I Saved the Mafia Boss—Now I'm His Obsession. novel Chapter 33

Adriano

⫘☠︎︎⫘

I stood in the middle of the warehouse, shirt sleeves rolled up, hands dripping with someone else’s blood.

Rino Lombardi’s nephew knelt at my feet, zip-tied, snot bubbling in his nose like a toddler and a busted lip so swollen. His name was Rockey, barely twenty, baby-faced, probably still jerking off to OnlyFans when he wasn’t torching our shipments with his little masked friends.

I cracked my neck, and crouched in front of him, real slow.

“You’re gonna talk now,” I said, “Or I start pulling your teeth out one by one with pliers that haven’t been cleaned since '97.”

His groaned as fear flashed across his face and I smiled, not because I liked hurting him because pain is honest. And honesty is the rarest fucking currency in this business.

“You and your little cosplay crew think you’re clever?” I went on, tilting my head. “Running up on our nightclubs like it's Halloween. Burning down our shipments. Hiding behind ski masks like little bitches. You think war’s a costume party?”

He whimpered something.

I grabbed his face, hard enough to make him piss himself a little. “Speak up.”

He tried to spit at me, but the blood-mixed saliva barely made it past his lips before splattering back onto his own face. I shook my head, unimpressed, and rose to my feet, lighting a cigarette.

That stupid fuck didn’t realize how many ways I could end him without even standing up.

“You’re awfully cocky for someone with your ear on the floor,” I said, watching the smoke curl up from the end of my cig. “Luca, you sure you didn’t hit the wrong side of his head?”

Luca stood off to the side, arms crossed, knife already wet. “You told me not to kill him. Didn’t say nothing about decorating him.”

Fair.

Rockey spat a tooth out onto the concrete, “It doesn’t matter what you do. You can cut me up, bury me in pieces... he’ll still come.”

“He,” I echoed, “Rino?”

He smiled again, “You got something he wants. Something he’s been looking for a long time. And now he has a chance of getting it back. He ain’t gonna stop. He’ll burn this city to the fucking ground if that’s what it takes.”

I exhaled slowly through my nose. “Cute speech.”

Then I walked over to him again.

“I’m gonna give you the gift of clarity,” I said, “You’re not here because you matter. You’re here because you were dumb enough to try to kill me to be the hero in Rino's eyes, and dumber still to get caught.”

He parted his lips to speak, but I drove the sole of my shoe into his face. Hard.

I looked at Raphael across the room, where he sat on a stack of crates with a laptop open on his knee, blue light bouncing off his glasses. “Raph. Tell him what we found.”

Raphael gave me a nod, “He’s one of fifteen confirmed masked hitters. I pulled facial recognition from the nightclub attack footage, matched six to known Lombardi muscle. This one was dumb enough to tag himself at a boxing gym two hours before we caught him. Real criminal genius.”

Rockey blinked slowly.

“I want a name,” I told him. “What the fuck does Rino want?”

He snorted blood through his nose, “I’m not telling you shit.”

I grinned, “Didn’t think you would.”

Then I nodded to Luca.

Luca walked forward, like he was about to pick out produce.

“You got a preference, kid?” Luca asked him, dragging the knife across his palm just to watch it glint. “Fingers? Toes? Maybe that pretty pinkie ring you think makes you a made man?”

Rockey jerked against the zip ties. “He’ll come for me,” he spat, “Rino won’t stop.”

I fisted the back of Rockey’s hair and yanked his head up, forcing his bloodshot eyes to meet mine.

“Good,” I growled, “Let him come. Let him see what the fuck we do to men who touch what’s ours. I'm not just waiting for him, I'm welcoming him. And when he steps out of line, I’ll make fucking history out of him.”

Rockey's mouth trembled, just a flicker, but I saw it. I smelled the shift in his fear.

I tapped his cheek. “You’re just the first domino, kid. You’ll get to tell him that right before the morphine kicks in.”

I turned away, grabbed my coat, and looked at Luca. “Send him back in pieces. Make sure the first one’s the finger he pulls a trigger with.”

Luca nodded, eyes dead. “With pleasure.”

I lit another cigarette, slid my phone out, and dialed Vince.

He picked up after one ring, “Talk.”

“We got confirmation. It’s Rino. Full-blown declaration. They’re making moves fast, and they’ve got a motive, they think we’ve got something he wants.”

