Liam's POV

The ugly duckling didn’t speak, or even bother breathing, until we reached the end of the hall that was guarded by two of Giovanni’s men.
From the corner of my eye, I saw both Declan and Neal slowly reach for their guns. In Declan’s left hand, his cellphone was ready to call in more guns if this was a trick. But my instincts and common sense told me that Orlando really was dying and he wanted to marry off his daughter first.
What I didn’t know was what to believe about said daughter.
“Sir.” The men glanced at me before opening the door, only to reveal an elevator with Fedel Morris inside. He was the bastard son of Gino Morris, one of the fucking mutts who had the balls to break into our safe house and kill fifteen of our men sixteen years ago. It was the reason my father pushed for this goddamn contract.
“This is as far as I can go, sir. It was a pleasure to be of service,” Adriana said to us, giving me a short bow again before stepping back.
“Mr. Callahan,” the mutt said with forced respect, making space for us in the elevator.
The moment we were all inside, Neal took a step next to him, clearly itching for an excuse to pull the trigger. He knew Neal was there but did not say a word or even flinch when Declan reloaded loudly.
All any of us could hear when we stepped out of the elevator was a man gasping for air as water splashed around him. We were a level up from where they were waterboarding the man. The basement was just one giant gym with a boxing ring in the corner. They had cleared everything on the ground floor to make room for their prisoner. As I stepped up to the rail, a few eyes fell on me. The men gave me a short nod as if they understood the shift happening within their company. Each one of them looked just as deadly as our men, and they all stood silently, allowing the man’s underwater screams to echo around the space.
“Enough,” a gentle voice called out, and each man stood straighter when the most beautiful woman I had ever seen stepped forward. Even from where I stood, I could tell she was perfection. From her wavy, black hair, flawless olive skin, and deep brown eyes, to her perfect hourglass figure.
The knee-length white dress she wore hugged each one of her toned curves and, God, her tight ass—fuck. Her lips demanded to be kissed, and my cock demanded I have my way with her right then and there.
“Melody Nicci Giovanni, head of the Giovanni family and the Boss,” Fedel informed us.
Neal stepped up to see the goddess below.
“Holy shitcock, motherfucking damn,” he said, his mouth dropping open.
“Neal,” I said, without emotion. The last thing I wanted the Italians to believe was that we were impressed.
Nodding, Neal returned to the same cold monster I needed at my side.
Declan met my gaze, telling me he was on the same wavelength as Neal.
If it weren’t for the obnoxiously loud gasping coming from the man below us, all three of us would have forgotten he was there. But when I looked closer, I realized who it was they were waterboarding.
Ryan Ross. How the fuck did they get him?
“Ryan, as much as I would like to draw this out, I am late for a meeting with my fiancé, and I hate being late,” Melody stated, as a blonde man stepped forward, holding her jewelry on a white fucking pillow.
“To hell with you and your fiancé. You no good Italian cunt bitc—” Before he could finish, one of the men who had held him down smashed his fist several times into his face.
“It’s Boss or Ms. Giovanni,” the man said, spitting on him. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
Melody frowned and even that made me hard. She had beautiful lips.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she said, putting her earrings in before being handed a gun.
Spitting the blood from his mouth, Ryan smiled. “Do it. I’d rather die than talk to you, bitch.”
“Who said this was for you?” Melody smiled back as two men dragged a sobbing female forward and placed her on a chair in front of the scum.
Ryan’s eyes widened as he looked at her.
“The Valero don’t know about your special friend, do they? They aren’t big on you fucking women outside the ones they offer you. You tried really hard to keep her a secret,” she said, walking behind him. It made my blood boil at how close she was to him.
“Did you know she’s pregnant?” Melody asked, causing the girl to hold on to her flat stomach and sob even louder. “Two lives saved if you just tell me what I want to know.” She loaded the gun.
He didn’t say a word, even as the girl begged him.
“So this is your answer then, Ryan?” Melody asked slowly. “I will kill her.”
He still did not speak.
Sighing, she fired not once, not twice, but repeatedly, only stopping when the girl’s lifeless body fell from the chair. She didn’t even flinch.
Instead, she walked toward the girl and emptied the rest of her clip into the body. When she was done, she turned back to the now blood-spattered Ryan who sat wide-eyed and shaken. This must have happened often, because her men went to work, carrying the body and cleaning up the blood on the ground, which hadn’t touched her. They brought a new blood-free chair for her to sit on and handed her a pair of heels. All of which happened in a matter of seconds. They moved like the military.
“Does it make me a hypocrite if I still consider myself pro-life?” She didn’t even blink as she stepped into her white shoes.
“She’s just as fucking merciless as you are,” Neal uttered in disbelief.
In a single moment, though, she had gone against everything I ever believed. This was not the role I wanted my future wife to play. She was too beautiful for the blood and the darkness. She should be upstairs, flipping through catalogs and painting her pretty little nails, or waiting in our bed for me to have her. This could not stand, and this would not be her role. I was to become the Boss and the Ceann na Conairte. She was to stand at my side so the Italians would fall in line.
Not that I could deny how sexy I found it. My mind hated this . . . saw the danger in this . . . but my body lusted after it painfully. My cock throbbed for her.
Declan snickered to my right. “Right now, you wish the biggest thing you had to deal with was a charity junkie for a wife.”
I couldn’t agree more. I would have to fix this situation and fast.
“Everyone out!” I roared, making every last one of the inhabitants of the room look at me as though I had lost my mind.
The eyes that shined with the most rage were those of my beautiful, soon-to-be wife. Oh well, this would be her first lesson. There was one Boss, only one Ceann na Conairte, and it was not her.