The Mafia Boss Took One Look at Her Broken Ribs and Said Her Abuser Was Already Dead
Part 2: He released my chin and stepped back. I saw the kick coming, but there was nowhere to move.
The steel toe of his shoe struck my left side.
Something cracked inside me.
I dropped to one knee, unable to breathe, and he kicked me again.
“A big girl like you can take a hit,” he said.
The third kick landed lower.
White light exploded through my body. I fell onto my hands, rain soaking through my blouse while my lungs struggled to pull in air.
Donovan crouched beside me.
“Tell Liam the next one breaks his neck.”
He and his men walked away, leaving me beside the shattered groceries.
I stayed in the alley for nearly twenty minutes. Each breath felt as though a rusted blade were scraping against my lungs, but I eventually forced myself upright, gathered the unbroken items, and climbed the stairs to our apartment.
Liam was gone.
His bed was unmade. His dresser drawers were open, and the small metal box where he kept cash had disappeared.
On the kitchen table, he had left a note.
Maggie, I’m sorry. I need a few days. Don’t trust anyone.
I read those words until the ink blurred.
Then I wrapped my torso in elastic bandages, swallowed four painkillers, and went to work the following afternoon.
A hospital would have asked questions. The police might have found Donovan, but Donovan’s people would have found Liam first. So I did what I had always done when life hurt me.
I hid the damage and kept moving.
At the Obsidian Room, the lighting was low enough to flatter everyone and hide almost anything. Chandeliers cast amber circles across polished mahogany tables. Crystal glasses clinked beneath the murmur of wealthy men discussing properties, elections, and businesses they did not legally own. Expensive cigar smoke drifted beneath the ceiling.
I pressed my clipboard against my ribs and walked carefully between the tables.
Every step sent a hot pulse through my chest. I could not take a full breath, so I inhaled shallowly and told anyone who noticed that the room was too warm.
“Maggie, we need another bottle of Macallan at table six,” a cocktail server named Olivia whispered. “And someone broke two highball glasses near the west bar.”
“I’ll handle it.”
She glanced at the sweat darkening my collar. “Are you okay?”
“Just overheated.”
Her eyes moved across my body with a momentary expression I knew too well. It was not cruelty. Somehow, pity was worse.
She assumed the fat woman was sweating because the fat woman had walked too quickly.
“Drink some water,” Olivia said before hurrying away.
The humiliation protected me.
No one asked another question.
I might have finished the shift without being discovered if Vincenzo Moretti had not entered the casino at nine twenty-three.
The mahogany doors opened, and the room’s atmosphere changed before I even saw him. Conversations softened. Dealers straightened their shoulders. Men who bragged about fearing no one suddenly remembered the importance of manners.
Vincenzo was thirty-eight, tall and powerfully built, with dark hair, gray eyes, and an unnerving stillness that made other men’s aggression look childish. He had inherited the Moretti organization after his father’s death seven years earlier and transformed it from a collection of street crews into a disciplined network of casinos, construction companies, nightclubs, and political favors.
People called him ruthless.
They also said he never shouted because men listened more carefully when he whispered.
Normally, he observed the casino from an elevated private booth. That evening, he walked across the floor with his chief lieutenant, Dominic Russo, and two security men.
I stepped behind a velvet-lined pillar.
Holding my breath was impossible, but I tried.
Vincenzo passed the roulette tables without looking at the women posing nearby. Then he stopped.
His gaze found me.
May you like
I had spoken to him only four times in eighteen months. Each conversation had involved accounting discrepancies, security procedures, or employee theft. He had always been direct and formal.
Now he studied me as though the rest of the room had vanished.... Then?
