Page 152 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

“Is he going to be okay?” Raff asked behind me. I swallowed, pressing my lips together. Honestly, I wasn’t sure.

Looking over my shoulder, I met Aleksandr’s gaze. “Where’s my mamma? Cecilia?”

“She’s safe,” he answered. “I made sure of it.”

I swallowed and nodded. I didn’t know what the hell to make of this, but somehow I knew he wasn’t lying.

Aleksandr stepped in front of Sean and crouched so their faces were level. “There’s a man on his way here who has waited a long time to end you. Enjoy your last few hours of comfort, McKenna, because I’ll be handing you over to a monster with a pretty bow on top.”

All the colour drained from Sean’s face.

Freedom Has A Price

The tyres were still rolling when I threw the car door open. Alessio shouted something behind me, perhaps a warning not to charge into an unknown situation without backup, but I was already out, already running. My boots tore across the gravel driveway, bile rising at the sight of bodies piled at the side of the house. She couldn’t be one of them. No fucking way.

The grand front doors hung splintered from their hinges; glass littered the floor from blown-out ground-floor windows. The mansion was riddled with bullet holes, stitching the ivory walls like ugly constellations. Despite the aftermath of a battle, the silence echoed louder. Each rapid beat of my heart sent a crippling pang of panic through me.

The words from McKenna’s note were like daggers piercing my skin with each passing second.

You still dance when I pull the strings, my boy. Tell me, Monster, do you think she’ll cry out your name… or mine?

“RAYA!”

Her name ripped out of me with raw emotion as I skidded through the doorway at a dead sprint. Blood splattered across the wallpaper; a man’s body still lay on the marble floor, his throat open and eyes clouded.

I should never have left. I’d kissed her goodbye, the taste of her still lingering on my tongue, and promised I’d come back to her. All for what? For McKenna. For the rot and rage and revenge he’d infected my soul with.

He was still winning. He knew I’d come after him and risk it all. He counted on it. He’d built this entire trap on the assumption that I’d never want anything more than I’d want him dead.

It took me until that moment, reading that note, to know that wasn’t true.

“SORAYA!”

I raced through the ground floor, room by room, kicking doors open, shoving or punching any soldier I came across. I didn’t know who they were. Italian or Irish. I didn’t care. I just needed to find her. My heart slammed against my ribs as I tried to prepare myself for the horror of finding her body, or never finding it at all.

Each empty room was a mercy and a fresh wave of despair.

Santino thundered around the house behind me, doing the same. Screaming for his wife, his brother, his sister, his mother, his niece and his nephew. Somewhere further back, Alessio was shouting orders to his men. I barely heard them. Only one word was chanting in my mind, drowning out everything else.

Raya. Raya. Raya.

I couldn’t lose her. She was everything. Not Sean. Not revenge. Not the ghosts of my past. Her. The only person who had ever taken the darkness away. If she were dead… it would be the end of Maddox Moriarty. The world wouldn’t survive the monster left behind.

“Maddox!”

My heart flipped. Her broken, desperate voice echoed through the mansion from a room in the west wing. I followed it as fast as I could, hurtling around the corner just as she stepped out of a private living room.

For a split second, I froze, taking in the sight of her. Her curls and dress were streaked with dried blood, specks across her chest and face. Tears stained her cheeks, and when her hazel eyes met mine, her face crumpled. Her mouth opened around a sob she didn’t have the strength to make. But she was alive.

I ran.

The moment her soft body was in my arms, my face buried in her messy hair, I let myself breathe, squeezing my eyes shut.

I was shaking. I’d never felt fear like this before. Nothing had ever terrified me more than the thought of losing her, of knowing what Sean was capable of doing to her just to break me.

The weight of relief and guilt made my legs buckle, and I sank to my knees on the carpet, my grip on her tight around her waist as I buried my face in her stomach. My heart wouldn’t calm down. Her fingers delved into my hair, anchoring me to her, the only real thing I’d ever had in my life. She chased away my demons with her touch and warmth. She was the only one who could.

“I’m sorry.” The words were wrecked and muffled against her, but I kept repeating them. “I should never have left you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fuckin’ sorry–”