Gifted To The Don The Real Mafia Heiress Returns Chapter 07
The Menu
The door opens. Dante walks in — steady, controlled — and stops at the foot of the bed.
“Need anything?”
I keep teasing the canary. Barely glance at him.
“Hungry.”
Ten minutes later, half the kitchen is on the dining table.
Lobster. Truffle. Every plate a little masterpiece.
Dante serves me himself. Uses a separate fork for every dish. Puts each piece in my bowl like he’s setting a diamond.
I take two bites. Set the fork down.
“No appetite.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. “I’ll have the kitchen redone.”
“Don’t bother.”
I dab my mouth, stand and walk to the window.
Three days of healing. The cuts have scabbed over. A raised, ugly line crawls down half my face now.
“I want to see something…appetizing.”
Quiet. Dante gets it instantly.
His head snaps up. “On it.”
—
The basement.
Three days without light. The great and mighty of my adoptive family — and that Camilla — look worse than street dogs.
Camilla — hair matted, dried blood on her chin — spits when she sees me.
“Bella, you bitch — my father — my father will bury you—”
Vivienne has lost every scrap of the polished heiress. She crawls at me on hands and knees, snot on her chin.
“Bella. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We’re sisters, Bella, please—”
Salvatore has wet himself again. Trembling too hard to form a sentence.
I look down at them like I’m reading a menu.
“Camilla.” I touch the scab on my cheek. “When you cut me, you said I didn’t deserve the mark.”
“Vivienne.” I turn to her. “When you threw me at him, you said nobody would even claim my body.”
Then Salvatore. The man who taught me the word home when I was at my most desperate time.
“Salvatore. When you handed her the knife — did you ever think, even once, that I never wanted your goddamn family?”
Camilla is still screaming.
“You’re nothing! You’re just some — some whore he brought in as a toy!”
I turn to Dante at my shoulder.
“Dante. Assault on a made man’s lady, in a Ricci house. What does the book say.”
Dante tilts his head.
Small, cold smile. “Their entire families. Root and branch.”
“Root and branch.” I laugh softly. Shake my head. “No. Too loud.”
“Three heads. That’s all.”
I raise three fingers.
“Senator Ambrosio. He’s dirty from the ground up. I want every ledger. Put him in a cell where he can watch what happens to his daughter through the bars.”
“The Morettis. Skimming Family money for a decade. Time for new management at the estate.”
Last, I look at Vivienne. Her eyes are enormous.
“As for you, sweetheart…”
I smile wider.
“You wanted to marry Lorenzo Colombo, didn’t you?”
“Carve her up. Keep her breathing. Send what’s left to my dear cousin’s doorstep in a box.”
“Tell him it’s a gift from me. A congratulations. For the day he takes his father’s seat.”
Dante inclines his head.”Yes, Miss Colombo.”
He turns. Draws. One motion — clean, professional, silver.
Three heads on the concrete.
Blood sprays across the hem of my nightgown.
Dante gathers the heads himself. Presents them to me on both hands, like a boy bringing his mother a fistful of dandelions.
I don’t look down.
I look east. Toward the Colombo main estate — the house that used to be my father’s. Toward the cousin who thinks he’s going to inherit what his father stole.
I touch the mark between my brows.
“Dante. Think Lorenzo will sleep tonight, after he opens my little present?”