Page 7 of Dare To Free Us

We stared each other down, and when he saw I wasn’t going to bend he turned to my father. “Lorenzo, after years of loyalty and service I ask that you deem my daughter off limits. She is not to be touched or pursued by anyone in your organization. I believe my services have earned that much.”

“Daddy, stop!” Arianna’s cry stabbed me in the heart.

I wanted to strangle him for daring to turn his back on me and go to my father, but I could hardly blame the man. Alessio was a good father who only had his daughter’s best interest in mind. Giving him a rightful beating in front of Arianna would be a shit thing to do.

Besides my dad would never go for it.

“Very well.”

Lorenzo’s casual answer hit me like one of Luca’s punches to the gut. All the air rushed form my lungs and I immediately felt sick.What the fuck!Arianna gasped and clung to me.

“Father…”

“It’s done.” My father rose from the couch to stand with us. “Let her go son.”

“No! Wait, you can’t,” Arianna cried.

My father pinned her with an ugly glare that made her flinch. “I can and I did. Go with your father now or I will have Luca drag you out.”

Luca shifted uncomfortably beside me. He was the only one I’d confessed the kiss— and the feelings to—and we both knew if my father asked him to do it, he wouldn’t have a choice.

“Father, please?”

“Shut your mouthboy.”

I clamped my mouth shut. Lorenzo Russo, head of the Family, had just laid down the law. It didn’t matter that I was his son or that I was Underboss in a position of power— his word was without reproach. Plus I had just begged. Begging showed weakness and weakness was not tolerated.

He stared at me dead in the eye, commanding I do nothing as Alessio dragged a whimpering Arianna out of my arms. I couldn’t look at her. Her tears would rip me apart more than the million razor blades carving up my chest to get at my heart. My body turned to stone as my insides exploded with fury.

Bile burned my throat as I stood listening to Arianna cry all the way out the door. Luca shifted uncomfortably again to my right. He could read me better than anyone, even my own father. He could see the edge of the precipice that I was standing on.

My father moved to stand in front of me and my hands clenched with the idea of plowing them both into his face. We looked so much alike and in that moment I hated that fact. “Why?” I ground out with barely contained fury.

He scoffed at me. “Don’t look so destroyed. There are millions of women in this world. She would have been a faze that got old once you popped that cherry and fucked her every way you could imagine. Then you would have a dick-whipped little girl clinging to you and expecting a ring. Trust me boy you will thank me in the end.”

My breathing had turned to pants as I tried not imagine throat punching him. “It wasn’t like that, not with her.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then I did you an even bigger favor. She would have become a weakness. That pitiful little plea you did was enough to make me puke. She would have become your weakness and then your doom. Better to just fuck them like the whores they are and leave it at that.”

It was no secret my father cheated on my mother from the day they got married. They were an arranged marriage to a family in Vegas. The union brought prosperity and strength, but my father had no respect or love for my mother, ever. It was one thing about him I could never stomach.

He reached up to pat me on the shoulder, I wanted to bat his hand away, but resisted. “Don’t worry son we will find you some mafia princess to better grow our world and you’ll forget about Arianna soon enough.” With that he exited the room in the same leisurely manner he always carried himself with.

I watched him go, still too stunned to move.

“You ok?” Luca asked, after I stood staring at the door for several moments.

“No.” My heart no longer resided in my chest. It beat in the hands of a woman I would never be with. The one taken away from me without being able to make anyone bleed.

I could still taste her on my tongue. Still fell her body in my hands, and her heart beating against my chest as she kissed me with more sincerity than any woman before.

I knew in that moment no other woman would make me feel like that. And I was going to be one miserable son of a bitch without her.

1

ARIANNA

FOUR YEARS LATER.

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