The Principessa’s Mafia Trial: From A Stripped Bride To A Crimson Queen Chapter 05
Savino’s Thunder
The courtyard gates crashed inward.
Cain Savino walked through the dust.
He walked in slowly. Twelve armed men in black followed him and spread out across the courtyard.
Cain’s eyes swept the scene. The wine puddles. The shattered bottle. The Falcone soldiers still holding their phones.
Then he saw me.
On my knees. Soaked in red. My grandmother’s gown torn to rags. Blood on my collarbone where the chain had cut.
He crossed the courtyard in four strides.
His black wool coat came off before he even reached me.
He wrapped it around my shoulders, pulled it tight across my chest, and crouched down in front of me.
“Vivian.” His voice was low, but his hands were shaking. “Who did this?”
I didn’t answer.
He looked at the torn lace on the ground, the blood on my neck, my bare shoulder where the sleeve had been ripped away.
Then he stood up and turned around.
Dominic hadn’t moved from the head table. He had one hand on his wine glass and the other on Lucia’s waist.
“Cain Savino.” Dominic tilted his glass in a lazy salute. “Didn’t know the Savinos were on the guest list tonight.”
Cain said nothing.
“Relax, man. It’s an engagement party. Things get messy.” Dominic gestured at me with his glass. “Vivian just can’t take a joke.”
“She’s not my girl,” Cain said quietly. “She’s the daughter of Don Cavallo.”
“And?”
“And you put her on her knees in a puddle of wine in front of fifty men.”
Dominic shrugged. “Vegas traditions. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Dominic set down his glass and stood up. He was taller than Cain by two inches, broader by twenty pounds. He walked forward until they were chest to chest.
“Let me make this real simple for you, Savino.”
Dominic jabbed a finger into Cain’s chest.
“This is my city. My estate. My party. You don’t get to walk in here and play hero.”
He leaned in closer. “Or do you want a taste of the wine too?”
Cain looked down at the finger on his chest.
Then he looked up.
“Touch me again and I’ll break every bone in that hand.”
Dominic laughed. He actually laughed.
“You hear that, boys?” He turned to his soldiers. “The Savino kid thinks he’s tough.”
No one laughed with him. Cain’s men had already taken the walls, hands inside their jackets.
Dominic’s smile faded for a second.
But Lucia filled the gap. She stepped forward, fingers playing with the Cavallo Heart around her neck, and looked Cain up and down.
“Cain, sweetie, look at her.” She nodded toward me.
“Soaking wet, mascara running, dress in pieces. Is she really worth saving?” She laughed.
Cain didn’t look at her.
He kept his eyes on Dominic.
“Last chance, Falcone. Apologize to Vivian. Return the necklace. Open the gates.”
Dominic picked up his wine glass and took a long, slow sip.
“No.”
He snapped his fingers.
Twenty Falcone soldiers raised their weapons, not guns, but the industrial wine nozzles lining the walls, all aimed at Cain and me.
“Since you want to be part of the party so bad,” Dominic said, “let me give you the full Falcone welcome.”
The nozzles fired.
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