Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3)

by Bethany-Kris

  The man was damn near unrecognizable.

  All of his clothes had been cut off, exposing split, raw, and bleeding flesh. It looked like Connor was literally taking strips of skin off the man’s body, but that was just the bloody mess making it hard to discern the very straight and precise cuts.

  Connor began humming a tune that Calisto felt was familiar, as he spun a small knife against the pad of his thumb. Then, without anyway warning, he quieted and struck out with his hand, hitting the man just below his right collarbone with the knife, leaving it embedded in his body.

  Calisto flinched when the man’s bloodshot, brown gaze flew wide, a scream echoing. Then, he started choking, followed by vomiting. Connor moved out of the way, chuckling loudly, and avoiding the vomit splashing on the floor.

  The man deserved it, though. All of it.

  Torture was hard to stomach, but this man deserved it.

  With a flick of his wrist, Connor grabbed the hilt of the knife, pulled it from the man’s chest, and spun him around on the hook so that he rotated slowly.

  His toes barely touched the floor, forcing him to almost dance to keep what pressure he could off his wrists, shoulders, and arms.

  The only areas on his body it looked like Connor had left untouched.

  No doubt, they were in pain just the same.

  “How do you like my work?” Connor asked without turning around to face Calisto.

  “Looks … painful,” Calisto settled on saying.

  “It is. But to give him the dues he deserves, he managed to keep his arse from begging for the first two hours. That’s a feat, believe me.”

  “I will take your word for it, Connor.”

  Sometimes, monsters were hard to spot.

  They weren’t shady people in an alley.

  They weren’t disfigured so that their faces could be recognized.

  Sometimes they were charming. Men who wore suits, kissed their wives every night, and shook your hand with a smile.

  Sometimes, monsters were men like Connor O’Neil.

  “What of it now, Calisto?” Connor asked, finally turning to greet his companion with a wide, warm smile.

  A smile that spoke nothing of the torture he was currently inflicting on another soul.

  That was probably the scariest part of it all.

  Connor was so good at hiding his monsters.

  At the sound of Calisto’s name, the man hanging from the chains seemed to wake from the stupor he was in. His eyes flew wide, jerking back and forth as he tried to focus and search for whatever it was he wanted to find.

  Calisto stepped forward, taking the bloody knife from Connor when the Irish boss offered it.

  Once Calisto was standing in front of the man, he didn’t meet his gaze right away. He let the man take him in as he looked over the bloody, sharp edge of the knife Connor favored. He had watched the Irish boss use this very one once before, so he figured the man liked it.

  “Why?” Calisto asked.

  It was all he said.

  He figured it was all he needed to say.

  “You bastard,” the man whispered, broken and bleeding.

  Calisto didn’t react—that word didn’t hurt him.

  “Affonso made me the bastard, remember?” Calisto smiled, knowing damn well it looked cruel. “I’ll ask one more time, and if you don’t give me an answer, one that satisfies me, I will let Connor continue his work. I think by now, you probably know he enjoys this … art.”

  The man on the chains flinched, his gaze watery and pained. Spittle and vomit clung to his lips. He stunk of piss, sweat, and blood.

  He wasn’t dead yet, though.

  “Why?” Calisto repeated quieter. “What did I do for you to try and kill me all those months ago, Ray?”

  Ray stared at him hard, defiant as ever. The man stayed quiet.

  Calisto knew that he was going to have to rid his life of people like Ray. Men who were loyal to Affonso and would look twice at him when he stood in his uncle’s spot.

  Men who clearly wanted him dead.

  Ray, though, had asked for this.

  After all he caused Calisto to lose with the accident that took away his memories, the man deserved this.

  “Fine,” Calisto said with a sigh, taking a step away from Ray and handing the knife back to Connor. “I will see you in a few hours—”

  “Because you didn’t deserve him,” Ray spat.

  Calisto hesitated, his hand high to hand the knife over. He dropped his hand to his side, still holding the weapon tightly. “What did you say?”

  “Affonso—you’re his boy, his blood. He loved you, no matter how awful you were to him. And you didn’t deserve even an ounce of what he was trying to give you, Calisto. You are, like you have always been, the spoiled little bastard of a whore. He needed to see you for what you were … nothing.”

  Instead of reacting, Calisto took a breath to calm his inner rage. “And yet, he tried to kill me anyway—he didn’t need me once he had Cross, right? So the point you tried to make, Ray, was useless. Affonso never really loved me, not like you thought, obviously.”

  Ray opened his mouth to speak, but Calisto was already turning away, done with the entire scene.

  “One more question,” Calisto said as he handed the knife to Connor.

  “What?” Ray spat out.

  “Who killed Father Day? Which one of you killed my priest?”

  Ray started laughing—bleak and weak. “Me. I killed the fucking fool. Affonso asked me to do it—I didn’t ask why.”

  Good enough.

  Calisto gave Connor a tight smile. “Make it hurt?”

  Connor offered a pleased grin right back. “Every last second.”

  Turning back to Ray with his knife in hand, Connor began humming again.

  As Calisto reached for the door, Ray’s screams started to echo once more.

  He finally recognized the tune Connor was humming, though.

