Beauty and the Beast: A Dark Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance

6

"Massimo?" I breathed, panicking as I searched the room, trying to figure out where the hell he went, and what the hell was going on. "MASSIMO?!"

And then I felt my heart stop beating. My surroundings blurring around me, as the full extent of what was happening hit me from a million directions at once, each time like a stab to my fucking heart.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't fucking breathe.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Fizz bellowed, collapsing to the ground, rocking himself backwards and forwards, as he sobbed and screamed until he was blue in the face.

It felt like he would never stop screaming.

We heard several gunshots, and each one of us knew full well the extent of what this meant.

Bullets flying.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

One bullet.

Two bullets.

Three bullets.

I could feel my eyes fog with tears as I willed my body to move, and ran straight back to the room we'd been in earlier, my vision going hazy, my knees going weak, barely able to carry me up.

The only time I'd ever shown any emotion in my dark world.

"I told you we had to teach that motherfucker a lesson," Massimo seethed, as my eyes darted to the ground...

Where the mother and her children were bleeding out to their death and had their brains blown out all over the room, and the last words that were uttered from the mother's lips before her and her children stopped breathing...

Were "La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah".

There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.

She was just a woman who'd done nothing wrong. Her children were so young... so fucking young.

I screamed bloody murder as I watched the color drain away from the kids' faces. They were too young to be reunited with their Lord. Gone too soon, they hadn't even lived their fucking lives yet.

There was so much blood...

So much fucking blood.

I would never be able to forgive myself for letting this happen. For not getting Massimo the fuck out of here, knowing how riled up he was.

But I never expected him to go back to the children and defy me like this.

I knew that this scene was forever going to etch itself into my memory. Haunting my dreams every day, replaying itself into my mind over and over like a form of motherfucking torture. The rules of the Cosa Nostra had been broken. This was the price I had to pay for the fucked up life I lived. I'd chosen this way of life, and I had to deal with the consequences.

Even if it killed me.

From this day forward...

I would never be the same again.