Gifted To The Don The Real Mafia Heiress Returns Chapter 04
The Carving
The hairpin punches into the skin above my brow. I hear the tear before I feel it.
Blood runs hot down my nose, into my eye, into my mouth.
Camilla doesn’t stop.
She grips the pin and drags it down.
“This face doesn’t deserve that mark.”
Vivienne’s nails sink into my shoulders, keeping me pinned.
She’s shaking with excitement. “Miss Ambrosio — you didn’t get all of it! The mark’s still there!”
Camilla laughs, sets the pin against my forehead again and starts tracing the outline of the mark like she’s peeling a piece of fruit.
I taste blood but I don’t scream.
Salvatore is three steps away. Ash-gray. Not moving an inch.
Camilla glances over her shoulder at him. “Salvatore. That blade on the table. Bring it.”
He hesitates for one heartbeat.
Vivienne shrieks, “Dad! Give it to her! You cross Camilla, you cross Dante, we all die!”
His hands shake. At the end, he picks up the knife — long, thin, wickedly sharp — and hands it to Camilla.
I watch his hands.
Years ago these hands trembled when they touched my hair. “Bella, sweetheart. You’re home. Papa’s got you. Nobody’s ever gonna hurt you again.”
I grew up in a house where nobody said sweetheart to a girl for free.
When Salvatore said it, I actually believed him. I made him my one anchor. I let his house become my home.
And now these same hands are handing over the knife.
Camilla takes it. The blade catches the light.
“A bastard whore. If you die tonight, not one person on earth cares.”
She crouches, sets the edge against my left cheekbone and drags it down.
Skin splits. More hot rope of blood runs down my jaw and hits the red silk.
Vivienne grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking my face up. “Sis. Just scream. Scream and maybe she’ll stop.”
Camilla throws her head back and laughs. “Screaming won’t help.”
She stands, grinding her heel into the back of my hand until the knuckles pop.
“He’s been looking six years. Six years. And you — some Moretti garbage in painted-on makeup — you thought you’d walk in and play his girl?”
She leans down close.
“Where did you hear about the mark? Who told you?”
I look up at her. Blood in one eye. My mouth curves.
“My mark goes pretty deep, huh.”
She tilts her head. Smiles sweetly.
“That’s okay. If I can’t scrape it out, I’ll just cut the whole patch of skin off your face.”
Vivienne squeals. “Ooh — Miss Ambrosio, do the whole face! So she can’t try this again on anybody else!”
Salvatore nods like a bobblehead. “Yes yes yes, whatever Miss Ambrosio wants.”
The blade comes down again. Blood splashes across the marble like dark red flowers blooming.
A sound scrapes out of my throat. Small. Involuntary.
Camilla stands back to admire her work.
“Somebody grab the salt. The good kind. Coarse.”
Salvatore walks to the sideboard, gets the salt cellar, and brings it to her personally.
She grinds a fistful into the cuts.
My whole body arches off the floor. But I clamp my teeth down and I laugh.
“Keep going. Harder you push, faster you die.”
Camilla’s face contorts. She slaps me.
“You bitch. Still running your mouth.”
She raises the knife over what’s left of the mark between my brows.
“This time, I finish it—”
**BOOM.**
The double doors don’t open.
They explode inward, ripped off the hinges, and slam into the wall so hard the plaster cracks.
Night wind. Cordite. The smell of blood on wool.
A tall figure fills the doorway, backlit.
Black three-piece. Gun at the hip. Face carved out of ice.
Camilla drops the knife and runs to him, voice pitching up into breathy-baby register.
“Dante — Babe — thank God you’re home. This girl — she was pretending to have her mark. I was just teaching her, for you—”
Salvatore’s forehead is glued to the marble.
“Don Ricci! My youngest doesn’t know her place! But the bastard here, she deserves — the Moretti family will accept whatever punishment—”
Vivienne pipes up: “Don Ricci, I’m the one who caught her faking!”
Dante hears none of it.
His eyes go past them, past all of them, finally land on me.
His face goes white in layers — like paint stripping.
His hands start to shake. The gun slips loose in his holster.
Silence. The kind that eats sound.
I lift my head. Blood still in my teeth. And I smile up at him — slow, cold, contemptuous.
“Don Ricci. You keep quite the pack of obedient dogs.”