Taboo Flames (The Sicilian Sins #2)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Giovanni

I walk back into the room to see that Aurora is fast asleep. I know I told her that I’ll join her in a minute, but she’ll have to forgive that little lie. I have more pressing concerns to deal with, like finding the little sons of bitches who are after Aurora.

Nobody messes with what’s mine and lives to tell the tale.

I pull the covers until her feet are fully covered, then I turn away and walk right out of my bedroom, seething with unadulterated rage.

I immediately dial a number on my phone. Omar is a real estate agent that I’ve worked with in the past. He’s trustworthy and reliable.

“Boss,” he says into the phone when he picks up on the first ring.

“The Mediterraneo Plaza on Via Roma. I want it.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the line before he replies, “But it’s not for sale.”

“I wasn’t asking about its availability, Omar,” I bite out. “I’m telling you that I want to own that mall before today ends. Can you get it done, or do you need incentives to do what I fucking ask you to do?”

“Consider it done, boss,” he says determinedly.

I hang up on him and then call Fiore, one of my most trusted men.

“Boss,” he greets.

“The mall where Aurora was attacked today…” I begin, knowing he will already know about the incident. “Find out who the manager is and every single thing about him. If he takes a shit by four in the morning every day, I want to know. Then I want to know the names of everyone he holds dear.”

“Yes, boss,” Fiore replies without faltering.

“Be on standby. I’ll need you soon,” I say to him.

Exactly an hour later, Omar calls me back.

“The price is ridiculously high,” he scoffs. “The owner of the building has noticed our urgency and is trying to make a hiked sale.”

“Get to the point,” I bark.

“The mall is yours,” Omar said.

“Good.”

Then, I shoot a text to Fiore asking him to meet me at the mall with some of my other men before I grab my car keys and head out.

It’s only when I’m about to drive out that I remember to text Aurora about my absence. I tell her I’ll be back in no time before I burn rubber out of the compound.

As the distance between my house and the mall gets eaten up, my anger rises to the surface. My anger is like a sharpened blade, and it’s willing to cut down anybody in its path.

Luckily, I know how to wield it and keep it sheathed until it’s needed.

When I get to the mall, my men are already parked in the parking lot, looking like they are ready to go to war.

I nod at Fiore in acknowledgment and walk past my other men into the building. The useless mall security try to stop our entrance but then they take one look at the expression on my face and wisely tuck their tails and flee.

“Get them,” I order. I have no plans of letting them walk free after they let harm come to my woman.

They clearly don’t know their job descriptions and obviously need someone to teach it to them. Well, I’m more than willing to give them a crash course they won’t forget in a hurry.

As some of my men disperse to chase after the fleeing security, the rest join me as we walk deeper into the building.

Most of the shoppers see us and turn in the opposite direction, while others hide their children behind their backs. Good for them. If anybody comes in my way, whether by accident or not, I won’t fail to shoot my way through them.

“Where’s the manager’s office?” I ask Fiore.

“Up there.” He gestures at a door on the second floor, and we make our way there.

I take the stairs one after the other while my men dash up. I’m halfway up the stairs when they burst down his door and flood in. By the time I’m standing at the top of the stairs, they’re pulling out the little sniveling weasel.

“We meet again.” My smile is stiff and humorless.

He glares at me, gathering a little bit of bravado. “What do you think you are doing? This is against the law. I’ll have you know that?—”

“Fiore,” I cut him off, “I want all the footage from today combed through carefully until you find that bitch.”

“Yes, boss.”

“You can’t do that,” the manager roars. “You don’t have the authorization to?—”

“As of twenty-two minutes ago, this building became mine, so yes, I do have the authority,” I tell him. “But you should save your protests for when I’m taking you apart, one bone at a time.”

I signal at one of my men, and he grabs the manager by the underarms and begins to drag him toward the nearest staff bathroom.

“Help me, help me!” the manager screams as he’s being dragged away.

Everybody who passes by ignores him, keeping their faces carefully averted. They are wise enough to know there are some issues one doesn’t poke their nose into if they don’t want to get in trouble.

