Chapter 6

6

Creed

O nce we find out who’s responsible for Carmine’s death, we need to carefully plan our revenge.

Don’t lash out impulsively.

Everyone better keep their heads nice and cool, especially with the gun charges already hanging over our heads.

Those were my words, spoken to not just Dre, Tristan, and Lorenzo, but dozens of my hot-headed men over the last few days.

Days passed by in a blur as I held a service, laid my brother to rest, and had to endure the endless line of people offering their sympathy when the only thing I wanted to do was get drunk, crawl into a hole somewhere, and never come out.

I couldn’t even shed a fucking tear for him, at least not in public. Dons don’t cry or show any sign of weakness. That shit isn’t allowed. So, I stuffed my feelings of loss down deep to deal with later. Right now, I’m just angry .

So angry that the day after I buried my brother, I’m standing in the middle of a tiny apartment in Queens with another don’s dead son at my feet. His knife still jutting out of my thigh, and a beautiful, completely naked witness staring up at me like I’m not a murderous monster, but her new hero and savior.

Goddamn her!

Why did she have to be involved in this shit? If she hadn’t set everything in motion, we never would’ve gone to The Vault that night, and Carmine would still be alive.

And my brother was wrong about what’s in her panties; she has a pretty little pussy, not big, brass balls.

Jesus. Between my grief, fury, and lack of sleep, I know I’m not firing on all cylinders. I should’ve gone home after finding her at the grocery store, not stalked the parking lot for an hour before following Zara back to her apartment.

But there was something in my gut, telling me she was going to be the key to proving it was Izaiah Rovina and his father who came at me through the club raid.

And I was right.

I have her phone with the text messages from Izaiah and the recorded audio of his confession before he tried to kill her.

So why didn’t I let him slit her throat?

She deserves to be punished for the part she played in my brother’s death. It’s not something I can ever forgive or forget.

My father would’ve put her and Izaiah down as soon as he saw the texts. He never hesitated to take out anyone who got in his way or threatened his livelihood, not even my own mother, the love of his life.

She stupidly thought the three of us would be safe in witness protection after she took my father’s money, ratted him and his men out to the feds, and ran off. She was wrong.

I still remember the day my father came for us. I’ve never seen him so goddamn furious. He was like a tornado, blowing through the house, smashing and destroying every object in his path until he found the three of us hiding in the attic.

After he unloaded those bullets into her body, he asked me and Carmine if we understood why she had to die. I gave a nod of understanding, even though I didn’t really know why. I was still in shock at his violent attack on the woman who loved and raised us, who I knew he had once loved. I saw them together every single day. There was no other way to describe their relationship. My father loved my mother and would’ve done anything for her. Still, he killed her when she betrayed him.

I’ve never killed a woman in cold blood, and I’m not entirely sure I could.

Now, here I am with Izaiah dead, and Zara a fucking witness to his murder.

Not that I will ever regret killing him.

That fucker admitted he was responsible for the raid. He deserved what he got for killing Carmine and Jasper. I just hate that I had to do it so swiftly, right in front of Zara, giving her the power to end my life as I know it.

My freedom lies in the hands of an odd woman, who I’m almost certain aided an armed robber earlier tonight.

And if I let her live, she can never leave my sight. I can’t have her run off to the police and tell them what I’ve done, or worse, go tell Emilio Rovina I killed his oldest son before I find evidence he ordered Izaiah to set up the raid.

I hate I didn’t get Izaiah to confess to his father’s role before ending him. Maybe there will be messages from Emilio in Izaiah’s phone. If he was involved, he’s dead too. I’ll just have to be much smarter about his death if I want to avoid a mafia war. And being smarter means having solid proof he’s guilty to show the other families.

But that’s a problem for another day .

Right now, I’ve got a huge mess to clean up or else I’ll end up serving a life sentence in prison.

“Now what?” Zara’s voice sounds way too calm. I expected crying or screaming, not a simple question. One I don’t have the answer to yet.

“Now I have to figure out what the fuck to do with him. And by the way, I have your phone, so there’s no way for you to call the police.”

