I hated how bad I still had it for her.
Her pretty eyes darted from Krawson to her father and back to me, tracking me as I moved around the table. Krawson pulled the knife from his hand to get to his feet, trying to apologize now, but my men blocked his path.
“You think you can disrespect a woman at my table, and I won’t put your skull up in my office with others?” I asked.
It’d become a bit of a story how I collected them. They lined the walls like crown molding and decorated my shelves beautifully. Bleached. Sanitized. Arranged as if they were decor. They were trophies—my trophies. Each one held a warning though because each one had belonged to a man who thought he could cross me.
“You… you can’t threaten me like that,” Krawson trembled.
I reached behind me and took the blade from the sheath at my belt. “I warned you in the other room, Kraw, that this would be your last meal.”
My security grabbed him, forcing him back into the chair. Zarelli stammered an apology, but I glanced at Jameson who knew exactly what to do. He pulled his Glock and leveled it at Zarelli. “Don’t interfere, old man. We give you grace because of your granddad but for no other reason. He’s got every right to put a bullet in your head and so do I after you manipulated deals with us and now the port to your benefit.”
That shut him up.
The room went quiet except for Krawson’s ragged breathing. And then I moved behind him while my security held his hair. He screamed at first but then the only sound that could be heard was my knife biting into his flesh, the curdling scream, the splatter of blood over tablecloth and china, and then the sawing of cartilage.
I wanted that skull. I wanted everyone to know it.
Blood misted across the table, over the food, onto Bianca’s dress, and dotted her skin. She sat very still, lips parted, but no sound coming out. Her cheeks were flushed—not just with shock but something more primal as she looked at me wiping away the bloody droplets from my cheek.
My brother walked in then, his shoes clicking over marble and they didn’t break their rhythm even as he saw the scene. “Well, I guess you didn’t care to avoid the mess even in our own resort, Bane.” He tsked. He went straight to Bianca’s side, eyes scanning her. “You okay, Bianca?”
“Of course.” She glanced at her mother who was crying and shaking her head at Bianca. Then she looked across the table at Angela who was shaking. Bianca’s hands were now steady as she dabbed the napkin at the corners of her mouth, composure in place like she could handle my violence as long as it was real. She rose slowly. “If you’ll excuse me, though, I need to use the restroom.”
Before she left, she bent slightly toward Jameson, voice soft. “Will you be here much longer?”
“Leaving now.” He stood and gave her a brief hug.
She murmured, “Keep taking care of that daughter of yours. She needs her daddy.”
Jameson smiled like the charming devil he was. “You made this meal much more delightful than I thought it would be—even with the blood. Quit hiding out here and come visit Chicago sometime soon?”
“She doesn’t go anywhere without me or Rafe,” I cut in, voice sharp enough to freeze the room.
She scoffed, tilting her chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“See how ungrateful she is.” Her father was half hysterical at this point, scrambling for anything to point a finger at. “You’re walking out without saying goodbye to me too? And you have nothing to say for your cousin?” her father asked.
But Bianca seemed to have found her voice within the violence because she tilted her head at his question and said, “What should I say, Father? That I’m sorry for your loss? Or that he deserved it?”
“Bianca!” Her mother gasped.
“I don’t have anything to say to either of you. Definitely not goodbye. Maybe good riddance.” Then she turned, leaving me with the image of her pastel blue dress dotted with blood and the scent of her perfume lingering in the air like a dare.
Like she didn’t think I’d follow.
But I always did.
CHAPTER 12
BIANCA
I stoodat the center of the immaculate bathroom that was quickly becoming my hideout and thanked every god that might have been that I hadn’t fainted. My hands were braced on the counter, staring at my reflection like it belonged to someone else.
Maybe it did at this point. The girl looking back at me had the pretty makeup, the perfect lashes, the hint of blush, and the pink-stained lips that my mother would have been proud of, but the woman underneath that wanted a Jafar T-shirt on with a clean face free of makeup while she watched Bane butcher a man at the table.
Christ, I should have been throwing up or hyperventilating at how the blood sprayed across my dress, how the droplets were still warm against my skin. It should have made me sick as I wiped away a few of them from my cheek.