Vince was silent for a beat, “Alright. Then we hit back, and we hit blind. I don’t give a fuck what he’s after.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” I said, staring out the broken window as the sky started to get dark.

“Start with his legitimate fronts. Trash his laundromats, his poker rooms, his trucks. Anything with a license number gets torched.”

“Got it.”

“And I want his bookie in West Side strung up by his wrists. Alive. We’ll let him leak what we want Rino to hear.”

“Public or private?”

“Private. I want Rino guessing. I want him to lose sleep. I want him calling his guys at three a.m. just to see if they’re breathing.”

I let out a laugh, “And what about the nephew, I intend to send him back in pieces?”

“Package each piece, send them in separate deliveries. Let his crew pick him up like loose change.”

“What the hell could he want, Vince?” I asked, frowning. “The Lombardis have been quiet for years. I don’t know what made them stupid enough to poke the bear, knowing fucking well we’d crush them.”

“Whatever the fuck it is. They've been prepping for this a long time. The masks, the arsons... this wasn’t impulse. They were waiting, watching us. That means someone gave them the greenlight. Find out who.”

“I’ve already got Raphael pulling metadata off the cameras from the clubs. Tracing cell pings near my apartment where I grabbed the kid.”

“Perfect. Tell Raphael to get us all the names, we’ll give them corpses.”

I leaned against the steel beam, “You want this slow?”

“No,” he added, “I want it violent. I want it loud. I want every man who ever said Rino’s name to look over his shoulder from now until the end of his miserable fucking life. We’ve been too quiet. It’s time they remember who the fuck owns Chicago.”

Vince hung up.

I pocketed my phone, walked past Raphael who was already loading up surveillance on his screen, past Silvio who had just walked in with three burner phones and a bottle of bourbon, past Dante who was on his Bluetooth murmuring legalese.

And I thought about Madeleine.

To last night, just the two of us on the rooftop.

What I wouldn’t give just to taste her again... not her lips, not her skin, I wanted the part of her that hadn’t been touched yet. That soft innocence that clung to her all the time.

Every time I soaked my hands in someone’s blood, I’d blow off steam the only way I knew how, drinks, violence, and a warm body I didn’t have to remember.

But now, none of them did it, none of them touched that place in me she did.

I tried to fuck that waitress at Velluto Rosso, the one who’s always throwing me those fuck-me eyes like it’s the only language she speaks.

But when it came down to it? Nothing. Not a twitch, not even a pulse in my dick.

And right after that, she walked in—Madeleine—with that little fucking skirt, her eyes wide and soft and I swear to God, I felt my blood roar back to life, my dick fucking woke up for her and she wasn't even trying.

That was it.

That was the fucking moment I knew I was ruined.

Because no matter who was naked in front of me, no matter who begged or opened their legs, none of it worked unless it was her.

And I was so goddamn screwed because now I needed Madeleine like a bad habit. I don’t do cravings. I feed them until there’s nothing left.

But she isn't easy, she will make me work for it but who has that patience? I wasn’t wired for patience. That shit wasn’t in my blood.

Waiting for her to come around, to figure out if she wanted the good guy? It was eating me alive.

She wanted soft touches, slow words, someone to earn her trust like it was some kind of prize. That path was made for her best friend, the man I pretended to be when I was trying to keep the darkness in check.

But the other part of me, the real part? He wasn’t in this for love. He didn’t give a fuck about hearts or promises. He was hungry. And tonight, he just needed to get off.

And yeah, I could’ve found someone else but my body didn’t give a fuck about anyone else. It wanted her. That mouth. Those legs. The innocence I’d peel off her inch by inch but not tomorrow, not later. Now.

Because the truth is, even if I jumped through all her little hoops, played the gentleman long enough to get between her thighs, it wouldn’t mean a thing.

There’s no fairy tale ending for a girl like her with a man like me. She’s running from gangsters, and I’ve got bloodstains in my DNA.

So yeah, maybe I didn’t need her love. Maybe tonight, I just needed her body. Just one night, one taste, one way to shut this craving the fuck up.

So really, why lie to either of us? I didn’t need forever.

Just tonight.

I pulled out the other phone, the untraceable one and started typing.

Me: Miss me?

Rockey’s screams echoed through the warehouse again, somewhere behind me, Luca was whistling while he worked.

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