Without hesitating, she says, “I don’t want to call the police.”

“Right.”

“I know who his father is, and I don’t want that even bigger piece of shit to find out his son died in my apartment. We have to get him out of here, then clean everything fast.”

She talks about Emilio like she knows him personally. What the hell is her connection to the Rovinas? And why is she so blasé about Izaiah’s murder?

I’ll figure that out later.

First, I need to deal with my impulsive, idiotic decision. “Well, this obviously wasn’t the ideal location for a hit. Removing him without any residents or the apartment cameras noticing is going to be…challenging,” I say, mostly to myself.

Eying the deceased man with lips pursed as if she’s annoyed more by the inconvenience of his death than his loss of life, the naked woman says, “There are two cameras at the front of the building, so we could put him in trash bags, roll him up in the rug that’s ruined anyway…and send him down the trash chute.”

“Whoa. What? You want me to just throw him down the fucking trash chute like garbage?”

“Yes. Fitting for him, right?” she replies coolly. “The landlord is too cheap for a compactor, so you don’t have to worry about that. You can drive around back where there are no cameras that I know of, prop open the door, and fish him out of the dumpster. Unless you have a better idea that can get rid of him within the next few minutes?”

There has to be a better idea, but I’m not coming up with anything right now. Probably because she’s still kneeling on the floor buck-ass naked with the heaviest, most delicious pair of swaying tits I’ve ever seen.

I haven’t been alone in the same room with a naked woman in over a year, much less one on her knees. My tightening pants are causing a huge distraction that I sure as shit don’t need at the moment.

As if suddenly remembering her nudity herself, or more likely because she caught me staring at her tits, Zara slaps one arm over her chest and the other over her lap. “I’m going to put some clothes on while you make a decision.”

“No.” The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it. And since I’m still waving my gun around in my hand, it sounds like a command. Grasping for a valid reason to keep her beautiful body bare a little bit longer, I tell her, “You’re going to help me get him out of here and clothes are just more evidence we’ll have to destroy later.”

We? Fuck. I’m not sure when this turned into a team effort, but since I can’t bring myself to put a bullet in her head, I guess…I guess we’re in this together now.

Besides, I have her phone in my pants pocket, so she can’t call anyone. If she tries to run, I’m certain I can chase her down.

And if she’s naked, it’s an even bigger incentive for her not to take off running down the streets of New York. Although, I would give up my new Lamborghini Urus for a chance to watch her run a naked mile.

Either my reasoning is solid enough, or I look threatening enough, that Zara doesn’t get up from the floor.

“Are you going to do something about that knife sticking out of your leg?” she asks rather than argue about the lack of clothing .

“If I pull the knife out, I’m going to bleed everywhere, leaving behind more of my DNA.”

“I have an idea. May I get up?”

“Yes,” I agree, thoroughly enjoying this power dynamic where she asks my permission. I’m certain that the longer a man goes without sex, the stupider he becomes around women. At least, that much is true in my case. “Don’t even think about trying to bolt, though. I can run you down, even with the knife.”

Nodding, Zara pushes herself to her feet, then literally tiptoes over, the soles of her feet never touching the floor, to pick up her discarded towel. I’m about to protest her putting it on and hiding her lovely curves when she says, “Could you jump over him?”

Jump over him , she asks, casually referring to the corpse like he’s an ordinary obstruction.

She is by far the oddest woman I’ve ever met, and this is the strangest fucking encounter of my entire life. Those two things are increasingly becoming reasons why I think I want to keep her rather than kill her.

Certain Izaiah is good and dead, I flip the safety on my gun, shove it in the back of my pants, and step over his prone form. Lifting and lowering my left foot sends jolts of pain through my entire limb that I have to grit my teeth to get through. Instead of the discomfort, I focus on following Zara’s lead, staying on my toes until I clear the blood pooling around him on the rug, careful not to get any on my shoes.

Once I’m clear of the corpse, she grabs the towel she was wearing and kneels on the floor again within touching distance, her face directly in front of my crotch.

