ROMEO (book 1)

75. DELILAH

Romeo watches my mother intently as she takes a bite from her pasta. A malicious smirk plasters over his face and he leans back.

Ilaria sips on the glass of champagne and then clears her throat. "Can I have digs at him first?" She tilts her glass towards my father.

"What's going on, Romeo?" Dad asks.

I don't even know what Romeo has planned.

"Eat." Romeo sits forward and cuts up the food on my plate. "You eat too, precious."

I lift my fork up. I'll just go along with this.

"You look nice, Lilah." Dad says, "red suits you."

I ignore him.

"Not a way to treat your father." Mom says.

Romeo groans, lifting up a knife.

He stabs it in her hand at the same time Matteo shoves the napkin in her mouth. She made a muffled sound.

I look away.

I don't want to watch them suffer, I just want them to suffer.

Tears prickle my eyes.

I notice that slowly but surely, everyone surrounding us started to leave. Within 10 minutes, the restaurant was completely empty.

"You've been following me for a while, Romeo." Dad says. "I have connections too."

"Not as good as my connections." He pulls the knife out of moms hand. "We're going to play a game."

"I'm not doing this with you, Romeo. Either you kill me now or one single call to my connections and this place will be flooding with men. And you can't kill us all."

As if Romeo sought it as a challenge, his eyes lit up. "Call them."

"Kill me." Dad stands up.

Ilaria pushes him down, taking his phone from his pocket and throws it to Romeo. "Let me guess." Romeo's thumb taps off it. He presses something and the phone starts ringing.

"We're on our way, sir. Keep your location on."

Is all they said before hanging up.

Romeo smirks and drops the phone to the floor. "Now, let's play a game."

The double doors to the restaurant squeak open and it was to my surprise to see Roman walking in.

Then my parents began to look scared.

Roman picks up a knife from one of the tables and smiles as he runs his finger down the blade, "my father used to play this game with me," he looks directly at my mother, "ever been used against you?"

She gulps.

He smirks, and then he throws the knife. It turns repeatedly in the air before landing directly on her shoulder, just the tip slicing her before it falls.

I remember they used to play this with me all the time. This was one of the lighter punishments in my opinion.

Mom would find it funny.

She would throw them at my feet. My feet are covered in tiny scars because of it.

Sometimes if I didn't tidy up quick enough, or she was just drunk. I hated it.

"Not so funny now, is it?" Romeo switches his attention to my father. "Your men are slow at getting here."

"They'll kill you."

"I doubt it." He picks up a knife, flips it in his hand and then throws it at my dad, it stuck in his arm.

How do they do that?

"Keep eating, don't waste food." Romeo ushers them.

"Delilah, you're going to let him do this?" Mom cries.

"You hurt a baby." I manage to get out. "A helpless baby."

She shuts up.

There was a load of loud bangs from outside and Romeo smiles widely. "Dad, take Delilah to the car."

"Come on, love." Roman grabs my arm gently.

The triplets looked so content as people started bursting through the doors.

I'm glad I'm not here to witness this. While I am friends with them all, it's so hard to not forget that they're cold blooded gangsters and kill people for a living.

Roman leads me through the back and as we're walking through the kitchen, two men walk through too. They take one look at Roman before their faces visibly drop.

He doesn't give them a chance.

He shoots them both and carries on walking me out.

A different car this time, he places me in the back and to my surprise, the twins were here. "Oh."

"My god you're so beautiful." Emilio's eyes widen. "It's actually not fair. Dad, this isn't fair. How come Romeo gets her? I'm much better."

As Emilio rambles about how much he's better than Romeo, it seems to take my mind off the fact Romeo could be injured right now.

Roman received a text message and then starts to drive. "Is Romeo okay?" I ask.

"They all are. Just, he wanted me to take you back to the penthouse." He looks at me through the mirror. "They'll be fine. He's taken on more than that alone."

Weird kid, honestly.

Emilio manages to distract me again and back at the hotel, Roman takes me up but he doesn't stay long.

I sit on the couch, taking my heels off. I just wait for them to come home.

Romeo does return.

His shirt was unbuttoned and he had blood all over it, his hair was messy and had more splatters of blood over his face.

I should not have found him attractive like that but I did.

"Your parents will be on the news tomorrow." He walks up, taking his shirt off.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not my blood, baby."

I just stare at him, eyes wide, waiting for answers.

"They're dead, precious."

"What did you do to them?"

"Played a little game." He smiles, "they got what was coming to them."

"And the men?"

"All dead, my love."

I pick up his bloodied shirt and can't help but feel an array of emotions. They're gone.

They're finally gone.

"What did you do to their bodies?"

He takes the shirt off me, dropping it to the floor but holding my face in his hands. "I did what they did to you."

"Everything?"

"Everything, Delilah. They got what was coming to them. Thank you for making me be the one to deliver." He kisses my forehead. "Let's go to bed."

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I didn't wanna go into too much detail but slay from the reigns as per