Page 144 of Massimo

"Get him out of here before I rip his throat out."

"With pleasure." Kirill jerks on the chain. "Nice working with you, Massimo."

Then, he and his soldiers drag Julien out the door, and Mario shuts it behind them. The sharp, resounding echo of the door slamming shut is a cold reminder that Mancini's gruesome end that will come by my hand.

As Vito, Gabe, and Gemma prepare everything I need, I turn to Nova, gently cupping her face as she stares up at me. "You don't have to be in here for this. There's another room Gabe can take you to."

She rests her hand over mine, and I'm momentarily distracted by the wedding ring on her finger. It's a perfect fit and suits her perfectly. "I want to be here. I need to be here."

Her gaze is steady and sure, but I'm still uncertain. "The baby… Your pregnancy…"

Her other hand cups her belly, and we both look down. "Our little one is bound to be a bloodthirsty little beast. Just like their father."

I feel like my grin is as unhinged as Vito's usually is, but I temper it quickly. "The first sign this is too much—"

She pushes up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine. "I promise."

Taking her hand in mine, we walk to face our enemies. Nova's steps don't falter, not even when Mancini's hateful stare locks on her.

From the look of Ivan, he won't be among the living five minutes from now. His breaths are shallow and erratic, and his head hangs limply on his chest. I release Nova and step to him. Fisting his hair, I lift his head so he can see me.

"Why?" I growl. "You had gotten what you wanted with getting on the Chamber."

Even with death so close, his cocky bullshit attitude still lingers. "Four million… plus a seat on… the Chamber was too good… to… pass up."

"That's it? Your rationale is greed?"

The light is fading in his eyes. "Isn't…it…always?"

I grit my teeth as Ivan dies, never getting to tell him that no, he's fucking wrong. It's not always about greed. Not for me, not for my family. It's about protecting what's ours to protect.

I release him, and his head falls back to his chest. Shoving away my frustration that Ivan took his death from me, I regard those still breathing and here to pay for their sins.

I don't like how Mauro is looking at Nova. He's bound, gagged, and hanging like a pig that's about to be gutted, yet he's looking at her withlust.

Darkness swells with me. Vito, as if reading my mind, comes over and hands me a blunt-tipped knife.

Without a word, I grip Mauro's chin, doing my best to grind it to dust in my punishing grip. His eyes snap away from Nova and lock onto me. I let him see my dark, depraved rage. He tries to jerk back, but my hold on his jaw is clamped tight.

I push the blunt-tipped knife into the space between his eyeball and orbital bone. Slowly. Enjoying his pain. Relishing his screams into his gag. Knowing—without Nova explicitly saying—that he has been a part of the hell she was forced to endure at Mancini's hands. If not directly, then he was complicit.

He's guilty as fuck in my mind.

I need to hear his screams, so I yank his gag out with my free hand while I finish gouging out his eye.

"You want to look at her again?" I calmly ask.

He sobs and clenches his remaining eye shut.

Dropping the eyeball that has seen too much of my princess's hellish pain over the years, I step on it, feeling the popping as it gives way under my heel.

As Mauro sobs and whimpers, Mancini glares at me, but I see his fear through his false bravado.

Before turning my attention to him, I check in with Nova. She's paler than she was when she walked into the playroom, but she's steady and her shoulders are back, her chin is up and strong.

She reaches up to caress my cheek, and something inside me eases. I hadn't realized how tense I was that once she saw the beast within me emerge, she may be afraid or feel differently toward me. But there's so much love emanating from her that I relax.

Gouging an eye out won't be the worst of what I'll do in this room. Silvestro Mancini will die how I've envisioned it—I'll beat him before I flay him, drop him at Nova's feet, a knife will be slid into his heart, either by her hand or mine, and then I will cut off his head.

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