Page 88 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

They didn’t look our way once, but I knew they had been watching.

They were always watching.

I gripped Constantino’s hand. “Do you think they have something?”

With his sharp jaw clenched, he shook his head. “They have a lot of shit, but nothing that can put me away. Or else they would’ve arrested me already.” He turned back to me and gently took my face in his hands, kissing me on the forehead. “I have to go take care of something, but I’ll see you tonight, doll.”

After he ushered me back into the restaurant, I glanced through the large window as he slipped into his car. Every time he left me, I feared that it’d be the last time I saw him, the last time I touched him.

Being the wife to the most wanted mobster had never been easy.

6

constantino

I strolled around the basement of The Syndicate, holding a chef’s knife in my hand. Blood dripped from its edge onto the cobblestone floor as harmonic screams drifted through my ears.

“I’m going to ask you again,” I said, turning toward the man and placing the tip of my knife right over his heart. “And if you don’t answer me”—I trailed the knife down the center of his abdomen—“I’m going to finish taking those fucking fingers of yours and then cut off your dick.”

Holding up the knife, I tilted my head and let him watch his own blood drip off its edges. “It won’t be a clean and easy cut with a knife like this. So, why don’t you open your fucking mouth and tell me who snitched?”

“I don’t know!” he shouted.

Sighing through my nose, I grabbed his hand and chopped off one finger. He gargled in pain as the blood leaked out of his wounds now. Three fingers gone, and this fucker still didn’t want to talk.

“The hell do you mean, you don’t know?!” I growled. “We have the fucking FBI looking into us because someone opened their big fucking mouth. And, Flavio, you seem to have the biggest mouth in the family. Don’t know when to close it.”

“I didn’t do it!”

Another finger.

“Please!”

His thumb.

He wailed out in pain. “I didn’t mean it!”

I pulled my knife away from his second hand and tilted my head. “Ah, there we go. Finally want to start telling me the truth, don’t you? So, fucking spill it before I cut off your cock.”

“I-it was a girl I brought home. She got me drunk, and—you’re right; I talk too much when I have some drinks in me.” He chuckled half-heartedly. “You know how it is, right? With those women and—”

I slammed my knife into the side of his throat and left it there, watching the light fade from his eyes. After ordering some men to clean it up, I walked to the bathroom to wash the blood off my hands, then headed back upstairs.

I had better things to do than listen to the man who had betrayed our family.

Amid flashing lights and grinding bodies, I walked through the Buratti family club toward the back offices, where my men were stationed in black suits. After nodding to them, I stepped into my office and closed the door behind me.

When I made it to the desk, one of my men knocked twice on the door. “Boss, Sage is here to see you.”

“Sage?” I asked, mind flickering to Laila. “Send her in.”

Staring down at her feet, she scurried into the room and sat down in front of me on one of the two leather chairs, chewing on the inside of her lip. When the door clicked closed, she sucked in a breath and peeked a glance up at me.

Awaiting her answer, I sat back in my chair, tapped my finger on the armrest, and glanced down at the contract in her shaky hands. “I see that you’ve come to a decision.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Speak up when you talk to me,” I growled, remembering how timid Laila had been when I first met her.

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