Chapter 55

I pulled away, and Massimo shrugged his suit jacket off and placed it over my shoulders. It was useless. My dress was ruined.

Shaking my head, I looked up at him.

"Don't worry, any cameras will be disabled, and our path will be clear all the way to the car."

My head bobbed up and down, then my gaze slid where the body lay.

"Elio will take care of it."

"Okay," I said, and Massimo pulled me closer to him. "Wait!" I stopped, turned, and retrieved my blades from the sink.

I knew his mind reeled as he watched me tuck my blades back to where they belong, but I didn't have it in me to decipher his thoughts. At least not now. My attention was solely on my weapons.

After I concealed my knives again and stood tall, I said. "Ready?"

Massimo closed his eyes briefly and smiled tightly.

A dangerous smile that couldn't hide the depths of immorality.

I glanced down one last time, finding a familiar pair of boots. I followed their trail up to the leaning and crossed-armed Elio. A wicked smile rested on his lips, before he gave me a light dip of his chin.

My void replied with the same smile.

"Take me away." This time, I went with Massimo without protest.

As he had described, no one saw us walking away from the bathroom and through the hall. Or slipping out of the villa where his car ran in park.

Vadim's eyes landed on me from across the top of the sleek roofed car. Moonlight shone over his features as he struggled to hide his displeasure.

But it wasn't toward me, because when his gaze landed on Massimo, I saw the trouble he couldn't hide.

"Your brother doesn't look too happy."

"Have you seen your face, Alessandra?" Massimo replied sharply, but it smoothed when I flinched. "Who could be?"

Bruised face and bruised egos everywhere. The irony, I chuckled.

Massimo opened the passenger door and waited for me to slide inside the black leather seat before shutting it. The dashboard illuminated the cabin as gusts of cool air filtered inside, and while I waited alone, I groaned in pain. Adrenaline still pumped, but the darkness calmed the raging emotions revealing my battered body to my consciousness. And while I rested deeper into the cushion, the stronger the waves of discomfort approached. The stronger the pain knocked and fatigue settled.

I wasn't ready for them-wasn't ready to feel. But as time coursed, and minutes changed on the dash, it was unitable.

Time only granted the dead.

With power and sinful grace, Massimo entered the car. His composure hung by a weak rope, shaking and losing sight of control. I quieted my aching cries that my quivering lips let out and faced him.

Massimo hadn't moved an inch, with eyes ahead, and one hand crushing the steering wheel of the parked car.

He looked stoic, and yet I was afraid of speaking. Of breaking the hard features that held his composure weakly.

Seeing as he struggled to contain his ire terrified me.

"I" Massimo began, and his gaze fell on me, conflicted with brutal cruelty and concern. "Are you"

He was speechless. Tongue-tied by empathy?

"Was he"

Startled by his inability to rein in his cruel thoughts, I spoke. "I'm fine, Massimo." His eyes lingered. "I feel the same as you would after taking a life."

Snapping his eyes back to the windshield, he uttered. "You don't." His voice lowered. "I seek further bloodshed."

I pondered his admission, and as I tried to comprehend the rush, the pain, and death, I didn't see how I felt much different than what he'd described.

I had been picked, attacked, and remained hunted by a man. A man I wished for death, and a city I wanted burned to the ground along with the men who followed him. A syndicate I wanted stripped from power.

I wanted the seat of California empty and forgotten.

Massimo and I weren't so different. I too sought bloodshed, but in numbers only God had the power to take.

In a way, I thanked Giuliani for what he'd created-a void that could only be filled by retribution.

Soon, I would show them all the power I carried.

Because I had one thing they didn't-Massimo. He would hunt, strip, and burn it all for me.

Massimo was my weapon, just as he was becoming my weakness.

"He wasn't my first kill, Massimo. And he won't be my last."

I flinched at the sound of his hand striking the wheel.

Massimo lost it.

"Damn it, Alessandra. This isn't how you should react," he roared. "How you should feel, or how any of it was meant to happen!"

Our eyes connected.

"He won't be my last because being with you is a death sentence." I raised my voice. "The same sentence I was born with by having a father as a boss." My shoulder rose. "It just changed handlers." Closing my eyes, I set the truth free. "We didn't get to choose this life. But it has always been our path, Massimo. Far from normal and unconventional. Why do you think the outcome could be any different?"

Massimo didn't want to see it. He fought against my words as his head shook and his teeth gritted. Even then, he was too smart to not believe in them. He had been trying so hard to keep me far from a world I'd been raised into, apart from the tainted blood that swept in my body. An image he'd already formed and strived to come true. He held on to the vision of how it should be, and how it was meant to be, but had forgotten I was a part of it. He'd forgotten the curse that came with a principessa. And he never got to see the young me.

