Stolen Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Marcelo
“Are you sure that you don’t want to call Trevor? How do you know this guy will even be at home?” Salvatore glances over at me, his eyebrow raised high. He can question me all he wants: this is something that I need to do today.
Trevor has some shit to do, so he’s out. He’s great backup, but when you have something to take care of ASAP then you better fucking do it yourself and quit sitting around with your cock out.
Salvatore knows this, how fucking important it is to move quickly when shit needs to be handled, so I don’t even respond to him.
Stupid fucking questions don’t get answers.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be at home,” I tell him, pulling onto the interstate. As I drive, I run through the things that I know about Tess’s foster father.
He and his wife wanted to foster only to get the money that having the kids in the house would bring in. According to Tess, and according to some other people I managed to talk to about the situation, this asshole loved cycling through kids when they got to be too old, or too much to handle.
It wasn’t uncommon for them to keep rotating kids through their house, collecting checks as they went, until they met Tess.
Or, rather, until he met Tess.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. Out of the corner of my eye I watch as Salvatore takes a drink of water then screws the lid back on tight before dropping it onto the floorboard.
“Don’t litter in my car,” I tell him, making him grin.
“Don’t fucking break the steering wheel just thinking about this asshole.” Salvatore gives me a dark look. “You know as well as I do that you have to go in there with your head on straight.”
I give him a quick nod, then glance down at my phone to see how much longer we have to drive until we get to this asshole’s place. Our exit is coming up and I move to the right lane, doing my best to relax my grip on the steering wheel.
“I won’t truly have Tess all to myself until this is taken care of.”
Salvatore’s quiet for a moment and all I can hear is the sound of our tires eating up the road. “I understand. But you have her already, Marcelo. I know that you have to do this, but she’s already yours.”
I’m irritated with him, but I give him a quick nod anyway. My brother knows what it’s like to be unable to breathe when you’re around a certain person. That’s why he captured Arabelle. He took her, just like I took Tess.
There’s a voice in the back of my mind wondering if there’s really something wrong with me that I had to take the woman I loved in the way I did, but I push it away. I’ve always just taken what I want, and it didn’t make any sense for Tess to be any different.
I saw her and I knew that I had to have her.
“Take the next exit, then turn right on Old Brevard Road.” My GPS announces loudly in the silence. Salvatore and I start when we hear it.
“Just be smart,” he warns, and I nod, following the directions.
I’m always smart. That’s how I’ve gotten this far. I’m sure as hell not going to lose to some scumbag like Steven Walker.
When we pull into the driveway, I see that it loops around the house, so I swing the car around, following the gravel as it takes us to the back yard. Lots of weeds are growing up in the gravel, making this place look like even more a shithole than it is, but that’s not my problem.
My problem is probably sitting inside right now, watching crap on the TV, without a clue that it’s all about to end for him.
We get out quietly and I run my fingers along the grip of my gun. It’s a comforting weight at my side. Salvatore turns and looks behind us and I do as well, noting all of the fields stretching out in both directions.
We couldn’t have asked for a better place to do this. Closer to town there are quite a few houses, but Steven Walker lives with his wife and their foster kids further out on a huge piece of land. It backs up to the woods and there’s a giant garden straight out from the back door. It’s completely secluded.
Shovels and hoes lean up against an old tree but I don’t see any toys scattered around. Even though I already know how Walker treats his foster kids, I have a pretty good feeling that I’d be able to figure it out just by looking around here. It’s not a fun place, only a place where he brings the kids to work them hard.
“What an asshole,” Salvatore says, obviously noticing the same thing that I am.
I give him a grim nod and then walk to the back door. There’s an old porch with sagging steps and I walk up them carefully, making sure that I don’t put a foot through the rotten wood.
What the hell did he do with all of the money that he got for taking in foster kids? It’s obvious that he didn’t use it to clean up the place. While the garden looked great at first, now I see that it’s overgrown with weeds. The flower beds are practically choking with them and the entire place looks like it needs not only a fresh coat of paint, but also a miracle to keep it from falling down.
Yanking the screen door open, I wince at the sound it makes. The rusty hinges are like everything else around here—barely hanging on, and in dire need of being replaced.
Luckily for Steven, he isn’t going to have to worry about doing any of that any longer. I rap on the door and then step back, still holding the screen door open, to wait.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck, I’m coming!”
“Sounds like a real winner,” Salvatore murmurs. He’s on the porch with me, slightly back from the door and to my side. I know that I don’t have to worry about a thing with him here. No matter what happens right now, we’re going to walk away from this.
The sound of locks being opened gets my attention and I stare at the door. I’ve seen pictures of Steven Walker online, so I know who I’m looking for, but that still doesn’t prepare me for the reality when the door swings open.
The man is old. He’s obviously lived a hard life and the skin around his eyes sags a little as he looks at us. When he takes in the two of us standing on his porch, though, his eyes harden into small dark beads and I feel anger start to wind its way through my body.
“Who the hell are you?” His voice is rough, like the sound of a starting motor. Even though he’s leaning forward a little bit to get a better look at us, he still keeps his hand on the doorframe, not wanting to come outside.
“I’m Marcelo Bonanno, and this is my brother, Salvatore,” I tell him, giving him a slight nod. “We want to talk to you about one of your foster children.”
Steven turns and spits, the wad landing close to my shoe. “Bah, I haven’t had foster kids here in years. My wife died of cancer a while back and I couldn’t fucking deal with having them here by myself.” He glares at me. “What do you want to know?”
Without answering, I walk forward, then push straight past him. As much as I want to put him down in the back yard like some kind of animal, I need to talk to him first. I want to look this bastard in the eyes when I kill him and make sure that he knows it’s for Tess.
“There was one girl you had here for a long time,” I say, turning slowly to take in the kitchen as I speak. Just like everything else here, it’s falling apart. There’s a thin layer of grease or grime on everything that makes me shake my head. “Her name was Tess.”
The man’s eyes widen and he takes a step away from me without saying anything. His face pales and he turns, obviously trying to make a run for it out the door, but Salvatore is there immediately.
“Leaving so soon?” My brother asks, pulling his pistol from its holster. “Why don’t you have a seat, asshole, and listen to what my brother has to say to you?”
