Page 77 of Wicked Knight 2

Frank’s eyes flicked over to mine, waiting for a response. For a whole week, I’d been dragging my feet. Not because I was still scared but because I wanted Donata to be wrong about Papa. I wanted a reason to let him live. I glanced at Ivan on the floor. The son who did everything to please his father. Even though he knew he could never win his favor because Papa’s fatherly love had died with his oldest son Maxim.

Galina stood by the stairs, her whole body shaking as she scanned the room. She’d come up when she heard shots. The fact that she was here mainly to make sure Papa was okay made my blood boil. The asshole was ready to jump ship and leave them all to die.

I gripped him by the collar of his dress shirt and shoved him against the wall. His face paled as his eyes widened in surprise. Did he think I was his fucking puppy? “I didn’t kill you before because I was waiting for you to make this right, not for me but for them. But now I see that’s not going to happen. You don’t give a damn about your people.” I pressed my forearm to his Adam’s apple.

“What do you want?”

“You owe me nine lives, Dimitri Belov.” I pressed the barrel of my gun to his temple.

“You can’t be serious. I’ve been like a father to you.” His lip trembled.

“I had a father. A mother. Sisters. A family.” I squeezed my eyes shut, then glared at him with all the hate burning a hole in my chest. “You killed them for money. You tortured them!” I screamed in his face, gripping his shirt tighter.

“That was Ivan. You know that.” He panted a breath as a bead of sweat streamed down the side of his face.

“Yeah, it was his idea to cash in on the bounties. But it was your idea to torture them for information about the Society.”

“We both want the same thing, Maxim. Think about that.” His gaze cut to Galina weeping over Ivan’s body.

“The name is Luca Gallo. And no, we do not want the same thing. You want glory and power. I stayed to save your people from you. They don’t deserve to die because of you.” I stepped back and aimed at his head.

“Dimitri Belov, on the murders of nine Gallo family members, the Society has found you guilty. The punishment for torturing and killing innocent people is death.

And will be carried out immediately.”

“What is this?” He furrowed his brows.

I pulled the trigger as the usual flitting images from my nightmares flashed through my mind. Memories of a time when life was precious to me. I wanted to get back to that version of myself. I pushed the fractured scene out of my mind and focused on Papa’s lifeless body on the floor, his brains splattered on the wall, and blood pooling around him.

It was done.

Nothing would ever stand between Donata and me again. No more revenge, no more psychopaths to get in our way, no more goodbyes.

“Luca.” Frank placed a hand on my shoulder. “The cavalry just arrived.”

CHAPTER28

Meet You a Thousand Times

Donata

“How do you like working in the ER?” Liam, the hot doctor from work, asked from across the table.

He’d been asking me out since I started working at the hospital three years ago. I never even considered him an option, but things were different now. I wasn’t waiting on Luca anymore. The sooner I got back into the dating pool, the sooner I would move on with my life.

“I like the chaos. It keeps me on my toes.” I sipped from my wine.

“Me too.” He beamed at me. “I’m glad we’re finally doing this.”

“Yeah.”

I drank some more, doing my best not to think about Luca and what he could be doing right now. No doubt he was spending most of his day with Belinda. She finally got what she wanted. She had Maxim all to herself. Crap, I had to stop thinking about him. He’d made his choice, and I wasn’t it.

“What do you think?” he asked with a polite smile.

Shit. I had no idea what he was asking. He’d been talking for the last five minutes. I completely lost track of the conversation.

“I’m sorry. I spaced out for a second.”

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