Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
I’m not meant to care.
I don’t fucking care.
Caring is a luxury I burned out of myself a long time ago. It’s a weakness I carved out piece by piece until nothing soft remained.
Yet here I am, walking away from a punishment that should have satisfied every dark instinct I possess, and my sole focus is on the way Azra looked up at me while swallowing my dick like she was born to do it.
Her gaze was too unflinching and calm for someone who should have been terrified.
Satan had an angel in his sights, and he was about to drag her to the depths of hell with him.
Thank fuck she uttered the words she did, or I’d still have my head buried between her legs, eating her greedy, sweet-smelling cunt until it was raw and blistering like she didn’t suck me off purely to make Antonio jealous.
Dirt kicks up around me when my boot lands on a rock with force. It’s the only thing within punching distance, but too low to consider pummeling it with my fist.
As the dust settles on my boots, Nico falls into step beside me, carrying Don Adami’s severed hand in a cloth.
See? Even when my thoughts were at their darkest, she still slipped through the cracks.
Don Adami will think twice before striking a woman again, but that isn’t why I removed his hand. I did it because Azra’s lipstick was smeared on his palm. I have no intention of washing my dick anytime in the next century, but since I’m fond of it, I’ll place Don Adami’s hand instead of my cock in my trophy cabinet.
The lipstick stains on both objects are identical.
Nico thrusts Don Adami’s hand into my chest, his expression unreadable. “Are you positive you desire to keep this?” he asks. “Smells funky.”
“That’s because he pissed all over the rag you wrapped it in.”
With a gag, he drops the cloth along with the hand. It rolls over the gravel driveway, stopping just short of my motorcycle’s front tire.
I pick it up, unconcerned that it’s weeping blood.
Once the dust clears away enough not to hide the smear of pink near his pointer finger, I toss it into the back seat of an SUV one of our foot soldiers is manning.
Nico raises a brow. “You’re putting it on your trophy shelf?”
I lift my chin. “After it’s sterilized.” I turn my head in the direction of the Adami grounds that seem nowhere as ominous as it once did. When I was a kid, I used to stare at this place in awe. Now it’s an eyesore. “I’m not putting anything from that cesspit in my house without burning the germs off first.”
He snorts, amused. “Fair.”
Elio greets us with a chin jerk as we reach the long line of SUVs that follow our every move, engines rumbling low in the dark.
After dumping his bag of torture instruments into the lead SUV, Nico leans against the door and folds his arms over his chest. “Do you have any preference? I was thinking Room 31, but things seem quiet tonight, so I’ll follow your lead.”
I don’t take his bait. Elio and I know what he means when he says the night is quiet, but his fucked-up ideas on a budding relationship aren’t our stories to tell.
I should go out. I always go out. Nico owns half of Sicily’s nightlife, and the women there are always eager, willing, and uncomplicated. Falling into bed with a busty unnamed woman is the perfect way to drown out the noises in my head before they grow teeth, but tonight I’m wrecked.
I won’t mention the thought of someone else’s hands on me feels wrong in a way I’d prefer not to examine, or I’ll remove my gun from my hip and blow my brains out as I threatened to do to Antonio over a dozen times in the last hour alone.
“Not tonight,” I say, scratching at my cropped beard.
Nico’s head snaps up. “What?”
His shock is understandable, but I’m not in the mood to play games.
“I said not tonight.”
Elio stares at me like I confessed to murder. It’s the exact look he gives me anytime I do precisely that. “You never turn down a night out.”
“I’m taking my bike home,” I say, walking toward it. “Need to burn off some adrenaline.”
“Matteo—”
“Goodnight, Nico.”
I don’t wait for his reply. I bob my chin in farewell to Elio, then straddle my bike. The engine roars to life beneath me; the vibration running up my spine, and finally, the fucked-up world I live in makes sense again.
I take off down the road, pushing the speed higher than I should. The wind tears at my jacket, and the world becomes a smear of shadows and streetlights.
The faster I go, the quieter my mind becomes. Azra is still there, but more a figment of my imagination than a real-life breathing person.