????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 27
Copy and have your life shortened ????
CAROLINE FELT guilty for breaking the rules. Or maybe the churning in herstomach was from the knowledge that Bruno Moretti absolutely did murder
her father in cold blood. Sure, her dad hadn’t been blameless,
and had beenplaying with fire. He had to have known the consequences and decided it
was worth it. And Caroline would be a hypocrite if she condemned him forthat. She knew what it was like to fall for a Moretti she shouldn’t beattracted to. But at least Luca wasn’t married.
She made a familiar turn toward the Moretti mansion in rented under Luca’s name. She felt betrayed by both sides. No one wasperfect. Her father had been heartbroken after her mother died and lookingback, he’d been doing much better in the months leading up to his murder.
Still, he should have thought about the consequences for her if he werecaught. And then the Morettis. Bruno killed a man when he couldn’t keephis own wife satisfied.
Luca knew and didn’t tell her.
She ran a yellow light, and someone honked at her, but she ignored it.
Didn’t Luca trust her? He promised not to lie to her. She cursed under herbreath at herself. A pretty mouth whispering pretty lies. And she wanted sodesperately to believe him. She trusted him. And that made it hurt worse.
He weaseled his way into her heart so he could rip her apart from the inside.
Caroline turned onto the road before the Moretti mansion. Sheswallowed her nerves. They were all at the wedding. It shouldn’t be thatha-rd to break in. She pulled off the road before the gate where a clump of
trees concealed the car; her usual spot for spying on the Morettis. But thistime she was armed with Luca’s gun instead of binoculars and a long-lensedcamera. She knew the guard rotations. She had a general idea of the alarm systems. That would work in her favor. She stepped out of the car andlooked around. No one. No cameras. The gun tucked in the back of herpa-nts weighed more than she thought it would. She wondered if she had thesteel to actually shoot it. Then she thought of the way her father’s
eyescrinkled when he smiled at an award she won or a cupcake she baked, andanger flared up in her chest. Bruno Moretti robbed her of the mostwonderful, supportive parent she could have asked for. She could shoothim.
The fence was high, but not unclimbable. She found footholds andpulled herself over the top, managing to keep her clothes from snagging.
Climbing down proved more difficult. Her foot sli-pped,
and she sprawledon the ground with her ankle at an odd angle. She pushed herself back upbefore her brain had time to register the pain and she silently thanked theMorettis’ groundskeeper for the soft gras-sthat broke her fall.
She limped her way closer to the mansion. She knew there was a side that would be less guarded near the garden. She hid behind a topiary tounlockedwait for a guard to walk by and prayed the door was . She rushedup and tried the handle. It didn’t budge.
But it was one of those old bra-sshandles with the tab to push down on the top, so she tried again, pushing
harder, and it cli-cked open.
Caroline sli-pped inside and closed the door behind her as quietly as shecould. She’d never been inside the Moretti mansion, but even the smellseemed out of her league. Rich and old and dark, like the polished wood
paneling on the walls. A cursory look up and down the hall told her she wa-ssafe from patrolling guards, but not from drooling over tasteful walldecorations and window dressings. It was all so beautiful. She hated it.
These monsters didn’t deserve to live with all these pretty things andelegant decorations.
She didn’t actually know the layout of the house, so it would take
someexploration before she found Bruno’s office. She chose to go left down thehall and then turn right when she had to, into a beautiful parlor with a whitepiano and a peach loveseat that Caroline wanted to sink into with a mug ofhot chocolate and a book and rip to shreds in equal parts. If she were in a
better mood, she would have taken the time to snoop and/or destroyeverything of value in this house,
but she had an objective and she had tostay focused.
Another hall led her past the kitchen and the dining room, but shestopped before she walked into the open foyer. Another hall on the otherside. That had to be where the office was. Accessible, convenient, and
probably perfectly decorated. She squinted at the glas-spanels beside thedoor to catch any reflected movement at the top of the stairs. She couldn’t
risk being caught now. Her heart pounded too loud and the gun pressed coldand ha-rd into her back as she waited. A fli-cker of movement upstairs.
Another to indicate the person moved on. Caroline took a breath and dashedacross the foyer as fast and silent as humanly possible.
No noise aside from her breathing. Her ankle decided to inform her thatit really didn’t like that mad dash in the form of a throbbing ache. Shelimped down the hall, trying every door she came to. A coat closet. A
storage room for out of season decorations. An office.
Caroline shut herself in the office and leaned against the door. Here shewas, in the room where it happened. Where all the ugly calls were made,and Bruno Moretti played God. The dull grey paint on the walls was
tasteful, if dated. The carpet was worn in a path to and from the large deskin the middle of the room. On the wall behind the desk, a large familyportrait in an expensive-looking frame. No one was smiling. A youngerBruno and his wife, Gianna, sat with their school-age children around them.
