Break All Ties

Chapter Four

I'd stared down the barrel of a gun multiple times in my life. For a year, it had felt like every corner housed something dangerous for me. I'd never had one pressed against the back of my head from which point I couldn't see who threatened me.

But I didn't need to see him.

I could feel in my bones that it was him.

Still, it didn't matter what I felt. Sense told me to deny it because it couldn't be him.

He was locked away. He was never getting out. I'd seen the papers. He had a life sentence. For God's sake! There'd been talk about moving him and putting him on death row. There was no way it was him here with me now.

No.

It was impossible.

Which meant someone must've found out.

The night everything went to shit was famously known as the 'Romero Rampage', the absorption ball of Dante Romero's mafia. Three Bosses had been picked up by the police after that. There was Alfonzo Rossi, Brando Russo and Lorenzo Assante.

All thanks to me.

The blame was on a dead man- Giuseppe- because he took the blame. Now, for someone to be stood behind me with a gun, then surely they'd found out the truth.

If the mafia knew that it was me, there was no telling what they'd do to me.

And yet I felt no fear. Just adrenaline. Something pure and unadulterated that swathed my sight and swarmed my senses.

Even if it was him, I was still in for shit. It wasn't him though- there was no way it was him- but if it was...

I'd grassed him in. After three years, if he had by some mad chance gotten out, then it was my head he'd want on a platter. I'd dragged the mafia to the ground around him. I'd put him behind bars.

I'd ruined everything.

The gun weaved through my hair until I felt the cold.

A command soon came for me from my assailant.

"Give me your phone."

I didn't breathe. From my blue scrub trousers, I grabbed my phone uneasily.

It wasn't like I could call anyone anyway. I wouldn't drag Ava into this. What would I tell the police? I was done dealing with the police. I'd left that life behind in Italy.

A warm hand snatched my phone from my grasp.

"Good girl." The venom that dripped from that voice was so familiar. I wouldn't lie to myself. The sound of his voice wasn't something I could remember, but I could recognise it.

"Now put your hands up." There was no way. He didn't beat around the bush like this anyway. If it were him, which it obviously wasn't, he'd have threatened me much worse than this. "Put your fucking hands up."

But there was a lilt to his voice that sounded very Italian.

There were plenty of Italian gangsters. This could be any of them.

Slowly but surely, I lifted my hands in surrender.

I heard what sounded like a hum of approval.

"Walk," He instructed.

The new me wasn't supposed to answer. She was quiet in touchy matters. She knew the consequences of speaking her mind.

But damn. Something was begging me to speak my mind.

"Walk where?"

It was tiny. It wasn't attitude. It was nothing really. But I'd spoke. And it felt good. It felt like I had a voice.