“What are you doing?” I ask her, confused, about to take a step back before I remember the corpse.

“Studying the wound. I’m going to pull the knife out, then quickly wrap the towel around your leg so it won’t bleed everywhere. You can move easier without it, right? ”

Oh. Knife removal makes much more sense than a blowjob at this particular moment in time. I can literally feel the stupid growing stronger within me.

I need to get my head out of the gutter and take my eyes off her tits before the distraction kills me. This is certainly not the time or place to be horny.

“Well?”

“Fine. Do it fast,” I tell her while staring up at the ceiling. I’m not sure why I trust she won’t remove the knife then immediately stab me in the dick, but I do. Probably because I know she needs my help hauling the dead body out of her apartment. Without me, she would have two to dispose of.

Before this rash decision, I’ve always been meticulous and strategic to avoid mistakes, never making assumptions, which is the opposite of this quick-thinking woman’s plans that have plans so far tonight.

I’m not entirely sure if her ideas are even good ones, but since time is of the essence, I’m willing to follow her lead. For now, at least, until all my blood returns to my brain so it can work at full strength again. I’m used to being the one everyone turns to for orders that I find it’s nice to have someone else helping call the shots for once. That shit gets exhausting.

Zara wraps her fingers around the hilt of the knife still protruding from my thigh and I tell her, “For a moment, I thought you might warn Piece of Shit that I was in the bathroom when you let him in the apartment.”

She nods. “For a moment, I thought you might let Piece of Shit kill me to save yourself the trouble,” she replies right before she yanks the knife free.

I clench my teeth through the pain as she wraps the thin, frayed beach towel around my leg, then ties the ends tightly over the wound .

“That should hold it for a while. At least he didn’t hit anything vital. The wounds look small, the bleeding minimal.”

The bleeding is just getting started.

Izaiah Rovina declared war with the Ferraro family when he came after me and my brother. Now, if or when Emilio finds out I killed him, it could be a catastrophic feud where all five families are forced to choose sides.

After years of doing everything in my power to keep the peace, I knew it was only a matter of time before something like this would eventually happen. But if it had been me who Izaiah killed, Carmine probably would’ve done the same thing. I’d like to think Dre would have, too, if the raid killed me and Carmine both.

Izaiah drew blood first, and now I have the recording on my phone of his confession. Evidence that could come in handy if this bites me in the ass. I’ll only use it if necessary. If I’m careful, I can minimize the fallout. Make it look like Izaiah disappeared because he got scared after he failed to kill me.

I’ll have to pretend like everything is fine with Emilio until I can prove he gave Izaiah the orders to take me and Carmine out. I don’t see Izaiah being ambitious enough to try for the seat at the head of the Council table. His father though…

That son of a bitch was trying his best to convince me to marry his daughter, to solidify our alliance through future generations, telling me it’s what my father wanted.

It was all bullshit. Hell, I thought our alliance was rock solid.

My brother was right. I would’ve been crazy to marry the viper bitch. There’s nothing in that deal that would benefit me. It could’ve been Emilio’s plan to have Stella kill me this whole time.

Part of me wants to go tell him I killed his son and blow his head off right now for taking Carmine.

But I have to play this smarter than Emilio.

And I’ll need to do it fast, since the gun charges from the raid are hanging over my head. I wasn’t planning on adding first- degree murder to my rap sheet, but when Izaiah held a knife to Zara’s throat, I didn’t have a choice.

I was standing in the bathroom, recording his confession, willing to wait it out to make his death look like an accident when he attacked her. It felt like I was drowning in the blurred haze of my fury, and something inside of me just fucking snapped.

Izaiah was a dead man before he even ripped her towel off. That piece of shit never deserved the right to touch this woman, and he sure as shit doesn’t get to fuck her.

Why did she even let him in her life to begin with?

When Zara stands up in front of me, she’s tall for a woman, but the top of her head only comes up to my chest. “What’s someone like you doing with a guy like Izaiah Rovina anyway?”

“It’s not like I ever wanted to be…involved with him.” She scowls over at his body. “It just sort of happened one day.”

