Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3)

by Adelaide Forrest

  He smiled at me, a bright grin that seemed entirely disbelieving. “Why’s that, Tesoro?”

  My lips pressed into a thin line. The next words that left my mouth sounded so foreign, I knew that the day before had changed me. I understood the rage he felt, the pulsing need to hurt. “So that when the time comes, I’ll know they deserve everything you do to them.”

  Fifty-Six

  Ryker

  My waterproof boots carried me inside the warehouse, and it felt like I walked toward my destiny as the blood-stained hatchet swung at my side. We rarely went into an interrogation without all the information we could find, and what our investigator, Campbell, had dug up in Jason's finances was disturbing on so many levels.

  Matteo didn't know what I knew. Not yet. He wouldn't interfere, I knew, even if the death of a cop would be inconvenient for him to cover up. Matteo pushed off the wall next to the freezer door, greeting me without the guard he never left the house without. "Simon's tying up our new friend," he explained, and I knew he didn't mean Jason.

  Jason had been sitting in the warehouse since Enzo dropped him off the day before. "The driver?" I asked.

  "Yes. We didn't get the women," he said with a shake of his head. "I'm sure you can imagine that Tiernan put them both under lock and key."

  "I never should have stopped tailing her," I grunted, shaking my head in disgust. I'd let Calla sway me, her jealousy over me appealing to me on such a deep level that I'd not done my job properly.

  "You were made," Matteo grunted. "It wouldn't have made a difference. They would have just found another way." He reached forward, touching my shoulder in a rare display of just how much he valued his family. "Calla's safe. The kids are safe. Now go in there and send Murphy a message not to fuck with our women."

  I nodded, tucking my concern and regret back behind the mask of psychotic energy I wore so often. I always enjoyed torture. His eyes went over my shoulder briefly.

  “You sure about this?” he asked, and I knew he was as skeptical as I’d have been if the roles were reversed.

  But I'd enjoy this more than usual. I just hoped Calla could look beyond it. “Stay out of sight,” I tossed over my shoulder.

  We went into the freezer, one after another. Jason sat quietly, glaring at us like he might have some kind of power. I was sure he was familiar with wielding the power over others, not because he was a cop.

  But because he was a dirty one.

  I ignored him, stepping up to the driver where he trembled in his chair. His body was already slick with sweat, from the exertion of fighting Simon and Matteo when they snatched him out of whatever hell hole he'd desperately tried to hide in. "You are going to tell me what the fuck Tiernan wanted with my woman and my kids." I pointed the hatchet at him, watching him try to flinch back. If the chair hadn't been bolted to the floor, he might have knocked his own ass out.

  Wouldn't that be anticlimactic?

  "They aren't your kids!" Jason yelled from his chair, but I continued to ignore him. Matteo and Simon stayed silent in the back. Even under normal circumstances, this would have been my show. It was my wheelhouse, my warehouse, my skill set.

  But given that it had been my woman in danger? It was just mine.

  "We didn't want the kids," the driver wheezed when the blade of the hatchet touched his neck. "Just the woman."

  "And why was that?" I asked, letting the blade drag across the side of his neck so that blood welled under the shallow cut.

  "Murphy just wanted to talk to you," he said, glancing at Matteo in the corner. "Wanted you more agreeable to shifting your allegiance to him. He figured if he had her, then you'd consider it. She was just the leverage."

  "The only thing I'd consider is how quickly I could cut him into a thousand pieces before he bled to death," I snarled, swinging my arm back as far as I could.

  The guy clenched his eyes shut as he pissed himself. "Wait! He was in on it." He nodded to Jason, who shot him a horrified look. "He works for Murphy. He has for years."

  "I know," I whispered with a cruel smile. I swung my hatchet through the air, colliding with the side of his neck with all the strength I had. Blood sprayed all over me, splashing onto Jason where he screamed like the girl he was. It disappointed me when the axe didn't go all the way through, so with the driver's blank eyes staring back at me, I swung again.