One of my men passes me my brass knuckle ring while another holds the manager in place.

“What’s your name?” I ask softly.

He stares at my hands in terror. “Please. I had nothing to do with what happened to Miss Vitale. She’s a loyal customer, and I respect the Vitales?—”

“That’s not what I asked you. Keep Aurora’s name out of your mouth,” I snap.

He swallows nervously. “Elijah.”

“Elijah, I’m feeling gracious. Benevolent, if you will.” I say. “So I’ll give you one chance to tell me everything you know. I’ll bring it out of you one way or the other, but you can choose whether you’ll remain recognizable or not.”

“I don’t know anything,” he says desperately.

I pull my fist back and bring it down in an uppercut to his jaw. His jaw makes a crunching sound, and blood pours out the side of his mouth.

“Let’s try that again, shall we?” I snarl.

“I swear, I don’t know anything.”

I land a punch to his solar plexus. “Who is the woman?” I demand.

He wheezes, “I d—don’t know.”

Fiore slips back in while I’m landing my next hit to the side of his face.

“Boss, I’ve found something,” he says.

I straighten and look over my shoulder at Fiore. “What?”

“I caught the woman’s face on one of the alley cameras Elijah was trying to wipe,” he informs me. “One of my contacts is running it through our database as we speak.”

I smile coldly at Elijah. “Seems you really don’t know anything after all. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have lied to me.” Then I nod at one of my men. “Rough him up, then drive him to his house and set it on fire. Let him watch as his family burns and then shoot him.”

“He also has a mistress in a nearby motel,” Fiore added.

“She should be part of the bonfire then,” I say coldly.

“No, no! Please! They were going to kill my family. I had no choice. You have to believe me. No. You can’t do this!”

I walk out while the manager is still roaring his pleas and insane rants.

I take off the blood-stained knuckle ring and hand it to Fiore as I follow him to the computer room. All the while, I run the beads of the chaplet wrapped around my wrist through my fingers to keep myself calm.

I cannot afford to lose my mind right now because it seems this plot runs deeper than I initially thought. If I want to catch whoever the mastermind is, I have to act and think rationally.

One of the computers displays the image of a nondescript blonde woman wearing a severe glare.

“Her name is Lori, and she was recently in jail for kidnapping a teenage boy. Her family lives about half an hour’s drive from here,” Fiore says, reading the information off his phone.

“Lead the way.”

Finding Lori’s family house is easy. The problem is that nobody in her family has any idea that she has been out of prison for over a week. Her sentence wasn’t supposed to end until the end of the year.

“What are you thinking?” I ask Fiore as we leave the house.

“I’m thinking someone got her out of jail, and whoever did that must have a lot of power in the city. She must also be very useful,” he says. “Miss Vitale has gotten herself entangled in something deeper than she can imagine.”

My thoughts exactly.

I have also gotten entangled with Aurora in such a way that I can’t leave her to deal with this mess alone. I’m willing to flood hell and put out all the flames just to keep Aurora safe.

“Excuse me,” a young boy says as he walks up to us. He must be around ten or twelve. His head is completely shaved, and there’s a dark look in his eyes that I recognize from my younger years.

“I know where Lori is. It’s where she likes to hide out. It’s an old junkyard nearby.”

He gives us directions to the junkyard, and we make our way to it. I tell my men to wait outside, and only Fiore and I sneak our way inside carefully and silently. Our steps are light and measured, and our guns are held steadily as we creep in. We find Lori asleep in the bed of one of the junk trucks, and I carefully and quietly remove the gun lying beside her.

At my signal, Fiore whips her face with his gun, and she startles awake, hastily reaching for her weapon only to find it gone. He pulls her to the ground by her ankles and presses one foot down on her sternum, his gun trained on her forehead.

“One wrong move, and I’ll blow your brains out,” he warns.

She sneers at him but stays still.

