Page 45 of Taken By the Mob Boss

A sob wrenches from my chest and it’s like my heart has been flayed. It’s violent. It’s hurting me more than I could ever have understood. The pain of Ma comes back. The pain of every funeral I’ve attended comes at me in full strength. Then I’m crouched down hugging my knees. My father is there in front of my eyes on the table. The skin on his chest peeled away and gone. The skin on his arms and shoulders. His cheeks.The person that had done it had taken pleasure in skinning him alive.

My teeth crackle against each other and I stop grinding them. I know that Sophie isn’t a part of it, I know because she wouldn’t order that on someone. Neither would Tommy. Whoever did this to my father wanted to make a statement. They wanted to hurtme, specifically.

I feel horrible for how I treated Sophie now. I feel horrible for how I reacted and blamed her. I feel horrible for the fact that I threatened her. I need to call her. I need to make this right, because the truth is I only feel things completely opposite of anger towards her. I don’t want to yell at her, I want to whisper. I don’t want to have thoughts of violence, but only of lust. I want—I daydreamed about a fucking wedding!

But this is what this has made me into.

My teeth aren’t cracking against each other but my jaw is straining with pressure. This is what the Manettis have done and will receive in full return. I’ll do it back worse.

I stand and tense my hands into fists. I push all of the images of Sophie from my mind and I vow revenge stronger than any would expect. I don’t have time anymore to think about a girl that I have feelings for.

I roll my head in a circle and huff like a bull ready to charge. Gone is Sophie from my mind, and in its place is my father. I grind my teeth again. By the time I’m done with the Manettis, they’ll only be spoken in whispers. They’ll be a story that people tell because ofme. It’ll be something that creates me. It’ll be something that defines me. Because after I’m done, I will be the only one left.

I escape my corner and head back along the hallways. I take the doors and signs and follow the little green men until I get to the rear entrance and head out into the car park. The car from the new house is sitting there, still surrounded by the cars that were parked there when I left. I check the other cars in the aisle. Still the same models and plates. Nothing new that I can see. I unlock the car and then get down on my hands and knees; a quick scan under the car shows nothing. I look under the seats inside and take a deep breath. No bombs yet.

I take out my phone and dial Sophie. I owe her an apology. Because try as I might, regardless of vowing as much revenge as I can, her face keeps coming back. The angelic face that won’t answer her phone …

I sit there tapping the steering wheel, waiting for her to pick up. She doesn’t, and I look around the car as I try to compose an apology over voicemail. “Hi, Sophie. It’s me, Luca. Um. Just got out of seeing my father at the morgue …” I look around the car again, realizing that I didn’t check the glove box for any explosives.

“I just wanted to call.” My mouth snaps shut and I struggle to say the next bit. “Ineededto call and—” Again, I stop short. Why am I struggling with this?I know I’m in the goddamn wrong here!I lean over and hesitate on opening the glove box. “I just called to apologize about—”

I open the glovebox.

There’s no bomb, but there's something worse.

A photo of my father as he lay dying.

My heart jumps through my chest and I hang up immediately. I rip the picture from the cavity and stare at it in horror. I exit the car and search the car park in every direction. I scan everywhere. There’s people milling about the entrances of the hospital. There’s cars coming and going. There’s nothing out of the the ordinary just—

A car screeches through a corner and launches out of the entrance, one hundred yards off. It’s a brown sedan!

I run for it, pumping my arms as fast as I can and pushing my legs to go faster. I know it’s useless. I know they wanted me to see them and feel helpless. I know they wanted me to see my father dead and then see them getting away.

I know and still I run.

I race to the entrance and then through the gate. I run down the street among the cars and people, watching it disappear through the lights and traffic. I run, unable to see the sedan once it overtakes a truck. It’s long gone.

I come to a stop and fall to my knees. I scream at the sky and vow to kill them tenfold. I’ll skin every single one of them alive. I’ll destroy all of them for what they’ve done to my father.

Chapter 19

Sophie

“Dad,areyousure?”I ask again.

“Honey,” my father says over the phone. “We’ve been over this. You’re engaged to Luca now. He’s the Don. As part of keeping our deal, you two are still engaged. You live together now.”

“But—” I don’t finish what I want to say. But he threatened me? But I don’t feel safe here, or anywhere other than being at our home. But I’mpregnant.

I know that would get his attention and maybe get him to change his mind. But then, I’m pregnant with Luca’s baby. It would be fitting that I be here with him. But being here with him isn’t really being here. He’s gone most of the day, and when he returns he’s so tired and distraught that he says nothing. He’s grieving, or denying grieving, his father by putting everything into killing whoever was responsible for his death.

“I just, I just want to be in my old room,” I say.

I can tell my words are hurting my father, and I feel guilty in a small way using it as a tactic to get what I want. But he doesn’t relent. “No, Sophie. You’re at Luca’s. And need I remind you you’re at Luca’sin hiding.”

“I know,” I sigh. “It’s the bajillionth time you’ve said.”

“Okay, then. Look, call me if it’s urgent, but I need to get to the bottom of this too. Luca needs all the help he can get now. He’s been thrown into the deep end here.”

---