  It was only when his head rolled to the floor that I turned my attention to Jason. He looked at me like I was something out of his worst nightmares, and with the amount of blood I could feel on my skin, that probably wasn't far off.

  "You're a fucking psychopath!" he yelled.

  "Funny. Calla likes to question my sanity too," I mocked, stepping closer to him. When my blade touched his throat, I turned back to Matteo and Simon. I nodded to Matteo, and he went to the freezer door.

  Calla stepped in hesitantly, her eyes instantly going to the severed head on the floor. She swallowed visibly, but made her way to me as she looked away from the head and the matching corpse.

  I hadn’t wanted her there, hadn’t wanted her to see that part of me. But she’d already seen a glimpse the day before, and at her insistence, I couldn’t say no.

  Still, Matteo and Simon eyed her like she would run at any moment and they’d need to chase her down. Holding out a hand, I waited for her to put hers in it willingly and then drew her to my side. “Calla, help me,” Jason rasped, pleading to my petite wife with all the emotion he could fake.

  “Why?” she whispered, and the genuine pain in her voice only enraged me further. “We trusted you.”

  “He promised he wouldn’t hurt you,” Jason said. Matteo scoffed behind me, and I could practically feel him roll his eyes.

  “You don’t think the accident itself hurt me? You don’t think watching a man drag me off was traumatic for the kids? That was Axel’s greatest fear, and you helped set it up.” The accusation rang through the room, her words holding strong despite the tremble to her lips. She might not have particularly liked Jason as a person, but she’d put her faith in him during a time when she needed that connection to her dead husband.

  She didn’t need either of them anymore.

  “You deserve what’s coming,” she whispered, and Jason flinched like she struck him physically.

  “Calla,” he murmured, and for a brief moment I wondered if he actually cared about her in his own way. I quickly decided it didn’t matter.

  “I’ll see you at home when you’re done,” Calla said, turning to me to kiss me briefly. “Don’t take too long.”

  “Calla!” Jason shouted, his face twisting with outrage. “You can’t just leave me here.”

  She turned for the freezer door, grabbing the handle and tugging it open. “Watch me,” she spat as she stepped through. I had a brief glimpse of Dante waiting for her in the main part of the threshold, draping his jacket over her shoulders as she shivered. Blood and murder weren’t the norm in Calla’s life, and I hoped she’d never have to see something like it again.

  But with war on the horizon, she needed to know exactly who I was. Exactly what I would do to protect her and the kids. With Murphy having used her to get to me once, Dante, Sadie and I would all start training her to defend herself. She hadn’t done all that poorly after the accident, but she could have done better with training.

  Once the door closed completely, I waved a hand at the headless corpse and turned back to Matteo and Simon. "Do you think that was a quick death?" I asked them.

  Simon looked confused, but Matteo chuckled in amusement. "It took ten seconds, so I'd say so. Yes."

  "Good," I grunted, turning back to Jason. "Calla made me promise I'd make it quick when she gave me her blessing to kill you. You should be grateful she's more merciful than I am. Good thing she didn't make me promise it wouldn't be gruesome, hmm?"

  "Fuck you and her mercy."

  "What was he going to pay you? To betray your friend's wife and send her right into the clutches of someone who would hurt her in a heartbeat
? Did you even feel a semblance of guilt? Or did you think it was okay because she wouldn't find out you'd set her up and staged the accident?"

  He didn't answer me, choosing to pant his breaths like a dog in heat while he struggled against his binds. "She'll never be yours, you know? Not really," he snarled, and I knew he meant to allude to the fact that he thought Calla belonged to Chad. He might have been the first to have her, but I'd be the fucking last.

  That was what mattered.

  "Trust me, for that woman to walk into a blood-stained chamber with a headless corpse and kiss me? She’s mine alright," I smirked, lining up my hatchet. "Any last words?"

  "Murphy will gut you alive," he growled.

  "I'd like to see him try," I returned, and the hatchet whizzed through the air with more force. Anger and rage for the betrayal he'd served Calla fueled my strike.

  His head rolled with one.

