Surrender To Me

DANTE

She Sleeps like a baby. That must be the drugs working. After we came home, I called a doctor to assess her. She had been drugged; he said. Nothing lethal, but she was going to need to sleep it off. Even though I couldn’t talk to her at the moment, the thought of leaving her alone was anathema. She is back again by my side. There’s no way I’m going to let her go. She had gone through so much and partly it was because of me. Mostly because of me. Would her father have been gung-ho to find her if he didn’t know she was with me? Would he be able to find her?

Her eyes flicker open. She looks around and tries to get up, but I gently hold her down. “You don’t need to get up. The doctor said you should rest.”

“I’m fine.” Her voice sounds hoarse and sexy. I clamp down on my shameless arousal. I should focus on helping her heal instead of thinking of making love to her. “Do you want to sit?” I ask, already grabbing pillows and putting them behind her back so she can sit comfortably. She adjusts her position looking around. “You’re in my room,” I tell her when I note her confusion. She had fallen asleep in the car and I carried her back here. This was the first time she woke up ever since the incident.

“What happened to Saccone?”

“He’ll no longer bother you.” She stares back at me.

“His remains are currently being recovered from the site.

He burned off with the explosion.”

“Wow.”

“He shouldn’t have touched you. I’m sorry I let it happen.”

“Let what happen?”

“Saccone shouldn’t have been able to take you. And Sal… I trusted that son of a bitch.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m pretty sure he would have found me regardless of what you did. Rob did the best he could to protect me.” Her hands go to her mouth. “Oh my god, Rob. How is he? Is he still?”

I shake my head, unable to say the words. The image of Rob’s remains in the shallow grave Sal put him in is still seared in my brain.

“Oh, no.” Tears fill Corina’s eyes as she reads my face.

“He was a true soldier. He will be missed. Not just by me, but by everyone in the family. And then your friend being evasive and all.”

“How’s Jesse?”

“Alive and well, although I would rather she wasn’t.”

“She is not my friend. She never wanted to be one, but please don’t kill her.”

Saying no to her is difficult, I’m finding out. “I won’t if you don’t want to.”

She gives me a weary smile, warming my heart. “I can’t believe Rob is dead. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t-”

“No. If anyone is to blame, it’s Saccone, and he met his fate in that fire, believe me.”

“What are you going to do to Jesse?”

“It’s up to you.”

“She’s the one who stole your money.”

“I know.”

“And she was seeing Sal.”

“I know.”

“I never thought she would betray me like that. I thought we were friends.”

“She was also using some of it to put a deposit on a house by the way. She didn’t use all of that to pay her sister’s medical debt” Corina’s eyes widen. “I figured she didn’t tell you that part.”

Corina shakes her head. “She was the only friend I had in this city.”

“You’ll find new ones.” I brush away a few strands of hair that fall to her face. She flinches slightly. A dull alarm bell rings at the back of my mind. “You should rest. You’ve been through a lot.” She looks like she’s going to contradict me, but she nods her head and sinks deep into the bed. I pull the covers over her. The compulsion to kiss her temple is there, but I suppress it. Instead, I watch her as her eyes droop close and let her go.

I’m afraid to leave her alone and I want to stay by her side all night. She was gone from me once. She will not be away from me ever again. However, I hear familiar voices from behind the closed door. A knock follows. When I open the door, all my brothers are crowding the hallway looking anxious.

“We came as soon as we heard the news,” Nico says.

“How is she?” Rico says. Gio says nothing, but looks just as concerned as the others. I close the door behind me and gently push Nico to give me space. “She’s okay. It doesn’t

look like she’s injured or anything like that.” “That’s great,” Gio finally says.

“Can we see her?”

“You would only be disturbing her.”Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

The twins look like they’re about to protest, but Gio backs me up. “He’s right. Who knows what she went through? She probably needs some time alone. Plus, we need to talk strategy.”

“Strategy?”

“No one messes with us and gets to live.”

Oh. They don’t know. “Saccone’s dead.”

“No fucking way.” Nico says. Gio curses.

“His car blew up with him in it. My men who stayed on the scene confirmed it. His charred body has been taken to a morgue, one of ours, to do full DNA confirmation, but I’m

pretty sure he’s dead. I saw the car blow up,” “Holy shit. You were there.” I nod.

“Fuck,” Rico says.

“So, what do you need us to do?” Rico asks after a long bout of silence. “For starters, get out of my hallway.” Nico and Rico both roll their eyes but do as I say. A few minutes later, we’re in my office. I tell them everything. Sal, Jesse, Saccone’s twisted plans for Corina. The more I speak, the angrier they get. I can see they want blood and they want it now.

“Enough,” Nico says when I get to the part of how Sal betrayed us. “Where’s that fucker?”

“Calm down, you’ll get to him soon enough. Right now, we need to deal with Saccone’s people and business. They’re in shambles at the moment. I’m sure some don’t even know that he’s dead and others are probably trying to take advantage of the chaos. We should use this as an opportunity.” Gio nods. So do Rico and Nico.

“I might have a few ideas on how we can do that,” Gio says. For the next half an hour, we hammer out the plan. It’s risky, we’ll need a few men to pull it off and some stealth, but if we do, we will successfully fold Saccone’s family into our family and decimate any legacy Saccone ever had while ensuring our family becomes the most formidable in the city. The perfect revenge.