I Buried The Don And Took His Throne Chapter 08
The Letter I Let Out
The coronation dust settles and I put those two out of my mind.
But I forget one thing. Rats don’t stop being rats.
Bianca isn’t going to stop trying to climb up a man’s belt to save herself, not even in the basement.
She’s got one thing left — a gold hair pin tucked into her curls. Marco gave it to her the first month they were sleeping together.
She palms it into an old guard’s hand between the bars.
“Please. Get this to my brother Enzo. If I ever get out of here, you’ll be set for life. I swear on my mother.”
Her voice is still that same soft little tremble.
On that thin, wrecked face of hers, it works even better than it used to. Any man would fold.
The old guard pockets the pin, runs his eyes up and down her, nods.
Every word gets back to me the same night, through my own guys watching the watchers.
I’m at my vanity when the report comes in, cleaning an old switchblade — the one I used the night I crawled into that Bratva safehouse for Marco a life ago.
The blade catches my eyes in it. Cold.
“Let her send it.”
I say it flat. “Not only let it out — put my guys on it. Make sure it gets into Enzo Russo’s hand personally.”
The runner nods and disappears.
Dante walks in from the next room, plucks the blade out of my fingers, frowns.
“Thing’s too sharp. You’ll cut yourself.”
He tosses it onto the dresser.
I look at him. Half a smile.
“You want to see something fun?”
“Bianca thinks you’re going to fall for the same tear-in-the-eye routine that worked on your brother.”
“She’s already planning to break out of the basement and ‘accidentally’ bump into you in the garden.”
Dante snorts. Grabs my chin. His eyes go dark and mean.
“She thinks she’s worthy?”
He leans down to my ear, his breath hot against my skin. “But I’ll play along. Whatever my Donna wants, my Donna gets.”
—
Three days later. Garden.
At my signal, the guards look the other way. Bianca slips out of the basement.
She’s dug up a plain white sundress from somewhere, washed pale from too many years in a closet. No makeup. Hair down.
The wind pushes her one way and she almost falls, like a dying white rose.
She’s clocked Dante’s morning walk to the letter.
She drops to her knees right in his path and lets herself sway sideways into the gravel. “Oh —”
Perfect little gasp. She looks up, eyes already wet.
Those wet eyes lock onto Dante like he’s water in a desert. “Sir… I’m so sorry, sir.”
That performance could win an Oscar.
Two lives running, this was the exact face that had Marco eating out of her palm.
Dante stops walking and looks down at her without saying a word. Then he steps off the path and walks toward her, slow and deliberate.
Something greedy flashes in Bianca’s eyes.
Here we go. Another man ready to fall at her feet.
She tugs the neckline of the dress down half an inch to show the line of her collarbone.
The next second, that shoe grinds down on the back of her hand.
“AH —!” She screams.
Dante presses down harder, face totally blank, voice dry as ice. “Filthy piece of trash. You think you get to dirty the path I walk on?”
Dante lifts his foot. Bianca thinks it’s over.
The next second, Dante uses the same shoe — the one he just crushed her hand with — to tip her chin up.
Looks down at her like she’s a bug on his floor.
“You honestly think you compare to a single hair on my Donna’s head?”
Every drop of color drains out of Bianca’s face.
Every fantasy she’s been running in her head about seducing the new Don shatters at once.
“No — no, Don, I — I —”
She’s shaking so hard her teeth are chattering.
I step out from behind the hedge, red silk dress, heels clicking on the flagstones.
“Baby. Don’t waste your breath on garbage.”
Bianca sees me and physically recoils, like she’s seen a ghost.
I crouch down in front of her and pick up the folded letter that fell out of her sleeve.
“Little SOS to your brother? Very moving. Made me tear up.”
I unfold it. Wave it in her face. “Relax. Your dear brother got the original hours ago.”
Her pupils snap tight. It finally lands for her. “You… you —”
“Me what?” I twist the heavy gold ring on my thumb.
“I helped you mail it, honey. That deadweight brother of yours is riding out to the compound right now with every button man he could scrape up.”
“Coming to save you. Cleanse the Family of the wicked Donna. All of it.”
Her whole body starts shaking. Not fear anymore. Pure horror.
She finally gets it. This is a trap. Cut and stitched to fit her family like a coffin.
I stand and throw the letter into the koi pond.
“The half of the Crestwell crew Marco handed to Enzo — that was mine to begin with.”
“Time to take it back.”
Right on cue, one of my captains comes jogging up the path.
“Donna. Enzo Russo just rolled up on the front gate with thirty guys. Says he’s here to save the Vitale and his sister from you.”
I turn toward the front of the compound. The smile on my face goes very, very cold.
“Open the gate.”
“Let him walk right in.”