  Nothing sent a message like two heads in a box.

  Fifty-Seven

  Calla

  Ines and I baked cookies so I could distract myself from the knowledge of what Ryker was doing. Of what he’d probably done before I even got home.

  I had to deal with that, but I had zero clue how to go about it. The kids were happy to demand my attention, the chaos and trauma of the day before was something that would cling to all of us for a long time. I knew it without a doubt.

  When the door to the garage opened, Ines hurried down off the chair where she knelt to help me form the cookies. I heard Axel drop his video game controller, and when I stepped into the living room, I found Ryker kneeling on the floor with his arms wrapped around the kids tightly. "I missed you," he rasped, and I saw the way his hands twitched on their backs as he said the words.

  We weren't the only ones who had been traumatized by the day before. I went back to the kitchen, giving them the moment of privacy I suspected they needed. When Ryker finally pulled himself away, he stepped up behind me and swept the hair out of the way to kiss the top of the bandage that covered the worst of my injury. I didn't think I needed it still, but I also didn't want the kids to look at it. Hidden seemed less traumatic since the bruising around the wound itself turned a deep purple overnight. "I missed you too, Sunshine," he murmured as I leaned back into his embrace.

  "And I missed you," I admitted, and the words seemed to make my body pulse with remembered pleasure of the night before. Even if my body felt like it'd been hit by a truck from the accident, and Ryker had extended that soreness to include between my legs with his rough possession all night long.

  "I made it quick. For you," he whispered. I drew in a ragged breath, nodding my acknowledgement when I couldn’t find the words. Ryker turned me to face him, staring down at me. "He was in on it, Calla. Don't put that shit on yourself, because he was prepared to hand you over to someone who would hurt you. A trafficker."

  “I know,” I murmured in response. “Did you find anything about Ness?”

  He sighed. “She’s apparently Tiernan’s second’s woman. We had no clue he even had a woman. Apparently he keeps her hidden well, because Tiernan is trying to arrange a marriage between his second and a cartel leader’s sister.”

  I swallowed but nodded. It would explain why she didn’t get to see him or her son as often as she wanted, if what she told me was true at least. I somehow doubted it. Ines crashed into our legs as Ryker reached into the bowl of cookie dough and scooped out a bite to shove into his mouth.

  "Bad, 'yker!" she scolded.

  Ryker laughed, mussing her blond hair as he stared down at her. "I like to live on the wild side, Princess." She darted back into the living room, so wrapped up in whatever game she played with her dolls and toy kitchen that she became immediately absorbed.

  I stepped into Ryker's arms fully, wrapping my own around his waist. "I love you," I whispered, and he turned a stunning smile to me as he cupped my cheek. I knew it was the first time I said it without coercion. The first time I said it in front of the kids.

  “Killer and all?” he asked.

  I nodded with a chuckle. “Killer and all, my Shadow.” The name echoed between us, freed from the confines of the tension that had tormented our relationship.

  Sunshine and her shadow.

  “What if I die?” he asked, immediately honing in on the deep wound we both knew I had to fight back every day.

  “Then I’ll miss you more than anything, but I’ll have memories to keep me company until we’re together again,” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes with the thought of losing him.

  "I love you too, Sunshine," he murmured, and I chuckled through my sniffles as he touched his lips to mine and Axel gagged in the next room.

  "Gross!" he called, making his sister giggle.

  Ryker pulled back, unfolding a stack of papers from his back pocket and stepping into the living room. I watched from the edge of the room as he knelt in front of Axel. "Is it gross if I adopt you?" he asked, and I watched Axel's eyes go to the papers in Ryker's hand. His brow furrowed, like he didn't understand.

  "You want to adopt us?" he asked, and it killed me that he seemed to doubt just how amazing he was. That he doubted that anyone would be lucky to call him their son.

  Ryker nodded. "Of course I want to adopt you, Little Man."

  "Do I get to call you Dad?" Axel asked in a rush, and I barely restrained the sob that stuck in my throat. I'd been wrong to delay it in my fear that they weren't ready. Axel at the least was old enough to tell me what he wanted, and he’d been trying the entire time. I’d just been too focused on protecting him.

