Page 13 of From Dust To Don

“Get out of my house.” Don Battaglia charged towards me, his gun now snuggled against my ribs as he pulled on my vest to throw me out. But he stopped straight away at the feel of my own gun poking into his side.

“I’ll gladly leave, but I’m taking what’s mine.” My low tone was almost a rumble in my chest, as an all-consuming fire took over my chest at having the man I’d dreamed of killing since I was six so close to biting my damn bullet.

“You’re not getting a single thing of mine. If you think that by marrying my daughter I will hand over the Battaglia reign to you and Don Moretti, you are out of your fucking mind.” He spat, droplets of spit landing on my face.

At the commotion, the room was suddenly filled with men armed to their teeth, hungry to sink each one of them into their sworn enemy who’d dared to placidly walk into their land.

“You can burn your reign for all I care. What I’m taking is already mine, and don’t make me explain to a father what I did to his precious little princess last night in my bed to make her mine.”

Don Battaglia shoved me back, his face contorting in disgust with the picture I painted that every father would rather never see.

“Tell your Don that I don’t buy this little stunt of his.”

“Don Moretti has nothing to do with this,” I quickly replied, while Don Battaglia’s eyes bore into mine as if he could see the exact meaning behind my words.

“Elena, get upstairs and put on that damn wedding dress. You’re marrying Don Bartolini as planned.” The man was in denial for sure.

“It’s not a stunt, Papa. I can’t marry Don Bartolini when I’m already married.”

“You were engaged! What the fuck were you thinking to marry a damn stranger?” His roar shook every crystal of the chandelier overhead.

“A stranger that wanted me and not what you had to offer,” Elena bit back. The way she defended the marriage I’d forced upon her made my cock twitch and my chest swell.

“You naïve little girl.”

Don Battaglia spun on his feet, turning his back to us and inhaling deeply as Elena came to stand beside me. Her small, cold fingers intertwined with mine, searching for some kind of solace as her world was about to crumble at her feet.

“Why did he choose you then? Romantic illusions don’t fit into the mafiosi life, sweet child. I’ve taught you better than that. You’re foolish enough to think a Moretti could have feelings for you? Morettis don’t feel, Elena.” He let his words poison her in silence before twisting his knife a little further. “Think again, Bambina. He’s here to take his revenge, and you were nothing but the means for him to get it.” He wasn’t wrong, yet in reality, it was a two birds, one stone kind of situation, but that wouldn’t sit right with Elena either. Not after last night.

“No. This is different.” Elena protested, “It has nothing to do with your mafia wars.”

“You’re right, cara mia. Just not in the way you think. He’s not here on behalf of his Don and our little mafia war. He’s not here to claim back the territory that we won from the Morettis twenty-five years ago. He’s here for himself. He chose to use you. No one forced him to do it.”

Elena’s head swung to me, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I couldn’t help the knot that formed in my throat at the look on her face. Don Battaglia’s words were as sharp as blades, each one of them hand picked to cause the most damage words could.

“He picked you, alright. As his target. Through you, he would get to me. And you brought him safely, right through the front door.”

“He doesn’t want any of it, your place, your business, your money. Nothing.” She squeezed my hand, clinging on to a last hope.

“That might be true. But he’s not the knight in shining armor you think he is, my dear. He came here to kill me, didn’t you, Giancarlo? To avenge your father?”

A sinister smirk spread my lips but never met my eyes. This was the moment I’d been dreaming of my whole life. The moment when I made Don Battaglia pay with his life for taking my father’s.

He knew who I was but at this moment I couldn’t dwell on the fact that he shouldn’t.

“You killed him.” I said as a reply. “An eye for an eye.”

My plan was simple. Stand face to face with the monster who’d orphaned two little boys and left them to die; pull a gun against his daughter’s head and make him surrender; put a bullet in his skull and watch him bleed out.

But something had me rooted to my spot. It was those damn small, cold fingers brushing against my skin holding me captive.

“I don’t understand,” Elena said, looking at me and then to her father while my gaze was set on his.

“See, Elena, in reality, he still chose you because of what I have to offer – blood of retribution. But what your little husband doesn’t know is that the facts that his Don fed him are all wrong.”

Don Battaglia reached for Elena and pulled her towards him as if suddenly I’d become the fire that would burn her to death. I gripped onto those little fingers, not wanting to ever let go, but Elena already had.

Her father knew exactly how to get to her. How to poison her with a version of our story he knew would grant him victory.

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