The broken girl.

The beaten girl.

The women I'd fought to become.

"Come here."

I looked over the small space left by his broad and large body on the driver's side and shook my head.

"We both can't fit-"

His hand gripped my hair fiercely, pulling me to sit on his lap. I gasped as his hands manhandled me to how they saw fit. Not once gentle, even if my appearance begged for it. And as my leg dug painfully into the door, the other straddled over the middle console and into the back of his seat.

My neck leaned awkwardly to the side as it hit the ceiling. I ached by its stiffness and position, but Massimo brought my head down to his shoulder and released my hair. Our breaths labored as they both fought in twisted want, for a dose of unhealthy need. To mix desperation, and pain into the sadistic desire our bodies could deliver.

Massimo slipped his coat off my shoulders, revealing my red stained skin and ruined dress. I pulled away from his chest to see his eyes devouring my skin, and his fingers itching for my split lip. He tugged it, and a sharp sting tore my mouth apart. Warm liquid spread over the edge and he pulled my head closer to him. Massimo's tongue slipped and swirled over my bleeding lip, easing the sting by his nipping and tender mouth.

His sounds of satisfaction by tasting me mimicked my own.

Pain and pleasure, a sweet brew.

Unstable and raving for more, our lips deepened.

Shaking and grasping for more, our hands fumbled.

Mine, capturing his belt and working on his pants button. His, raising my ass with gripping fists only to shove me down on his dick once I freed him.

A moan shuddered from my throat as he was buried deep inside me.

"Massimo," I cried, burning with desire.

It was uncomfortable, desperate, and carnal the way we couldn't wait, and I was rendered to pure bliss by need as he rocked my hips.

"Ahh!"

"I know, baby. But I need to get us home so I can take you properly."

"Yes," I whimpered.

"Do you want to come?" His breath skated over my ear.

"Sì!"

"Then move," he growled.

Massimo wasn't going to help, and I didn't know what caused my hips to obey his order, but maybe it was the thought of having free rein to fuck him fast, slow, or deeply. However I wanted to. But slow wasn't going to get me off, not now. Not while the cabin heated and sex swirled inside. Not while my crazy still gripped me tightly and death waved from afar.

I wiggled, splitting the dress further up to find the leverage to move in such a confined space. I ignored the burn coming from my muscles, the cuts, and the ache of each breath. I omitted everything if only to feel him close, to have this moment with him.

I rode Massimo while he rode over Miami's streets at high speeds.

Fast, messycrazily.

MASSIMO

Alessandra wasn't just good with a knife, Alessandra had mastered the skill of manipulating a blade. The bastard who died under her hands spoke its truth. Even with an injured wrist and bruised body, she continued as if it was in her nature.

Her eyes were vacant when I'd found her sitting in pools of blood, covered in sweat and gore. The scene had never bothered me if it wasn't for seeing her in it. If it wasn't for the paralyzing dread of thinking it was her blood.

The sight of her grim appearance had violently rendered me into a spiral madness. A fucking rage I couldn't contain but tried to control. And in those savage minutes, I'd only made it through by keeping my gaze strictly into the life that swirled in her shining emeralds.

The one thing that reminded me that even while they were lost, she was still here with me.

And while she'd admitted to killing another man before, I'd placed her in a situation where she had to take another. By doing so, I had taken a piece of her I had never intended. Because while I had wanted to break her, use her, I'd never meant for her and Death to be acquaintances.

That was something for me and my demon to bear.

Alessandra laid her head on my shoulder after coming hard over me. She never moved away, and I didn't push her. Somehow, her weight calmed my heartbeat. And her warmth reassured me of her existence.

I ran my hand across her messy hair as her adrenaline washed away in rapid currents, leaving her exhausted and jaded. My little deceitful creature was losing the fight as her frame molded deeper against mine.

"We are here."

Alessandra hummed but didn't sway an inch. We stayed in the silence and the darkness for a while longer. But the quiet didn't bring me peace. I thought of what Elio had found, what Vadim knew, and what Nate saw. I thought of my next move in grave detail and the city I would soak in crimson.

"Massimo."

Alessandra tore me away from the slaughter in my mind, and I placed my heavy hand on her back.

"I don't think I can make it upstairs."

Fuck, the sorrow in her voice stung, knowing she felt ashamed by her admission.

I battled between what I wanted to do and what I should do. What was okay and how far I was willing to give. If I even could.