  I'd underestimated just how much they loved Ryker.

  "Daddy?" Ines asked, inserting herself into Ryker's arms like the demanding thing she was.

  "Yeah, Princess. Daddy," Ryker whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. The tears fell from my eyes when Axel's eyes came to mine and he gave me a teary smile. Axel crashed himself into Ryker's arms, hugging him tightly as he stared at me.

  "Is that okay, Mommy?" my boy asked.

  "If it's what you want, how could it not be?" I told him as I made my way to them. Ryker stood with both kids in his arms, heading for the couch where we snuggled up to enjoy the moment.

  The cookies would wait.

  Fifty-Eight

  Ryker

  Strolling into Matteo's office always felt ominous, like I shouldn't be there. We didn't spend enough time at the estate unless I had business, and I knew we'd need to remedy that. With everything she'd seen, Calla would need Ivory and Samara more than ever. She'd need the bond that only wives of the family could provide to one another, and the understanding that would come from the two women who had seen their fair share of blood.

  Who had felt what it was to have blood splattered all over their faces.

  Calla and the kids followed behind me, and I knew it had been the right choice to bring them when Ivory and Samara stepped forward and wrapped her in their embrace.

  “How are you?” Ivory asked her. Tears filed Calla’s eyes, but she fought them back for the kids.

  “I’m okay,” Calla lied. She was holding it together for the kids, but I thought for me, too. She felt like she had to be strong in the face of what happened, when really that was my job. I was there to catch her and put her back together.

  She’d break down, eventually. It was unavoidable given what she’d gone through. But she’d be okay.

  “The guys are in the office waiting for you,” Samara said as she tended to the kids and brought them into the kitchen. The smell of Ivory’s cooking came through the house, and I knew without a doubt that the three of them would be ready to explode when we went home.

  Some people spoiled with love and affection.

  Ivory spoiled with love and affection, food and a weird ass lizard.

  I left them in the capable hands of the only women I trusted to help guide them through it, barely hearing Samara ask Calla a soft question that I felt to my bones. “Do you need to do yoga?” she asked, and it was something so
jarring in its simplicity that I never could have expected Calla’s voice would be teary when she answered.

  “Yes,” she whimpered.

  Ivory distracted the kids with whatever concoction she’d cooked for them, and Samara gave my wife the only therapy she knew and welcomed. I made my way to Matteo’s office, striding into all eyes turned to me.

  "Calla and the kids are good?" Lino asked immediately, and I nodded in response.

  “Ivory and Samara have them covered.” The worst of the worst had been avoided thanks to Georgio and Lino distracting the kids. They hadn't seen much beyond the trauma of Calla being hauled away from the car after Jason was shot. It was enough, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I doubted Calla would have been pleased if they'd seen me split a man's face down the middle with a hatchet.

  “This is why it's better to just stay single. When I think of what I’d do—” Enzo trailed off, trying to fight back that monster he kept caged inside himself. He was the only one who felt at odds with the criminal aspect of our lives, with the sheer violence, but he enjoyed it just as much as any of the rest of us.

  “Your day will come,” I warned him. “And then you’ll understand that you will burn the world down to protect her.”

  Scar's eyes met mine, silently probing like he always did. Wondering how Calla and I made it work given my history. We saw ourselves as different sides of the same coin.

  The boy whose family had tried to force him to rape, and the boy who had been a victim of the streets.

  And all that went along with them.

  "The move on Calla can be taken as nothing other than the first act of war," Matteo growled, confirming what we all knew. We'd been on the edge as it was, but a move against one of our wives was unforgivable.

  "I've been calling in favors we're owed. They've all agreed to stand with us, even the ones who don't agree with our opposition to trafficking. Territory is territory, and we all know that violating it goes beyond a difference of opinions. It's an insult to the families,” Don said, and I appreciated the man’s proactiveness. There was nothing he couldn’t accomplish, even in a short timeframe.