Page 27 of The Gangster King

“Yeah. Fuck. Poor girl.” Mack shakes his head. “You did good, Brax. Remember that.”

“Yeah, but Dante is still a free man.”

I study Braxton as he stares at the floor. There’s a question I want answering. One I don’t think anyone has.

But I ask it anyway.

“Why didn’t he shoot you?”

––––––––

BRAXTON

––––––––

Why didn’t he shoot me?

Good fucking question.

That moment has played out in my head a million times in the past week and a half.

When I asked Gianna, she was no fucking help.

“My family isn’t all murderers!” she snapped.

Well, yes, they are. But she’s grieving for her father and desperately wants her mother, so I zip my lips. Now isn’t the time to be talking bad about them, and I need to respect that.

We need to find him.

We need him behind bars.

He doesn’t know who I am, but he’ll soon find out. I betrayed his family and caused the death of his father. He isn’t going to forgive me for that. As the new don of the Baldassare crime family, he’ll want me dead.

But when he learns I’ve married his sister, he won’t be able to kill me—technically—and he’ll be even more furious.

There will be no hiding from them unless I ask Gianna to never see her family again.

I haven’t decided.

So yeah, that’s keeping me awake.

But I don’t know why he didn’t kill me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DANTE

––––––––

So, I kidnapped Adelina.

I guess that’s what this is. She keeps using the term. I’m calling it pre-wedding jitters.

Not that she knows we are getting married. But we are.

One step at a time, though.

Despite being in a different part of the house, I can hear the echoes of her banging and screaming and I clench my teeth.