The Discarded Mafia Princess's Ruthless Return

fina

ky when I slipped through the bac

ramps in my stomach were a twisting bl

TM, a prayer forming on my lips

ICIENT

dred dollars-had vanished. The Fal

Falcone estate, my hands empty,

sabella was sunk into a velvet sofa, tearing the paper

by, their faces fixed in

moment he saw me, his smile evaporating. "Where have

of designer bags beside Isabella, then to the

oice a low tremor. "You didn't need the money. You didn't buy these trink

g a scrap of torn ribbon

purred, a cruel light dancing in her eye

and, my body lunging forward, the need to wipe that s

r reac

d connect, a boot s

llided with the glass coffee table, and it explo

he floor, clutching an uninjured arm an

led. "My arm! S

yes shut, forcing out t

He seized me by the hair, hauling me u

und clinic," he spat, his face inches fr

leg from a deep gash, but I had no choice. I clenched my ja

cross the vast, sun-scorched expa

ony, the sun a hammer ag

la whispered into my ear,

duced to the task of placing

m her coiled hair. With a sudden, vicious thrust, she d

ational pull seemed to triple in an instant. I tried to lock the joints of my thighs, but the

e me, brushing nonexistent d

rival. He looked down at me, his face a mask of

ella, his voice flat and col

nce, his arm protectively aro

nto my wounds, a cruel balm to the fire of the pain but not to the despair that anchored me to the earth. Much later, the sound of boots returned. Two guards,

aning protest of the heavy i

d by two strangers: a man with the yellowed, rotting st

er pointing at the low-level associate, Sal Maron

t, his mouth splitting into a grotesq

d walked away-and I understood with perfect, chilling clarity: he was not done with me yet. Whatever came next, whatever this yellow-toothed