Page 137 of Giovanna

Giovanna is watching him too with barely veiled disgust. “Paul, can you forgive me for stepping in and doing this for your daughter? I know you must want revenge yourself, but I appreciate you standing aside so I can do this.”

My father nods curtly.

Matty approaches David and yanks the fabric from his mouth. The chains holding him up rattle and he groans at the discomfort of the position. A stain that darkens the fabric of his trousers from crotch to calf is evidence that he has pissed himself in fear.

“Got anything to say?” Giovanna looks at him. She’s browsing the selection of tools Matty laid out earlier. Loud clinks punctuate her question as the metal of the tools collide in her hands.

“Just get it over and done with!” he barks.

“No denial then? You accept the summary I gave?” she retorts, spinning a small knife in her fingers. “Get him down and sit him at the table,” she demands and Matty and Elio obey.

They unchain him and drag his uncooperative body to a square wooden table. It is covered in indentations and cuts, and it is clear that it has been struck by many different types of instruments over the years. The red-brown staining further elaborates on the story it tells.

“I promised you that if you touched a hair on her head I would break all of your fingers again, didn’t I?” Giovanna leans across the table, her voice remaining low and calm.

Silence.

“Didn’t I?” she shouts suddenly, the tendons in her neck strain, and her jaw ticks.

“Yes!” David exclaims.

Giovanna prowls around the table, never taking her eyes off him. He flinches when she walks behind him anticipating an attack.

She barks out a cold laugh. “Ishouldhit you from behind. Seeing as you shot Francesca in the back.”

I can’t help but take a few little steps forwards as I watch her circle him like prey. I’m mesmerised by her power. Her rage simmers until she is ready to unleash it in bursts of violence.

Thank God no one can read my mind because I’m not horrified or alarmed to see her like this. She looks beautiful. She is my avenging angel and watching her work is energising my soul. I’m feeling stronger, less dizzy, and more like I’m someone who matters.

As Giovanna shatters the bones in each of his fingers with a small hammer, I don’t flinch once. She is always in perfect control and every move is calculated and deliberate. Precision. This is exacting revenge in a methodical manner.

Maybe I am more of a mafia princess than I ever realised because David’s screams don’t affect me. Maybe it is because of what he has done to me and the hatred I hold for him. This is justice and I have been denied it for so long.

On the drive to the warehouse, Massimo told me that David has already given up the names of the bikies he hired to shoot up the gym and they have already been taken care of.

Stefan introduced him to the bikies when he organised for them to visit me at work to intimidate me. That was all my big brother’s idea. Stefan was also involved in planning the ambush after Sarah and Tiny’s wedding and obviously, when I showed up at his house, he worked with Billy the Kid to get me to the storage unit.

“Times up, David,” Giovanna tells him as she pushes away from the table and walks around him again. A lioness shepherding before the kill.

“Look at Francesca,” she orders him from over his shoulder and he lifts his head to meet my gaze.

Revulsion fills me and I let it show on my face before raising my eyes to meet Giovanna’s.

“Kill him,” I order in a voice so cold and flat I don’t recognise it as my own.

With a nod, she pulls the knife out of her belt and slashes it across his throat in one fluid movement.

Blood sprays everywhere and then glugs out of the gaping wound in his neck. He is dead in seconds.

Chapter Sixty-Three

Francesca

My hands shake as I unbutton her blood-splattered shirt and sweep it off her shoulders. We’re home and in Giovanna’s office, finally alone, and I’m nervous all of a sudden. I can’t believe she is finally mine. That I don’t need to fear that she will be gone in the morning. Though that thought does still niggle away in the background.

She watches me undress her with a dangerous glint in her eye that gives me shivers up my spine. Her body is still in full fight mode after today. For the second time, she killed a man for hurting me.

When she’s standing in front of me in just her sports bra and underwear I step closer and suck her bottom lip into my mouth, biting down gently on it. This elicits a low growl from her that turns the pit of my stomach inside out.

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