Dating the Don (Savage Crime Lords #1)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

CRISTIANO

R age consumes me.

It’s an all-encompassing inferno that has no boundaries and no ends. Just fire; fire everywhere.

I’ve spent my whole life keeping my temper in check. I've put in a lot of effort to stay true to my values and goals. I've evolved into two flawless versions of the same person, bothdark and light. Two distinct halves of the same coin. The public version of me is the ideal brother and community activist. The one who effortlessly supports his family in any situation.The ever-dependable and impeccably poised gentleman.

And then there’s this version.

One doesn’t exist without the other.

I need this side to balance out the other. Without it, I think the perfect version of myself would snap and shatter into a million pieces. Very, very rarely do the two sides happen to see eye to eye. But, at this perfectly harmonious moment, we both want the very same thing. Mostly to make this sorry bastard choke on his own breath.

This Irish bastard is standing in my way and he knows it. The only reason that I haven’t cut the tongue in his otherwise useless mouth is because he has information that I desperately need.

However, that has nothing to do with his teeth. This morning, he had a nice, full set that is now rapidly dwindling into nothing. If he doesn't get smart soon, he's going to be a pulpymess. However, it's possible that he may enjoy choking on his own teeth when I jam them down his miserablethroat.

He will tell me what I want to know before we are done, and only then will I allow him the mercy of death.

This man played a part in my father’s murder. A big part. He only needs to give me the name of who he reports to and then I can end his life. I’m not going to pretend that I won’t deeply enjoy it.

It’s only been a week since my father died. The shock of his loss is still fresh, a festering wound in my chest. It will stay that way for a long time. The man was my hero, my idol. It doesn’t matter that I never really cared for the violent lifestyle that he led, he still was my father.

I know it is naive but, in my eyes, my father was always practically invincible.

And now he’s gone.

Taken before his time by these low-life bastards.

And for what? To weaken us? Did they not think that by cutting off the head, two more would grow in its place? They severely underestimated the strength of my father’s clan. Of my clan. I was born to lead these people. I effortlessly stepped into a role that I had been groomed for since I could walk. The might of my father’s empire wants blood for what was taken from them and I will deliver it, in spades.

The jerk in front of me has been a faithful servant of the Doyle family for more than thirty years. I have him and the Doyles know it. I, on the other hand, know that they won't attack me in my own house toget him. They willlet him fall while they figure out what to do next. They never did reward loyalty. He picked the wrong fucking side.

“Please…” the man sighs. It’s mostly just a flap of his swollen mouth but I understand him all the same. There will be no mercy for him. None was given to my father.

“What was that?” I bend at the waist, cupping a bloodied hand around my ear. A syrupy sweet smile is plastered on my face as I wait eagerly for his answer.

“Pl…” the man inhales, like the effort of speaking is just too much for him to function. Perhaps it is. Perhaps he truly cannot manage to force air into his chest properly given that his ribs have been damaged. Or, perhaps one of those teeth scraped something important on the way down. I cannot feel empathy towards him. Every time I think that my mask of brutality might slip, I hear my mother’s desperate screams as they lowered my father’s coffin into the ground. We could only bury what was left of him. Barely enough for her to say goodbye to and certainly not enough to get closure from.

My mother had practically collapsed. Keeping her upright had required all of my strength. Even my sister wept. I cannot recall her displaying any emotion at all other than when she hangs out withMaeve.

There’s been no time for me to grieve. Not a single moment to process any emotion other than the all-consuming rage that has powered me from the inside out since it happened.

The bastards are feeling proud of themselves right now for doing this to my family, but I’m going to make them pay for it.

Alberto, who everybody has always called Al, is standing to my right with black leather gloves on, arms folded over his chest as he watches me work. He’s a simple man. Cut and dry. Black and white. He was the logical choice for me to elevate as my underboss and right-hand man last week. Which is actually saying something because he's always been a little more off on violence than I am. We have experienced a great deal together, and he shares my need for justice.

“Perhaps I’m not making myself clear,” I say as I pull my knife from my back pocket. “Or, perhaps you simply don’t understand the situation that you’re in. You will die. You know that. It’s all a matter of how many days I’m going to drag it out for. If you’re going to choose to be a good little boy and give me enough information to reward you with a quick death.”

