Page 109 of Savage Don's Captive

He’s taunting her.

“You and I are the same Allesandra…. an outsider. Useful. Expendable. But what happens when they don’t need you anymore, huh?”

“We areNotthe same, Marco. You had power more than you thought. But you wasted it. Stupidly. Why?”

“Because of you, you little shit!” Marco explodes. “And your goddamn mother!”

I catch Alessa’s shoulders trembling.

“You killed her, didn’t you?” she says, voice quivering. “I remember now. You were fighting. You were screaming at her in the car.” Marco’s face twists.

“You don’t remember shit,” he spits. “You were a fucking kid.”

“I remember enough.” Alessa steps closer. “You picked me up from school after that lunch you had with the bosses. All three of us in the car.”

“Your mother never understood sacrifice,” he says, voice lower. “Never understood that sometimes, to protect your family, you have to make hard choices. She was more faithful to the Cosa Nostra than she was to our marriage.”

“What hard choices, Marco? Was killing her a... choice?”

“IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT!” The outburst echoes off the concrete. “The department found out I was managing the books for the families. They were gonna hit me with money laundering, and homicide... would’ve cost me everything—Life in prison.”

“Your mother...” Marco’s voice breaks. “She overheard me talking to the detective at Internal Affairs in the hallway—Confronted me in the car on the way home... I didn’t want it to go down like that.”

“My mother knew?” Alessa whispers to me.

“I told her we could go into witness protection. That we could get you away from the families…start over.” He laughs bitterly. “Butyour mother—loyal to the fucking bone—she wasn’t having it. La Falciante till the end. She wasn’t about to give up her precious Cosa Nostra for anybody. Not even for you.”

“So...you crashed the car—killed her because she wouldn’t run away with you?”

“I lost it,” Marco says. “I told her if we couldn’t be together one way, we’d be together another. I didn’t mean to—” He stops. “It wasn’t supposed to go like that.”

His gaze catches on something. His eyes widen as he stares at Alessa’s waistband.

“Where did you get that?” His voice changes completely.

Alessa’s hand moves toward the gun at her hip.

“Where did you get that?”

“Dominic gave it to me.”

“The Whitney Wolverine with the fleur-de-lis crest,” Marco breathes, paling. “Your mother’s gun. You have no idea what you’re holding, do you?” he barks at Alessa, then turns to me. “And you—you stupidfiglio di puttana—you just handed her the one thing that can burn us all down.”

“What are you talking about?” Alessa demands.

“That gun... I killed that dirty detective with it. My prints are soaked into every inch—even sixteen years later, they’d still lift them clear as day.”

“That’s why you tore apart the house after Mom died,” Alessa says slowly.

“I thought Internal Affairs had it this whole time,” Marco says. “They’ve been blackmailing me all along. Told me to start this RICO case or they’d bring evidence that I was involved in that shooting.”

Marco moves like a viper. One second, he’s seated—the next, he’s on his feet, seizing Alessa’s arm, yanking her into him. His arm coils around her throat. The sharp sound of metal clicking fills the room as guns are drawn.

I see the blood smeared around Marco’s wrist, the raw flesh peeling away. Alessa’s eyes lock onto mine, wide with fear, her cheeks streaked with tears. Everything goes cold. My vision sharpens, narrows.

“I should have killed you along with her,” he says, with no remorse.

“That mistake is going to cost you your life,” I say, taking a step forward, my gun pointing at him. “Let her go.”

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