“Is he an ex-boyfriend or what?”

She shakes her head. “Not really. He was a manipulative bastard who knew what buttons of mine to push to get whatever he wanted.”

That doesn’t sound like a consensual relationship, but more like he was blackmailing her. A tiny smidge of my anger at her dissolves.

“We should start cleaning up, or he’s going to bleed through to the floor,” she points out.

“One more question before we bag him and roll him up.”

Her cautious eyes lift to mine, and she crosses her arms over her chest impatiently. “Okay?”

“Earlier, back at the store, did you wish an armed robber a good night and tell him to drive safe?”

Her eyes widen. “You saw that? How?”

“I was watching you. I even considered intervening when I saw the gun,” I admit. “Despite the fact you got my brother killed.”

What is it about this woman that made me throw my body on hers without thinking when there was gunfire, wanting to save her from a gunman, and now…this mess with Izaiah?

Zara winces and drops her arms. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t intervene. Eugene is a regular. He’s just a kid.”

“A regular…customer or robber?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve never reported him to the store or to the police?”

“No. He’s only seventeen, and he’s raising his two little sisters. I just gather products that are about to expire to give to him.”

The fact she didn’t run to the police about an armed robber but instead decided to help him on a weekly basis makes me worry a tiny bit less about her turning me in.

Then again, murder and a few bags of expired products aren’t in the same league.

“I’m not going to go to the police,” she says as if reading my mind. “In fact, how about after we get him down the chute, we load him up in your car and then just forget this all happened? You go…do whatever you need to with him, and I’ll go to sleep. I won’t ever tell a soul. Besides, I’ll be an accomplice after I help carry him out of here, right?”

Zara’s naivety is actually cute as she stands before me all confident and sexy, pressing her tits together on purpose. In fact, there’s surprisingly only a faint hint of fear showing in her cat-like green eyes.

“This isn’t something we can pinkie promise about and go our separate ways. You know I can’t let you walk away now, micetta mia .” I inwardly cringe after the words roll off my tongue.

She shivers, making me feel like a dick for refusing to give her clothes. Slipping off my jacket, I remove my phone from the inner pocket, then hold it out for her to take. It’s already evidence, and I can’t think with her so close to me, naked.

“Thanks” She shoves her arms through the sleeves, as if she genuinely appreciates the gesture. She’s an unusual girl. And I hate that she’s covered up all that tempting ivory skin, but it’s for the best. “So then, what happens next? After the cleanup?”

“I’m still figuring that out.” I unfasten my cuffs and roll up my sleeves. What the hell am I going to do with her? There’s no one I can even ask, since I don’t want any of my men to know Izaiah Rovina is dead.

When I’m done securing both of my sleeves, I watch Zara button the front of my jacket. And damn, I like the way she looks in my coat that swallows her whole, brushing her knees, leaving only her lower legs bare. She’s sexy as hell in my jacket and nothing else over her succulent breasts and incredible ass that I haven’t gotten a chance to examine close enough.

I clear my throat. “For now, let’s get him out of here. I’ll worry about his car tomorrow. Grab some trash bags while I retrieve his keys and phone.”

Zara inhales a deep breath. “Oh shit!”

“What?” I ask in concern. Her outburst is so sudden and unexpected, given she’s been calm this far. Maybe it’s finally hitting her that he’s dead…

“You sent him messages from my phone, right? Even if we delete them, won’t there be records on the cloud or from the phone company the police can get?”

“Yes,” I answer honestly as I go over to search Izaiah’s pockets.

“Fucking A!” she mutters. My lips twitch, despite the current circumstances. The swear word sounds hilarious coming from the twenty-something, innocent-looking, Shirley Temple.

“So, it’s a good thing I employ some cyber geniuses. They can hopefully make the messages permanently disappear.”

“And if they can’t and the police suspect me?” she asks. “Oh, right. You would absolutely kill me to prevent me from talking to the cops.”

“One step at a time. Now find us some trash bags.” I pocket his car keys and begin to scroll through his unlocked phone.