Page 133 of Mafia King's Secret Baby

I have a large home here, as with many of my homes, and I did leave a portion of the basement unfinished for moments such as this. I swore that, whenever I did have a family, I would get them finished so they wouldn’t be used for nefarious purposes.

That was five years ago.

So this room, and the ones around it, remain in the basement. They’re nothing but cement floors, with drains in each room that should have been used for plumbing.

They’re also quite convenient to wash blood down.

I don’t want to be here so soon after Caterina and I had sex. I want her to stay outside, because I worry that she might not be able to handle what’s about to happen.

I did, however agree that Sal should come in as well.

Currently, we’re both staring at Dino.

Who looks like he’s been to hell and back.

“I thought you looked bad when you appeared on my estate,” I muttered to Sal.

Sal winces. “Yeah. I thought I did too.”

“You, apparently, were the brother who had it easy.”

Sal doesn’t respond, and we both stare at the man bound to the chair in front of us.

Dino can barely hold his head up. He’s propped in the chair, bound at the feet and wrists, but he’s so pulverized it’s a wonder he’s sitting up at all. The left side of his face is covered in so much purple, I can barely see the features of his cheeks and lips. The swelling is ferocious, so bad that I’m surprised the skin hasn’t split along the edges.

He looks like he spent a week being churned through a meat grinder.

It’s almost enough to make me think that I should spare him the pain that I would like to inflict.

Almost.

“Dino,” Sal says, almost gently. “What the fuck?”

“Hello brother,” he rasps.

I swear under my breath.

Whoever got to Dino, they also did some damage to his throat. I step forward, using my phone light, and see more thick bruising around his neck.

I step back and look at Sal. “Nico didn’t do all of this,” I murmur.

Nico sent me the photos of when he found Dino, hiding in a ditch near our warehouses in Long Island.

Now, I wonder if he was not hiding at all.

I wonder if he had just not moved from where he was placed.

Sal shook his head. “I know. We can get him a medic later.”

“Indeed,” I murmur.

“So, both of you? Working together? Marco’s going to shit himself,” Dino rasps.

“Where the fuck is he?” Sal growls.

Dino shrugs, or attempts to. It looks like he may have a broken collarbone as well, from the grimace on his face. “No clue.”

“You sold him out.”