Page 51 of Brutal Devil
“You don’t have a choice.”
He’s being super calm, and the calmer he is, the more I want to scream and hit him. But I know Priest well enough by now to understand that attacking him won’t do me any favors. I decide to try reasoning with him instead.
“Look, I married you to protect my father and myself, but he’s gone now. The danger to me should also be gone. We’ll file for divorce, I’ll go back to Iowa and forget this ever happened, and you can carry on being a gangster. I’ll sign an NDA or whatever it is that mobsters use these days. I won’t file charges. I won’t breathe a word about anything that’s happened to law enforcement. It’s a win-win.”
He shakes his head, exuding danger the way some men wear cologne. “Wrong. Because your father has been killed, the danger to you is greater than ever. We’re not just at war with Amedeo now. We’re at war with the Bratva and the other families too.”
At war.
My level of panic, which was already higher than the Rockies, shoots practically to the moon. For the last week, I’ve been telling myself that this is temporary. That the smoke will clear and I’ll be released from this subterranean gangster lair and go on with my life.
“There is nowein this, mobster.Iam not at war with anyone. I’m just a graduate student trying to finish her degree.”
I hold the Lorine Niedecker volumes against my chest like I’m a six-year-old with a stuffie to ward against the nightmares.
He crosses the room to me, thunderstorms in his eyes. “Listen to me,topolina. Do you know what I witnessed today?No? I’ll tell you. I saw my cousin and two of my guys, lifeless on the floor of an East Side kitchen, with holes drilled in their heads and their tongues and eyes cut out. They died slowly, tortured to death.”
My stomach lurches.
Priest is unrelenting, his face harsh as his head dips lower toward mine. “And do you know what the note on them said?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to know.”
“I’m going to tell you anyway,” he growls. “Because you need to understand that Luna Revello is dead. She died the day you got on the plane to meet your father. Luna Andriani is who you are now. The old Luna is gone, and she isn’t coming back.” Priest dips his head, his lips against my ear. “Because the note on my cousin’s body said you’re fucking next.”
His breath is hot against my ear, but I’m frozen with icy fear. Suddenly, I’m on my wedding day again, standing outside the cathedral with the sun shining so brightly I’m squinting, and my father is taking me in his arms as a shot rings out. And there’s blood everywhere. So much blood. On him, on me, the scent of it, the stickiness.
This can’t be real.
The books drop out of my hands and hit the floor.
“You need me, Luna.”
He kisses the side of my neck, and I’m struck by a weird combination of hunger and terror. His hands clamp on my waist, holding me to him. Realization hits me then, in a way that it somehow hasn’t. Not through the violence of my father’s death or through the resulting shock.
Priest isn’t wrong.
My old life is gone. My friends, my work, my writing, my professors. Even my family. All I have left is a distant cousin who may or may not be trying to kill me and the mobster I married.
My bestie Isla is likely out of her mind with worry right now. It’s been over a week since I last answered a text. She’s probably tearing through the local police department, demanding I be found.
A hysterical sob bubbles up inside me. I try to swallow it down, but an embarrassing noise that’s half hiccup, half dying mouse comes out of me.
“They might as well get it over with,” I tell him harshly, angry with myself for not being able to control my emotions. “I’d rather die than stay here, trapped in this hellhole with you.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He kisses my temple, still holding me close, enveloping me in his warm strength. “And I’ll get you out of here eventually. But we need to know you’ll be safe first.”
“I don’t care if I’m safe. This is not a life.”
He pulls back, tucking his chin down to study me. “You want out of the room?”
That he’s even asking me is a shock. But maybe he’s not entirely evil. He did get my books shipped to me, even if he managed to do so using nefarious means and against my will.
My God.
What is wrong with me?
“Of course I want out of this room. It’s making me go crazy.”
