Blood Before His Kisses

Chapter 4

I left him there. Didn’t even spare him a second glance.

When I looked back over my shoulder, he was on his knees. Literally. Palms flat on the filthy tile, shoulders shaking, head bowed like he was praying to a god who’d already abandoned him. The black dragon on his arm looked dull now. Powerless. Just ink on coward’s skin.

Well. As he should be because kneeling is the minimum.

But still disappointing. My blood was up and I didn’t even get to stretch. No broken bones. No real screaming. Just piss and trembling and that insulting little whimper. I didn’t even work up a sweat. What a f*****g waste of a perfectly good blade.

I slid into my 911 and slammed the door. The sound was louder than his whimpering. The engine roared to life under my hands, vicious and familiar, and I tore out of that dead wing of the mall like it owed me money.

Minutes later, the iron gates of Casa Vendetta opened for me. Home. Fortress. Slaughterhouse, depending on the day.

I didn’t park. Didn’t kill the engine. Just left her panting in the courtyard and stormed inside, heels striking marble like gunshots. The shopping bags could rot in the passenger seat for all I cared. I had bigger problems.

“Where is he?” I barked at the first maid who crossed my path. She nearly dropped the silver tray she was carrying.

“Y-your father, signorina? He’s in his office,” she stammered, eyes fixed on the floor like looking at me might turn her to stone. “He said no interruptions, but—”

I was already gone.

His office doors were twelve feet of carved mahogany and ballistic steel. I threw them open hard enough that they hit the walls, stepped inside, and locked them behind me. The click was final. A verdict.

That’s why Dad looked up.

He was behind his desk, backlit by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking our vineyard. A crystal tumbler of Macallan at his elbow, a file open in front of him, laptop glow painting his face blue. He didn’t flinch at the noise. Men like him don’t flinch. But his eyes, my eyes, ice-blue and merciless snapped to mine instantly. Calculating. Measuring.

“Dad, we need to talk. And it’s important.”

My voice came out flat. Cold. No lilt, no tease, no ‘Daddy’s girl’ poisoned honey. Just steel wrapped in skin.

He set his pen down. Deliberately. The sound was louder than the lock. For the first time in my twenty-two years, I saw genuine surprise flicker across his face. Because Giada Rosetti doesn’t do serious. Giada Rosetti smirks while she plans your funeral. Giada Rosetti laughs when the body drops.

But not today.

Today his daughter stood there with blood on her cuff she hadn’t noticed, hair half-out of its chignon, and murder still hanging in her pupils.

“You never lock my door, princess,” he said, voice low and even, each word a test. “And you never speak to me without that clever, reckless mouth of yours running. So whatever this is… it better be worth interrupting my work.”

He didn’t lean back. He didn’t relax. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, giving me his full attention like I was a rival Don or a loaded gun. Maybe I was both.

“You have five minutes to speak,” he told me, tapping his watch. One finger. No emotion. “Make them count, Detta.”

I nodded once. Short. Sharp. No wasted motion.

I planted both palms on his desk and met his gaze without blinking. The room smelled like him, Cuban cigars, old leather, and the metallic ghost of every bad decision that kept us in power.

“A man followed me today,” I started, my voice still that lethal calm. “From the mall. All the way to the dead wing. I handled it, obviously.”

Dad didn’t look up from his laptop. His fingers kept typing. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He wasn’t worried. He never is. Because he raised me. Because he knows I can f*****g handle myself. Because the last person who thought I couldn’t is buried under six feet of concrete behind the stables.

But I needed him to hear the next part.

So I said it louder. Slower. Letting each word bleed.

“He’s one of the puppets,” I said, my voice dropping an octave, every word edged with venom. “One of the f*****g puppets that belongs to the bastard who killed Mom. And I know they know we’re back, Dad. They know we came home to burn their world down.”

Dad’s head snapped up. Finally. The laptop was forgotten. The file was forgotten. He crossed his arms over his chest, slow and deliberate, and every ounce of his attention locked onto me like a sniper’s sight. His ice-blue eyes weren’t just looking at me — they were dissecting me. Measuring the threat. Measuring his daughter.

“But don’t worry,” I continued, stepping around his desk until I was in his space, until he could see the blood drying on my cuff and know I wasn’t bluffing. “The one who followed me? He’s my dog now. I flipped him. And if he even thinks about betraying me, he’s done.”

