Page 58 of Lorenzo's Claim

“Somehow, I doubt they are,” I challenged as my father pulled himself up. I didn’t offer help or assistance. He couldmanage well enough on his own. “Unless you’re planning on putting that bullet in my back, I suggest you put the gun down.” My voice was steady and calm, but my heart hammered against my ribs.

“Take that fucker home,” he instructed, his voice nothing more than a hiss, his words laced with hatred.

“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day where Lorenzo Ricci lets his wife call the shots on who lives and who dies.” My father cackled, the sound grating and unhinged.

Lorenzo stood there silently. He didn’t flinch at the words my father threw at him. His face was a mask of stone, his eyes cold and unreadable. I glanced at him briefly, my stomach twisting with fear and something else I couldn’t quite work out. Without hesitation, Lorenzo raised the gun, his movements deliberate and precise. He fired the remaining bullet into my father’s hand. It tore through flesh and bone before exiting as quickly as it had entered.

The warehouse erupted in a cacophony of noise—my father’s scream, the echo of the gunshot, the clatter of the gun hitting the floor as Lorenzo dropped it, and the sound of my breath catching in my throat. I glanced at my father’s hand, and as expected, it was a mess of blood and shattered bone.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I snapped.

Despite feeling slightly satisfied that someone was able to hurt my father and bring him and his ego crashing back down to earth, it still stirred something in me to see him broken and bleeding.

Lorenzo said nothing. He simply tore his gaze away from me and walked out, leaving a mess in his wake. I hated myself for watching him go, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t until he was fully out of eyesight, and I heard my father’s hiss, that I turned my head.

“You should have known better,” I scoffed, reprimanding him for acting so careless. “You should’ve known he wouldn’t hesitate.”

My father looked up at me, his eyes wilder than before as he scoffed at my words. “I see it now. He wanted to use you to get to me. All he’ll ever do is use you, just like I did to get what I wanted.”

His words should have hurt. Fuck, they should have cut deep, but I felt nothing… Absolutely nothing. His words glided off me like water, and it felt good not to feel a damn thing. I was done being a pawn in their games. In anyone’s game.

I retrieved a knife from the table of tricks as my father swayed slightly from blood loss.

“You know, I used to look up to you, wanted to be like you. I basically wanted to be you.” I scoffed. “But now, now I see I’m already better than you ever were, are, or will be, and that kills you inside because you already know that.” I pressed the tip of my knife into the gunshot wound on his shoulder, his sharp inhale pleasing me. “You may have all used me to get the upper hand in your game, but it ends now. For both of you.” I pushed the blade in deeper, watching as the blood soaked through to his shirt. “You can make your own way home.”

I threw the knife to the floor with a clatter before turning on my heel and disappearing into the cool evening air.

I was done.

Done with being a Fedorov.

Done with being a wife.

And done with being a fucking Ricci.

17

The dim glowof the bar’s neon sign cast an eerie red hue over the street as I strode inside, heading straight for my office.

Red, Gino, Emmet, Nicolo and Finn sat huddled around the main table, sharing laughter, cigarettes, and whiskey. As they caught sight of me, they instantly knew something was off. Maybe the fact that I wasn’t smiling gave me away. Their laughter stopped short, and they watched me with unease and curiosity.

“She shot him. She fucking shot him,” I announced, dropping into the chair at my desk. I scanned their faces, their eyes wide with shock and mouths slightly agape. They processed the gravity of the news. The room filled with a heavy silence, the weight of my words hanging in the air like a storm cloud. “Anastacia, the woman I was so sure would break, shot her own father in the shoulder. Sure, there was no intent to kill, but she wanted to harm him. She wanted him to feel the pain she felt when he practically handed her to me.” I sighed, running my hand through my tousled hair.

“Wow, she’s badass.” Nicolo clapped his hands together in delight, clearly wanting a black eye or worse.

“Shut up, Nic. You’ve known her less than twenty-four hours, you don’t get an opinion.”

Red’s scarred face twisted in a grimace as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “We told you repeatedly that she was different. She’s got a backbone. You can’t just bend her to your will, and you know that.”

My jaw clenched, anger bubbling just beneath the surface. “You were right,” I admitted, my tone bitter at the fact I was wrong. “She’s not easily breakable. She proved that tonight and every other time I’ve tried to control her.” I paused. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought I could do to her, but it’s clear what I had planned will never happen. She’s untameable and, most certainly, unpredictable.

“Maybe it’s time to let her go,” Gino suggested, his voice casual. His words carried a weight. “Some people aren’t meant to be caged. No matter how much you want them to be.”

My head snapped up as I succumbed to my anger. “Let her go?! Let her fucking go?! Do you hear yourself, Gino?!” I snapped. “She’s mine. She’s my wife.”

“Alright, maybe it’s time you reevaluate the whole plan, situation, whatever you want to call it.” Emmet smiled, hoping to be the one to get through to me.

“Enlighten me. What would you do?” I questioned Emmet.

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