I grab hold of the man’s shoulder and lean forward, the saccharine smile never leaving my face for a moment.

The tip of the knife forces his eyelid open as he strains to lean further back into the chair as if there’s anywhere for him to go.

“Were the teeth not enough? Should I go for something a little bit more vital?”

The man is blubbering and blustering and attempting to get away as carefully as possible.

“I suggest that you stop squirming, you wouldn’t want me to slip,” I taunt him.

I grab his forehead, grasphim byhis bloody hair, when a body literally falls down the stairs.

Who the hell has the audacity to disturb me?

It takes half a moment longer to recognize the tangle of limbs and stunning red hair before me.

Maeve.

“I’m so not cleaning that…” I hear her mumble.

What the hell is she doing in my basement? One, the staff all know better than to come down here when the door is locked. And two, there’s no way now to stop her from seeing the truth that I, and my whole family, have kept from her her entire life.

It’s like a horror movie. In slow motion.

My instincts scream at me to go over there and help her up, to make sure that she’s unharmed but my feet won’t move. I have blood on my shoes. I have blood on my hands, and likely splattered on my face and clothes. There’s no hiding that.

All I can do is tell Al that he needs to put thegun pointing at heraway.

Fuck.

She’s seen everything, there’s no escaping it. And that’s something I didn’t need on my plate right now.

When she lifts herself off the ground and turns to face us, I try to train my features into something impartial and cold. Before I can even put away the knife I am holding, thefucking coward on the chairstarts screaming for her help.

“Please! Help! Please! Help me! You have to get me out of here! Please! Let me out!” He blubbers, tears running down his face. I can’t even tell if they are real or performative at this point.

She hasn’t looked at me yet.

Good.

Because I don’t think I could stand the look of disgust in her eyes, or whatever else I might see reflected there.

I should have had guards posted at the door. It was a foolish mistake that might now cost me everything .

Historically speaking, the easiest way to handle situations where people see something about the mob that they shouldn't be seeing is for them to simply... die.

But I cannot kill my little sister’s best friend.

She looks paralyzed by the situation that she’s gotten herself into.

“Take Miss Cunningham to her room, please,” I order Al in a tight, clipped tone.

Al moves silently to carry out my orders but stops only a moment later as the worm in the chair speaks.

“Cunningham?” He mutters, voice oily.

I can see him looking at her. I should pluck his eyes out. His gaze lands on the apron she's wearing and the embroidered initials of her mother in the bottom corner.

“You are much younger… you don’t… you can’t be…” His eyes start to widen, assuming who the woman in the room with us might actually be. I can see him moving through the pieces, sorting them out in his mind as he comes to the conclusion that I didn’t want him to come to.

He’s thinking about how familiar she looks. How that shockingly perfect red hair might somehow be familiar to him in ways that I don’t want it to be. I don’t want him looking at her because now she’s going to ask even more questions that I cannot answer. None of the answers that she’s going to demand from me later are going to give her any satisfaction.

This bastard is going to die with his suspicions in his head and that’s a simple enough solution for all of us to reach. But Maeve… fuck, why did she have to come down here?

“It was just a rumor…” he mumbles.

He’s going to lose his tongue too.

“What rumor?” Maeve asks. I feel a knot of dread form in my stomach as she resists Al's grip. She tries to pull away from him even as he’s dragging her toward the staircase and up into her room .

I can’t let this go on. I have no other choice.

I spin the knife in my hand and plunge it deep into the sorry bastard’s throat. His eyes widen in surprise and the gurgle of his own blood instantly swallows anything else that he might have chosen to say.

I hate that I have to let my current lead go, but he wasn’t going to give me much more that I didn’t already know in the first place.

Maeve screams.

Not only from the terror of witnessing a man die in front of her eyes but also from frustration. I know her like the back of my hand. I can tell the difference.

“Get her out of here,” I command Al as I start to clean my blade.

“What rumors? Cristiano, what rumors? What are you doing, let go of me!” She screams as he starts to haul her up the stairs. He’s going to have to throw her over his shoulder to get her the fuck out of here at this rate. “What did he mean!? Cristiano!”

I can’t answer her.

“Put her in my room,” I order Al as he indeed bends to scoop her up into his arms. “And make sure that she stays there. I can’t have her getting into any more damned trouble.”

Now, instead of one mess I have to clean up, I have two.