Giovanni, the tallest at the center back with maybe the most pleasant lack ofsmile. The twins on one side of him with identical threatening scowls. Lucaon the other side of Giovanni, a little shorter than even the powerful with his dark eyes so focused on the camera, Caroline cou1d dissecting her soul. Twin girls on the other side of Luca holding hands.
They looked like carbon copies of their mother. Luca too resembled hismother more than his father. Gianna of course was beautiful. There was asmirk in her eyes as though she knew something no one else did. They werepretty. But beauty was skin de-ep, and Caroline hated them.
She walked around the desk and sat in the worn leather chair. Not wornin the way a college student’s desk chair is worn and frayed and peeling but
worn smooth and soft and pliant. She took the gun out of her waistband andset it on her lap. Now she would wait. Bruno Moretti would come homewhen the wedding was over, probably ready to sign another death sentence.
She had a plan; she knew how it would go. She would threaten him withthe gun—and she needed all her confidence for that to work—then ask himwhat happened to her father. He’d lie, and she’d shoot him in the leg. She’dask again, and he’d tell the truth and then she’d say some epic one-liner likethey did in the movies and shoot him dead. After that, she wasn’t sure. Shemight shoot Gianna too. She was the reason Caroline’s dad got on Bruno’sbad side. She might deserve it too. Depending on how angry Caroline was.
Then it got fuzzy. She might go back to Luca’s place. She might go to thepolice. She might go home and then go to the police. It didn’t matter. The
fallout would figure itself out. The moment of truth was the important part.
Caroline waited. She tapped her fingers on the ha-rd metal of the gun.
Her nerves buzzed around her stomach like a swarm of bees. Thegrandfather clock in the corner tick-tocked its way into her bloodstream.
Anticipation made it feel too slow. That couldn’t actually be a second,right? Not when it felt like three?
Caroline’s mind wandered. How would Luca react? Would he hate her?
He would have every right to. She began to doubt herself. What was shedoing here? Waiting to kill Don Bruno Moretti, the most powerful mafiaman in New York? As if hundreds of others hadn’t tried and failed? AndLuca… She loved him. She couldn’t avoid that fact. But he did keep thisfrom her. He promised to tell her the truth. He promised.
She fidgeted with the gun in her lap. Maybe he was going to tell her andjust wanted to wait until after the wedding for some reason. Did she reallythink she could go throu-ghwith this? She turned around to look at thefamily portrait behind her. Bruno Moretti ripped apart her family, but itmight not be her place to rip apart his. This was a mistake. She couldn’t doit.
She could leave the same way she came. She might still have timebefore they got back from the wedding.
The front door creaked open and jovial voices echoed muted throu-ghthe walls. They were back. Shit. Heavy footsteps that paused right in frontof the office door. Caroline froze, hands clenched around the gun in her lap.
The doorknob turned, and the door swung open to reveal the scariest man
Caroline knew of. He was laughing softly to himself, maybe a little buzzed,leaning on the door as he pushed it open
.
Caroline locked eyes with the devil and felt death breathe a chill at theback of her neck. His entire demeanor changed in a second, pulling hisshoulder back and standing tall and threatening, reaching for his side. ButCaroline lifted the gun and pointed it at him with steady hands. Now thatshe was here and this was really happening, she felt strangely calm. He
stopped moving and held his hands out, with an amused co-ckiness
thatrubbed Caroline the wrong way.
“Call your wife in here.” She didn’t hesitate. There wasn’t time forniceties and Bruno Moretti wasn’t worth it, anyway.
He lifted his chin. “Or what, girlie? You’ll shoot me?”
“Yes.” Caroline tried to channel some of Luca’s toxic calm.
Bruno took a step forward. “I’m sure we don’t need to get her involved.
Just tell me what you want.” Another step. Caroline took the safety off thegun. He didn’t take the warning. “Money?” he guessed.
“You wantmoney?”
The fact that he thought he had power here when she was the oneholding the gun snapped something inside Caroline. She didn’t want him tocome any closer, and anger surged throu-ghher. This bully thought he could
boss around anyone. He thought he could push and shove his way to thetop. Well no more. Not today. Not with Caroline.
She shot the gun.
The sound echoed throu-ghthe room as Bruno collapsed, clutching hisleg. She locked eyes with the devil again, but this time, she wasn’t asfrightened. Let him try her.
Gianna burst throu-ghthe door and dropped to her husband’s side.
“Bruno! What happened?” She looked up at Caroline with genuine fear andthat was what rattled Caroline. She just shot a man. Not just any man,
Bruno fu-cking Moretti. She decided that maybe she couldn’t be as unshakenand powerful as Luca. She was shaken. Her hands didn’t tremble, nor did
her determination. She couldn’t back out now.
She adjusted her grip on the gun and narrowed her eyes. “Whathappened to my father?”
TBC