Chapter 12 - The Bitter Taste of Betrayal
The morning sun bled through the cracks of the shepherd’s hut, casting long, golden lines across the dusty wooden floorboards.
I woke up to the heavy, steady rhythm of Ricardo’s heart beating beneath my cheek. My head rested on his uninjured shoulder, his massive arm wrapped possessively around my waist, anchoring me to him even in sleep. The memory of the night before—the desperate, consuming fire that had finally burned away the boundaries between us—sent a flush of heat to my cheeks. I had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. I was no longer playing a part. I was completely, terrifyingly in love with a mafia king.
Across the small room, Leo was still fast asleep on the other cot, cocooned in heavy woolen blankets.
I tried to slip out of the bed to check on Ricardo’s bandages, but the moment I moved, his arm tightened like a vice. His dark eyes snapped open, instantly alert, completely bypassing the grogginess of sleep.
“Where are you going?” he rasped, his voice thick and laced with morning gravel.
“Just checking your stitches,” I whispered, gently resting my hand on his chest. “You need antibiotics, Ricardo. And real medical attention. We can't stay in this hut forever.”
Ricardo let out a slow exhale, his thumb tracing the curve of my hip beneath the thin blanket. “Dante is supposed to make contact at noon. He has a burner phone and coordinates for a secure extraction point on the coast. From there, we go to Corsica. I have men there who answer only to me, not the Commission.”
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing slightly as the movement pulled at his sutured side. He looked at me, the harsh morning light highlighting the beautiful, dangerous angles of his face. He reached out, brushing a tangled strand of hair behind my ear.
“You have my name, Clara,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to the heavy gold ring on my left hand. “And after last night, you have my soul. I swear to you, I will burn down the rest of the world to keep you and Leo safe.”
Before I could answer, a low, mechanical hum vibrated through the wooden walls of the hut.
Ricardo froze. The tenderness in his eyes vanished, instantly replaced by the cold, lethal instinct of a predator.
The hum grew louder, transforming into the distinct, deafening chop of helicopter rotor blades cutting through the mountain air.
“Get down!” Ricardo roared, shoving me off the bed just as the flimsy wooden door of the hut was kicked open with splintering force.
I scrambled across the floor, throwing my body over Leo’s sleeping form to shield him. The little boy woke up with a gasp, his eyes wide with renewed terror as the nightmare began all over again.
The doorway was instantly filled with heavily armed men in tactical gear. But they weren't wearing the black and red insignia of Volkov’s Bratva. They were wearing crisp, tailored suits under their body armor.
They were Sicilians.
“Do not move, Ricardo,” a cold, familiar voice echoed over the sound of the hovering helicopter outside.
Don Salvatore stepped into the hut, leaning heavily on his silver-tipped cane. The morning light caught the sickeningly smug smile on his weathered face. Behind him stood a dozen Commission enforcers, their assault rifles aimed directly at Ricardo’s chest.
Ricardo stood up slowly, entirely ignoring the guns pointed at him. He stood bare-chested in the center of the room, bleeding and cornered, yet he looked like the only king in the room.
“Salvatore,” Ricardo spat, the name sounding like poison on his tongue. “You brought the Commission’s dogs to a safehouse. You broke the Omertà.”
“You broke the Omertà the moment you married a peasant to cheat the laws of our fathers!” Salvatore barked, slamming his cane against the floor. “The Commission convened an emergency vote at dawn, Ricardo. Your actions have endangered the entire syndicate. Volkov threatened to bomb the ports in Naples if we did not hand over the girl. You left us no choice.”
“Where is Dante?” Ricardo demanded, his voice a low, lethal rumble that made the enforcers nervously tighten their grips on their weapons.
Salvatore offered a dry, rattling chuckle. “Your loyal dog? He fought well. He is currently bleeding out in the trunk of my car. I told you, nephew. A woman is not worth an empire. Now, you are going to surrender peacefully, and we are going to rectify this mistake.”
“If you touch her,” Ricardo whispered, the absolute, chilling certainty in his voice making the temperature in the room plummet, “I will peel the skin from your bones while you are still breathing.”
Salvatore sneered. “You are in no position to make threats.” He gestured to his men. “Take the girl and the boy. The Don comes with me.”
“No!” I screamed, clutching Leo tighter as two massive enforcers advanced on us.
“Clara, don't fight them!” Ricardo yelled, his eyes locking onto mine with a desperate, agonizing intensity. “If you fight them, they will shoot you right here. Do exactly as they say!”
Tears blurred my vision as the enforcers ripped Leo from my arms. The little boy finally screamed, a heartbreaking, shattered sound that tore my soul in half. “Mommy! Papa!”
“Leo!” I lunged for him, but a heavy hand cracked across my cheek, sending me crashing to the floor. The taste of copper flooded my mouth.
It took four men to subdue Ricardo. Even wounded, he fought like a demon, breaking the jaw of one enforcer and snapping the arm of another before they finally managed to club him over the head with the butt of a rifle. He fell to his knees, blood pouring down his face, his dark eyes never leaving mine.
“I will find you,” Ricardo rasped, his voice raw with violent promises as they dragged him out the door. “I will find you, Clara!”
They dragged me out into the blinding mountain sun. I watched in absolute despair as they threw Ricardo into the back of a heavily armored SUV and shoved a screaming Leo into another.
“What are you going to do to us?” I demanded, glaring up at Salvatore as an enforcer bound my wrists with heavy zip-ties.
Salvatore looked down at me with utter disgust. “Volkov wants the pleasure of killing Ricardo himself. The boy will be taken to a secure facility in Rome to be re-educated as the proper heir of the Moretti family, under my guidance.”
May you like
He grabbed my left hand, his grip crushing my fingers, and violently ripped the heavy gold Moretti ring off my finger.
“As for you, little bird,” Salvatore sneered, tossing the ring into his pocket. “The Commission does not execute women. We are civilized. We are simply going to erase you. Throw her in the transport plane. Dump her where she belongs.”
