Page 77 of Owned by the Italian Mafia Boss
Caleb tosses his head back and laughs. “Romano hates you. He doesn’t give a fuck about what I do, but since I made a mess of things, he’s gone quiet. I don’t know where he is.” He sniffs, rubbing a hand under his nose.
I’m sick of this. Obviously, my father was a real piece of shit, but I won’t allow anyone to come near Delilah.
I lift my gun, sick of the game Caleb is playing.
“You aren’t going to want to do that.” Caleb lifts the knife against the light to see it shine.
“Why not?”
“Because if you want to find Christy, you won’t let anything happen to me.”
“What!” Delilah steps forward and tries to launch herself at him. “What did you do to her, you fucking sick freak! She loved you. She fucking loved you!” She screams, trying her best to get out of my hold. “Where is she?”
“She’s somewhere she can’t be found without me.”
Gianni pulls the trigger first, and the bullet rips through his shoulder, keeping him alive. Caleb drops the knife, and Matias kicks it to the side and aims the gun at his head.
“I will pluck out every hair, every nail, and cut every toe off your fucking body until you tell me where she is, brother or not,” I say. “You are nothing to me, Caleb. And if you think this is how you thought you’d get my attention, you are very wrong. No one threatens what is mine, and Delilah is mine which means so are her friends. You made a mistake.”
“Romano will come for you if you hurt me.”
I grin at him, taking his hand and snapping his wrist. He almost crumbles to the ground, but Matias keeps him on his feet. “I hope so. I have business with Romano that needs to be solved once and for all, and you’re just making a bigger mess of things. Did you think this would get me to sacrifice anything for you? My money? My power?”
Ryan is on the ground, yanking off his shirt to press against the professor’s throat while we try to get the truth out of him.
“This is what I’ll do. You tell me where Christy is, and I won’t make your death painful. I’ll make it quick, but either way, you’ll die, that I can promise. If you don’t tell me, I’ll skin you alive and burn your flesh right in front of you. You’ll be nothing but meat. And then, while your heart is still beating and you’re crying and begging for me to kill you, I won’t. I’ll let you cry and hope for death because that’s so much worse, isn’t it? You brought the wrong fucking mindset to this game of chess. I’m a master, Caleb.”
Matias presses the gun to Caleb’s cock, and I chuckle.
“She’s buried in the woods!” he sings like a canary. “You have an hour before she runs out of air. She’s off Route 5 near the mile three markers.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it.” I snap my fingers. “Load him up and call an ambulance for the professor. Ryan, Ari, stay here with him, okay? Text me for updates.”
“Sure thing.”
“Wait, you said if I told you—”
I punch him in the throat, which has him gasping for breath. “And I lied. No way would I ever let you die peacefully.” I step over the blood and hold Delilah in my arms. “She’ll be okay. We will find her.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, as I push her out into the hall. “I don’t understand why he’d do this. It doesn’t make sense.” She trembles as if she’s cold. “I can’t lose her, Carmine. She’s my best friend. I can’t lose her. I can’t.”
“And you won’t,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “I promise. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Something did happen to her!” she yells. “We trusted him, and look what he did.” Delilah holds her stomach and throws up the hot chocolate.
“I ran a background check on him. Nothing came up, Delilah. I’m so sorry.” He must have had someone erase his real name and forge another identity, or there’s no way I would have let him get so close. I swing her into my arms and hurry out of the building and down the stairs. I hear the ambulance’s sirens in the distance, and I hope the professor can hang on, but he’s lost a lot of blood, so my hopes for him aren’t high right now.
Matias and Gianni are behind me, and Matias has an unconscious Caleb thrown over his shoulder, blood trickling down his arm from the gunshot wound to the shoulder.
“We need to find her,” Gianni states, running his hands through his hair frantically. “I have to find her.”
We climb into the SUV, tying Caleb’s hands and feet together, then toss him in the trunk. Delilah is in the front seat, looking paler than I’d like, while Matias and Gianni climb in the back. Without putting on my seatbelt, I slam on the gas and head to Route Five.
Luckily, we aren’t far.
Pushing the hazard lights on, I max on the speedometer as we drive down the highway.
Delilah hasn’t stopped crying, and I couldn’t let Caleb live for that alone. He nearly took her life too many times, and now he’s taken one of her few comforts.
