.’

Olivio ignored me as he chortled, amused by the desperation in her eyes and mine. ‘You’re sure?’ he urged his daughter. ‘I’ll pay you for it.’

He was getting a kick out of it, the fucking sadist.

He flung open a box on his desk and withdrew a thick wad of notes, dangling them in front of her face.

‘I’m sure,’ she trilled, her face a canvas of wretched addiction and greed.

Fast as a whip, she snatched the cash from him with a sneaky snicker. ‘I’ll take the money anyway.’

Fotto, how dare they laugh in the face of my impending agony?

Hate bloomed in me at the pudgy-faced gangster and his strung-out and cackling daughter, baying like hyenas.

That’s when I caught a tiny furtive glance from her aimed at me and realized she was playing up to him.

For the cash, so she’d get her next hit.

I growled at her, and she flinched.

Olivio bared his teeth at her in a grotesque smile. ‘You got what you came for,ragazza. Now get the hell out of here so we can finish this.’

‘Si, papa.’

She slithered off the table and swung her bony hips, her trajectory coming near to me.

She paused, eyes on my shattered face, and leaned in.

For an underweight woman, she sported great tits.

But my misery erased the thought from my mind the second it took root.

‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,’ she whispered into my ear before stumbling out of the room.

I closed my eyes, unable to handle the agony inside me.

A slap across my cheek flung them open once more.

‘Keep your eyes on the prize,’ Olivio snarled at me, his fetid breath washing over me. ‘Close them, and we consider the communication unsent. You’ll be shot dead, and we’ll find a fresh Calibrese son to make sure the message doesn’t get lost in translation.’

I glared at the man, imagining all the ways I planned to rip his throat out and cut his shit up.

‘It’s time,’ the Tirone don crowed. ‘See, we stole a Fiat Fiorino lorry last night and packed it with a quarter of a tonne’s worth of explosives.’

My eyes sliced to the screens, my inner voice screaming.

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