Page 99 of Coerced Kiss

I’m already at the door when she says, “Sav.”

My name on her lips stops me. I hover for a moment, tempted to go back and reassure her, but I harden my heart and shut the door. I lock it from the outside and pocket the key.

The smug grin Giorgio usually greets me with is absent. He watches me from under his eyebrows as he brushes his floppy fringe back with his fingers. “This is a fuckup.”

“What happened?” I ask in a clipped tone, walking ahead of him with long strides.

He catches up when I stop in front of the office.

Opening the door, he says, “See for yourself.”

I cross the threshold and take in the scene. Our manager and his second-in-command lie in a puddle of blood on the floor, their shirts torn from the bullet holes that pepper their chests. Luigi stands at the corner of the desk with pursed lips, his knuckles white around the head of his cane. Raphael leans on the wall with his hands shoved in his pockets.

I narrow my eyes. “What’s he doing here?”

Giorgio closes the door. Pointing at the bodies on the floor, he says, “He shot them.”

My gaze is drawn to a gun with a silencer screwed onto the barrel that lies on the desk.

I pin that fucker, Raphael, with a look even as I direct my question at Luigi. “Did he admit it, or is that what we assume?”

“He took the blame,” Luigi spits out.

“Why?” I ask with a cold smile. “Did they insult the size of your dick, Morelli?”

Raphael shrugs. “I didn’t like them.”

Luigi stamps his cane on the floor and says with a purple face, “You don’t walk in here and shoot my men because you don’t fucking like them.”

“They were doing you in, stealing your money,” Raphael says.

Luigi points his cane with a shaky arm at Raphael. “Then show me the fucking evidence.”

Raphael straightens. “Well, they didn’t literally take your money, but the laziness of these cocksuckers cost you at least fifty grand every quarter.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” Giorgio asks with a small laugh.

Raphael pulls back his shoulders. “I’m saying that they did a half-assed job.”

Giorgio laughs harder. “You’re fucking delusional.”

“These were trusted men.” Luigi takes his gun from his waistband and aims the barrel at Raphael’s head. “Elena’s fiancé or not, what you did deserves justice.”

Not a muscle twitches in Raphael’s face. “You made a mistake in trusting them. This place can bring in double the money.” He advances toward Luigi, walking blood all over the floor. “I can prove it.”

Luigi’s upper lip curls. “How?”

“Put me in charge.”

“Of Obsidian?” Giorgio asks with another disbelieving chuckle.

“Give it a year,” Raphael says, holding Luigi’s furious gaze. “If I don’t double your profits, you can shoot me.”

That sly fucking bastard. I ball my hands into fists, knowing what he’s doing. I’d like nothing more than to shoot a hole in his lung and let him drown in his own blood, but—sadly—he’s engaged to Elena. It’s a family matter now. As Luigi is the wronged party, only he can decide.

Luigi looks at me. “Sav?”

At the fact that his father asked for my opinion and not for his, Giorgio grits his teeth.