Some crazy primal part considered spilling my come inside Aurora’s pussy, and impregnating her. Having Rory carry my child made my cock harden even more and my chest swell. Fuck it. I already had Battista and hardly knew what to do with him. I couldn’t do this to Rory, even if I wanted to lay claim to her in every way possible before I had to make a hard decision. I barreled into her even harder, desperately. Aurora’s hot breath hit my shoulder before her teeth sank into my flesh again, upping my pleasure.
She came around me with a harsh cry, her pussy squeezing my cock so tightly I saw stars and needed every ounce of my self-control not to shoot my load into her. I lifted her up, my cock sliding out and set her back down on the ground. Rory had lost every sense of our surroundings. She was lost in pleasure, like I was lost in her. I slammed my lips against hers, kissing her full of need. “Rory,” I groaned. I needed to come. Fuck, I was burning up with need ever since I’d fucked her with my knife. I couldn’t take much more. She curled her fingers around my cock and began rubbing me. I wrapped my hand around hers to increase the pressure. I pressed my lips to her ear. “I want to come inside you.”
Her lips pressed against my chest, then down my pecs. Fuck. I couldn’t take it. I needed even more. She finally dropped to her knees. I grabbed her neck and pushed her closer to my cock. Maybe a good guy would have given her time to explore, but I needed to fuck her mouth now or lose my last shred of sanity. Her lips parted around my cock, and I threw my head back with a groan as her hot mouth and tongue engulfed me. I came hard.
My chest was heaving, my cock still pulsing inside of Aurora. Then she looked up at me.
Fuck. Something was up, and it wasn’t good.
Aurora wanted to talk emotions—her expression left no doubt about it—but after last night’s nightmare and tonight’s frenzy, I couldn’t be what she needed. I pulled her up to her feet, gripped her neck, and kissed her hard. “Don’t.”
I wasn’t sure if she knew what I meant, but stubbornness tightened her face, mixing with the first traces of regret.
People often regretted having met me. Naturally, Aurora would be no different.
“I’m a detonation about to happen, Aurora,” I snarled. My grip on her neck tightened even more and she winced, but the stubbornness remained in her eyes. Fuck, she needed to stop hoping. I wished she could see into my brain just for one day to realize I wasn’t kidding.
“Fight it, fight it whatever it is. Fight it for me, for your family, for Greta, for your son,” she whispered. I wished she hadn’t uttered those words because they made me want to try, but trying would hurt people I cared about. I could sense it deep in my bones.
I kissed her, smiling bitterly against her lips. “If you knew the chaos in my head, you’d give me up.”
“Like you so easily do with me because I’m inconsequential to you.” Her voice was harsh, and she was trying to make her face seem that way too. Rory was many things, but harsh wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t a good liar either, which made it even worse that I forced her to lie constantly.
“You aren’t inconsequential to me, Rory,” I said harshly. If she were, I wouldn’t be scared shitless of what I might do.
“Your actions speak louder than your words.”
She pulled away, but I wouldn’t let her. I tightened my hold on her. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to try. You’re not even trying. You just follow your impulses. You don’t try to be a father to Battista, and you’re not trying to give us a chance.” Aurora’s lips thinned as if she regretted her own words.
I leaned my forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t ask that of me.”
“Why not?” she asked angrily.
“Because for you, I might actually do it. For you, I’ll try.”
Not even twenty-four hours after I’d given Aurora my promise to try for her, to allow something between us to bloom, to take responsibility not just for Battista but also for my emotions and for her, I’d gone on one of the biggest killing sprees of my life. Maybe it had been inevitable.
It was as if my monstrous side had feared being caged in and gone rampant to prove who was still running the show, and it was definitely a side of me that wasn’t fit for a relationship of any form.
Battista and Aurora deserved better. My family deserved better. Hell, even the Camorra deserved better.
I was covered in blood from head to toe, could feel it stick to my face, my eyelids, my lashes. The world around me was cloaked in a pink mist because blood even covered my goddamn eyeballs.
I watched the droplets of blood dripping from my soaked pants and dropping to the floor.
A police officer stepped up to the cell. Young. Overmotivated. Arrogant. Maybe a bit sadistic. I watched him from the corner of my eye. Police had picked me up at the scene of the carnage. I’d sat among the dead bodies and allowed the police to take me with them. I’d been high on adrenaline. If you could overdose on bloodlust, then that had definitely been the moment, but other than with drugs, I hadn’t died. At least not my body. Maybe a part of me had, though. Who could really say? My brain was still too much of a mess to analyze anything.
“We should hose him off,” the young officer said. “Get him out of those clothes and give him a long cold shower.” The excitement in his voice was unmistakable.
“I won’t go in there,” the older officer said. He’d avoided me as if I were the devil. They probably thought I was possessed. “And you better not either.”
“Come on. We’re armed, and he’s not. He’s a spoiled brat, but without his dad here, what can he do? He’s at our mercy.”
I watched their interaction through half closed eyes.
“Bernie, you need to learn a thing or two. You’re new.”
Bernie scoffed. “You mean bow down to the mob?”
The older officer sighed. “Just don’t go in there.” He turned and walked out of the cell block, leaving young, naive Bernie alone with me and a couple of drunkards in neighboring cells.
Bernie stepped closer to the bars with a nasty grin. I didn’t move and stared at my blood-covered hands. “Not so loudmouthed now?” he taunted. I didn’t remember being loudmouthed. Usually, I was silent and lethal.
“You should listen to your colleague,” I murmured.