“You know who I am,” I tell her, “so let’s skip that conversation. What I want to know is who you’re working for. Who sent you to kill Aurora?”

“Do you think I’m stupid? They’ll throw me back to jail if I say a word,” she snaps. “I’m not going back to that hell hole.”

“I’ll put a bullet through you and every member of your family,” I threaten.

Panic flashes in her eyes momentarily before she says, “These guys aren’t playing around. They’ll kill me. You don’t understand.”

I cock my gun. “The only thing I understand here is that if the next words out of your mouth aren’t what I want to hear, I’ll shoot out your kneecaps, and then you’ll watch me separate your family’s necks from their bodies with a blunt table knife before I do the same to you. I hear it’s an excruciating way to go.”

She glares up at me. “I was employed by a man I only know as X, but I know he works for Il Sguardo Nero. They all do.”

“Who’s they?” Fiore asks in confusion.

“The pimps. The only thing they care about is money and the girls who earn them money, and your little bitch fucked with one of them, and now she’s going to?—”

She never gets to finish her sentence because I shoot at the middle of her face, making it explode into a rainfall of blood and pieces of bone.

“We’re done here,” I tell Fiore.

“What should I do with her?” Fiore asks.

“Leave her,” I say. “I want?—”

My phone buzzes in my pocket with an incoming call. I see it’s Aurora, so I pick up immediately, imagining the worst but knowing no one can get through all the men at my gate to get to her. Also, Carlos won’t repeat his mistake of not making sure she’s protected at all times if he wants to continue breathing.

“Princess, talk to me,” I say into the phone.

“Where are you?”

I look down at the body on the floor. “Out on some business.”

“Is it very important? I want you here.”

I want to continue digging into this Il Sguardo Nero, but there’s a hint of fear in Aurora’s voice that I don’t like.

“No, it’s not important. I’ll be there shortly, princess,” I say before hanging up.

“Continue to look into this,” I tell Fiore. “And don’t stop until you have this Il Sguardo Nero guy and all his men’s balls nailed to a silver platter at Aurora’s feet.”

It’s past midnight by the time I climb up the stairs and walk through the hallways to my bedroom, where I left Aurora earlier.

I’m surprised to find her still in bed and immediately become worried and suspicious. Aurora isn’t the type to stay in one place. I was expecting to find her digging through my things and being generally nosy about my house.

The woman is far too curious for her own good.

“You should be sleeping,” I say to her.

“And you should be in bed beside me.” She glares at me.

I smile at her. “Bossy little thing. I should tan your hide for your insolence.”

“I dare you,” she replies, giving me a look of challenge.

My body fires up at the thought of leaving my fingerprints on her flawless skin, but my lust clears out quickly when I see the look on her face.

She’s biting at her lip worriedly and looking spooked.

“What’s wrong?” I growl, concerned.

She holds out her phone to show me, and I see a picture of her in a yellow dress. She’s smiling into the camera and holding a straw hat over her eyes. There are thousands of likes and comments on the picture, and I don’t like the thought of strange men staring at this picture and lusting over her.

“Princess, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking at here,” I tell her honestly.

She huffs and points at the bottom of the screen, and my eyes follow her fingers to a particular comment.

WE’RE COMING FOR YOU, OUR LITTLE DEBTOR. AND THIS TIME AROUND, WE WON’T MISS.

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll have Fiore trace the comment. Tomorrow. For now, you need to sleep.” I unbutton my blood-soaked shirt and toss it away. This is why I always wear dark clothing, to conceal the bloodstains.

If Aurora had seen blood splattered all over me, I’m sure she’d have asked a million questions.

“We’ll find them, I swear it,” I add.

“Okay,” she says quietly.

I climb into the bed behind her and pull her to me.

“Sleep, princess,” I say, pressing a kiss to the top of her forehead.

As her breaths even out, the only thing on my mind is how I hate to see her anything but happy and how I’ll do anything to bring back that easy and open look on her face.

I already know I’m a despicable man, but the lengths I’m willing to go to keep Aurora happy is terrifying even to me.