  London Bridge is falling down …

  Emma

  Affonso was unhappy.

  And unhappy Affonso made for a quiet, awkward dinner with his people.

  Emma almost wished she could feel sorry for her husband, but she found that she felt very little for the man at all. It was hard to care for someone who only used you, after all.

  If it weren’t for her son sitting in Affonso’s lap, sucking on his thumb and curled against the man’s arm like he was comfortable there, Emma would have sneaked out of the dinner party long ago. Using the excuse that Cross needed to feed and be put down for a nap always worked, but the baby was currently happy and content in Affonso’s embrace as people chatted around the table.

  She refused to call Affonso her baby’s father.

  Everyone else did.

  Everyone else believed it, too.

  Emma knew better.

  “Any news, boss?” a man asked down the way.

  Affonso frowned into his glass of whiskey. He’d been drinking a hell of a lot more lately, though it really wasn’t a new development. He’d always drank, it just seemed like he was partaking more often, and with more gusto. Emma just tried to stay the fuck out of his drunken way when he was in a mood.

  “No,” Affonso said.

  “Ray would—”

  “Don’t speak his name.”

  Emma stiffened in her chair at the sudden vehemence and rage coating Affonso’s tone. He didn’t once look up from his glass, but he didn’t have to. She could plainly see his anger ticking in his jaw as his muscles in his neck worked over and over.

  Ray hadn’t been around.

  It was hard to ignore Ray’s almost-constant presence was suddenly … gone. Affonso didn’t talk about it, not a single word. Men came and went, asking about the underboss, only to have their boss brush them off in one of his many drunken spiels.

  Tonight was clearly going to be no exception to that new rule.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Emma caught Affonso watching her again like he had been doing a lot l
ately. Maybe the man was more paranoid than normal. It probably didn’t help that she’d come home two weeks before with no enforcer following her, and only a single red dress in a shopping bag.

  He must have lost me, Emma had said when questioned.

  The red one looked the best, she said when Affonso complained about the dress.

  She could tell, just by the way he had narrowed his gaze at her, that he didn’t believe a word she had told him the day she came home after being with Calisto. But what could her husband say, exactly? There were no obvious marks on her body to say she had been with someone else. He had no reason to suspect she had lost her enforcer on purpose when she had never done anything of the sort before that day. And she had come home with a dress, after all, just like he’d demanded. She couldn’t help it if the dress wasn’t to his satisfaction.

  Still, Affonso watched her.

  Surveying her words. Monitoring her actions. Checking her behavior.

  It wasn’t anything new, to be sure, but it still unnerved Emma like nothing else. She hid how uncomfortable it made her with false smiles and useless chatter.

  She wasn’t the only person her husband watched, though. No one was above Affonso’s suspicions lately.

  Emma supposed it didn’t help that whenever he seemed to have visitors, letters kept showing up in all sorts of places.

  Letters she took the time to read.

  Letters that laid out each one of his lies.

  Letters that only one person was supposed to have.

  Affonso went into a paranoid fit every time another one of Calisto’s letters showed up. No one was safe from his suspicions, but he almost always overlooked Emma. She believed that was because her husband was trying to hide what was happening.

  Why would he want her to know Calisto was alive?

  A hopeless wife was better for Affonso’s manipulations.

  It was just too damn bad her husband was to stuck in his own head to realize the truth.

  No one was safe to Affonso.

  Least of all, her.

  “Emma?” came a voice at her side.

  Emma turned to the Capo beside her, and smiled at the familiar face. “Wolf. Are you enjoying the dinner?”

  The man chuckled. “A little awkward.”

  “I only guarantee the meal, not the company.”

  “The meal is wonderful,” he said, smiling just a little. “I have something for you, a gift.”

  Emma’s brow furrowed. “A gift?”

  “Of sorts.”

  “Oh?”

  “Apparently, I am just returning it back to its owner, but he asked me to thank you for leaving it with him for a while. He said it helped.”

  Emma didn’t have a clue what Wolf was talking about until she watched his hand disappear into his suit jacket pocket, and reappear with a familiar poker chip. He quickly lowered his hand, hiding the chip from view.

  “Cal?” she whispered.

  Wolf nodded, placing the chip in her hand under the safety of the table. “You have allies everywhere, Emma, and not all of us need to know why.”

  She wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  But she grabbed tightly to the poker chip, and felt a little safer.

  It wasn’t long before the party moved from the dining room to the living room and other areas of the Donati home. Emma kept one eye on her husband, and the other on her son. Affonso still refused to let the child go as he drank and milled about with his guests.

  She was so distracted with her focus, that she almost missed the change in the room when it first came.

  Almost.

  The night had mostly gone along well, as the majority of Affonso’s dinner parties did. He liked having his people around him, making him feel like the king he believed he was.

  A pin could have dropped on the other side of the large home, and she would have heard it. Heads turned all at once, quickly taking notice of the men entering the party without so much as a greeting or a welcome.

  At the very front, heading them all, was Calisto and another man.

  Emma froze on the spot, unsure of what she was seeing. If the shock on Affonso’s face, and those around him were any indication, he hadn’t been expecting Calisto’s entrance, either.