He grabbed the keys and pulled the taser gun. Unlocking the door, he pointed the taser gun at me and stepped into the cell. Without warning, he shot the taser at me. The wire shot out and the two darts hit my shoulder. My muscles flexed uncontrollably as electricity coursed through my body. My teeth clanged together, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as I tried to regain control over my body. My breathing stuttered as I fought to stay on the bench and not topple over.
With a grunt, I forced one arm up and ripped the darts from my body. One of them hadn’t penetrated my skin fully, which was probably why I could move and didn’t have to wait for a break in the electric impulses.
I jerked to my feet and pulled at the wire. Bernie stumbled forward before the wire tore apart. In two steps, I was by his side, grabbed his arm and head and flung him toward the wall. His shoulder blade and chin bone collided with a satisfying crunch with the concrete. His answering roar of pain made me smile. I jerked his head back so his agony-stricken eyes met mine. “Time to play, motherfucker.”
Steps rang out, and the first officer came rushing into the corridor.
I kicked the door to my cell shut with a high kick and the lock clicked in place. Two more officers came rushing in. The first fumbled with his keys as I grabbed Bernie once more and wrapped the taser wire around his throat. I pulled it tight, but after a few seconds of gasping from Bernie, the wire tore apart again. “Shame,” I drawled. He spluttered and clawed at my hands.
I smiled at him and smashed my forehead against his nose, causing blood to surge out of his nostrils. He cried hoarsely.
Guns pointed my way, and one nervous finger pulled the trigger. I used Bernie as a shield, and the bullet hit him in the thigh. He screamed again.
“That was close to his artery.” I tsked. “If you want to kill Bernie, you’ll have to give this another try.”
Finally, the door to my cell opened, and another officer staggered in. I shoved poor Bernie toward him. They collided, and I jumped at them with another kick, sending them both flying to the floor. I landed beside them, and within a flash, I held their guns and pointed them at their heads. The prison was filled with more and more officers, and all of them worried that my trigger finger was better than theirs—for good reason. I bared my teeth at the officers at my feet. “Next time, you better listen to your colleagues, Bernie.”
“Enough,” someone roared.
I froze when Dad, Nino, and Savio walked in. The police officers parted. “Down with all of the guns,” Dad ordered.
The police officers didn’t hesitate, and I followed suit.
Slowly, I straightened and tossed the guns away.
“He comes with me. Don’t mess with my family.”
Neither Dad nor my uncles said a word when they led me to their car. I suddenly felt exhausted. I leaned my head against the window and must have dozed off because when I looked around again, I was in a bare-walled room without windows. Nino leaned against the wall across from me, straight in my line of vision. He regarded me from head to toe without a word. His expression was blank, and sometimes even I got goose bumps because of my uncle. “You are lacking control,” he drawled.
“He’s lacking more than that,” Savio muttered who appeared at Nino’s side. “Empathy, restraint, reason. The only thing he’s got an abundance of is craziness.”
I flashed him a grin. He shook his head, for once not in the mood for jokes.
“I’ll talk to him alone,” Dad said in a low voice. My eyes sought him. He leaned against the wall to my right.
Nino touched Dad’s shoulder, and they exchanged a look that reminded me of Massimo and Alessio. Something passed between them that I wasn’t supposed to be privy to.
“Get a grip, man,” Savio muttered as he came toward me, his fingers digging into my shoulder, his eyes imploring.
I bared my teeth. “You never saw me lose control.”
“That’s what we fear,” Nino said. He searched my eyes, then he only nodded and walked out with Savio.
I glanced around, realizing where we were. This was where enemies and traitors were taken to be tortured and killed.
I cocked an eyebrow at Dad. “Do you really think you can?” It was meant as a provocation and a joke.
Dad stared into my eyes, and my grin died. I chuckled, then nodded. He stalked toward me and gripped my face, resting our foreheads against each other, his eyes burning into mine. Sometimes I saw the same insanity and hunger for destruction in them that always burned inside me. “I love you more than my life. But sometimes I think you are punishment for my sins, a way to throw my own faults back at me. I never knew what Nino had to put up with until you came into my life.”
I wasn’t hurt by his words. Very few things in my life hurt me, physically or emotionally. They were true. “Greta got everything good Mom and you got to give, and I inherited all the bad. It’s the way it is. That’s yin and yang for you.”
“It’s not funny,” he roared.
“No, it’s my life,” I growled. “It’s who I am, Dad. You, unlike the others, never asked me to change or to control myself. You only asked me to channel it.”
“Because I know you can’t control it.”
I smiled bitterly.
Dad dragged a chair across the room and sat down across from me, regarding me like a rabid dog that his owner couldn’t put down even though he knew the monster would kill again. “Las Vegas is under my control. The West Coast is. But at some point, even my control won’t be enough. Even the strongest empire can fall if the king doesn’t make sure his subjects feel safe.” His voice shook with restraint. He wanted to kill me, and he knew he should.
“Is anyone safe, Nevio? Is there a limit to what you’re capable of because recently I fear there isn’t.”
I should have lied, but I didn’t want to. “I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t, not one-hundred percent.” I shrugged. “Are you absolutely sure you’d never hurt the people you loved?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. I wondered if his certainty really came from conviction or because he thought by saying it aloud, it would become true.
“If I thought I could ever hurt our family, I’d leave and never come back, Dad,” I said finally, because it was true.
“You better do,” he murmured. His eyes reflected pain. “Don’t force my fucking hand. It would kill your mom. It would kill Greta.” He swallowed, his hold on my throat tightening. “It would kill me.”
“You know how good I am at killing, Dad,” I said.