  “No hello for me, zio?” Calisto asked quietly, a smirk etched onto his hard features.

  Emma wasn’t quite sure what to do, but she found herself doing what the others in the room were—looking from one man to the other, waiting for something to happen.

  The whispers started just as fast.

  Where had Calisto been?

  What was happening?

  The Irish?

  It was only then that Emma took another look at the man standing beside Calisto. Wearing an all black suit and a cold smile, the reddish-brown haired man nodded at Affonso. She only knew who he was because of the voices talking in hushed murmurs around her.

  Irish.

  O’Neil.

  Connor.

  Boss.

  Emma finally understood what Wolf had meant earlier in the night when he said there were allies all around them.

  “You brought them to my home?” Affonso asked.

  “Isn’t it time we settle this?” Connor asked. “Our little feud has caused a lot of problems, from what I understand.”

  Calisto’s gaze passed over the people, seeking Emma out in the crowd. As quickly as he found her, his eyes flashing with hidden emotion, he was back on the task at hand.

  “I agree,” he said. “This seemed like a good time, uncle.”

  Affonso’s jaw ticked, and he held Cross a bit tighter. Emma couldn’t help but notice how Calisto’s gaze narrowed in on the baby in Affonso’s embrace like he had all he could do not to rip the child from the man’s arms.

  “How is the principe bambino?” Calisto asked.

  The baby prince.

  Emma swallowed thickly, wanting more than anything for her son not to be in the middle of whatever this was. She didn’t even know what it was, but she knew it was bad.

  Or it would be bad.

  “He’s well,” Affonso said. “He’s my son—of course he’s well.”

  Calisto barely reacted to that statement, but Emma saw the way his fist clenched at his side. “It’s time to have that sit-down the Irish have been asking for. Hand the principe over to his mother so that we can talk.”

  “I don’t think so,” Affonso said.

  Connor smiled at Calisto’s side. “My apologies, mate, but it really isn’t an option tonight.”

  Emma glanced around at the people again, wondering what on earth Calisto hoped to accomplish tonight. There were too many people there—someone might talk if things went bad. There was no possible way he could leave—not with her and his son, anyway.

  She realized something else, then.

  He’d leave alive.

  And for now, maybe that was the most important thing.

  Emma could hear the soft murmurs of voices coming from downstairs as she gently pulled the door to Cross’s nursery closed as quietly as she could. The baby boy was exhausted, and more than ready to be put down for the night. Affonso didn’t seem to give a shit if he kept the baby’s schedule or not—especially on a night where he could show the baby off as another one of his prized things for others to be jealous of.

  As she walked back down the hall, she hoped the bit of noise from the party guests downstairs wouldn’t wake the baby. Cross wouldn’t be a very happy child if he lost more sleep than he already had.

  Emma just passed the bathroom on the floor—the one closet to the stairs—when someone snagged her arm in a vise-tight grip, and yanked her into the dark room.

  She didn’t have to ask who it was.

  She didn’t make a fucking noise.

  Just the familiar scent of Calisto as his lips found hers in the dark was enough to tell her everything she needed to know. He lifted her up, and Emma found herself sitting on the edge of the marble counter top.

  They could no
t be more stupid than they were.

  But as his hands pulled her skirt up and her panties down; as he groaned against her lips when his fingers stroked her slit until she was wet and hot on his hand; as his breaths came out hard and fast against her mouth, she found she just didn’t care.

  “Someone from downstairs is going to miss you,” she said along the seam of his mouth.

  Calisto bit down on her lip, making her whine from the sting.

  It hurt, but it felt damn good.

  “He is drunk and distracted. He has an office full of Irishmen, and one of them wants his heart in a fucking pickle jar.”

  Emma swallowed back the moan when Calisto’s thumb stroked her clit. “But you—”

  “Slipped out. This is Connor’s show. I just wanted Ray—Connor gets Affonso. That’s our deal.”

  What?

  Emma wasn’t all too sure what Calisto was trying to tell her.

  “I’ll give Affonso to him if I can, but I have to play by his rules,” Calisto continued, still stroking her pussy with measured, firm swipes of his fingers that already had her soaked and shaking. “And Connor really likes his mind games.”

  “Calisto—”

  “I don’t have a lot of time here.”

  She decided to shut up.

  Really, Emma didn’t have much of an option when she heard the shuffle of Calisto’s pants as he pushed the clothing down. She wished she could see a little better, but the darkness kept them both shrouded. Her senses worked on overtime as his fingers bit into her thighs, spreading her legs wider until her thighs fucking burned.

  “Jesus,” Emma breathed.

  “Stay quiet,” he ordered in her ear.

  She nodded.

  His whispered I love you was the only thing she heard when the head of his cock slid along the slickness of her slit. He flexed his hips forward, and filled her full instantly. A soft ache thrummed through her bloodstream as he stretched her open, giving her no time to adjust or prepare.

  She really didn’t want it.

  Emma’s one hand grabbed the edge of the counter as Calisto’s mouth found hers in the darkness again. He fucked her hard enough that the small bottles on the counter rattled, though that was the only noise between her gasping breaths and his soft whispers.