I tapped my temple with one finger, a smirk ghosting across my lips but never touching my eyes. “I planted a tracker and an audio bug on him before I let him crawl away. Subdermal, Dad. Military-grade.

Embedded between the radius and ulna so he can’t dig it out without losing the use of his hand. Frequency-hopping, encrypted, running on his own bioelectricity. He won’t find it. He won’t feel it. But I’ll hear every breath he takes. Every order he gets. Every lie he tells.”

I let that sink in. Let him remember who raised me.

“I’m not stupid, Dad,” I added, tilting my chin up. “I was eight when I cracked my first police database. For fun. By ten, I was rerouting NBI surveillance feeds to Rick-roll their precinct. Now? I could crash their entire grid before breakfast if I wanted to. So yeah, I thought of the tracker. I thought of three backups, too.”

Dad was silent for a beat. His jaw tightened. That muscle in his cheek, the one that only jumps when he’s calculating body counts, twitched once.

“Are you sure he’s just a foot soldier?” he asked, his voice low, lethal, each syllable a blade. He was staring at me now like I was a map of enemy territory. “You’re certain it wasn’t him? The one we’re hunting?”

I didn’t flinch. I met his gaze and held it. Giada Rosetti doesn’t look away.

“I’m sure, Dad,” I said, and my voice was absolute. No doubt. No room for error. “More than sure. I’m certain. The man who killed Mom doesn’t sweat through his shirt from a paper cut. He doesn’t smell like fear and cheap cigarettes and knockoff cologne. He doesn’t beg.”

I scoffed, the sound sharp and disgusted. “The i***t who followed me was pathetic. Sloppy. No training, no discipline. He telegraphed every move like he was in a bad action movie. A real soldier wouldn’t have made it past the mall entrance. This one? He was bait. Or a message. Either way, he was disposable.”

I paused, then added the part that made my stomach turn to acid.

“But he had the mark, Dad. Black dragon. Left arm. Fresh ink, still raised. Same scales. Same open jaws. Same f*****g signature that’s been carved into my nightmares since I was six.”

I leaned in, my palms flat on his desk again, my face inches from his.

“So someone’s either recruiting in his name, or he’s building an army of idiots to throw at us first. Either way, we’re not waiting. I’ve got eyes on their dog now. And the second he leads us to the pack… we end this.”

Dad didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.

He just reached for the locked drawer in his desk. The one that doesn’t hold files.

And he smiled.

Not the father kind. The Bratva kind.

“And Dad, I want you to double the security here,” I said, my voice shifting from daughter to strategist in a heartbeat. I started pacing his office, every step measured. “But not just guards at the gate. That’s amateur. Pay people who can blend. Civilians. The barista at the coffee shop across the street. The gardener who trims the hedges. The new maid with no history. Men and women who can disappear in a crowd, who can hear whispers before they become threats. Invisible until we need them.”

I stopped at the window, looking out at the vineyard but seeing chessboards instead of grapes.

“Then find me a bodyguard,” I continued, turning back to him. “But don’t rush it. Whoever volunteers first, whoever’s too eager to get close to me — that’s our target. The man who killed Mom doesn’t delegate everything. He likes to watch. He likes control. I’m very sure he’ll take any opportunity to get near me. If he wants a game, Dad… we’ll give him one. We’ll play with him. We’ll let him think he’s winning, move by move, until we checkmate him in his own f*****g house.”

My fists clenched at my sides. The rage was cold now. Useful. “I want justice for Mom so bad I can taste it. So he better be ready. Because we’re not just hunting him anymore. We’re baiting him.”

Dad’s eyes darkened, but he said nothing. He was listening. Really listening. Because this wasn’t his reckless daughter talking. This was his heir.

I leaned over his desk, lowering my voice until it was just for him. “Favor, Dad. We need to sell a performance. Starting now. I’m going to pretend I’m innocent. Scared. Shaken. You’re going to announce you’re hiring a bodyguard for me because I was attacked. Make it public. Make it messy. The tracker I planted? It has audio. But I spoofed it for sixty seconds before I came here — looped ambient mall noise. Whoever’s listening thinks I’m still wandering the dead wing, crying. We have a window. So we use it.”

He gave me the smallest nod. A king acknowledging his queen.

Then we began.

The shift was instant. My spine curved inward. My hands started trembling. I let my eyes fill, not with fake tears, but with the real ones I keep buried for Mom. Method acting. The best kind.

“D-Dad, p-please, help me,” I choked out, my voice cracking on every syllable. I grabbed his sleeve like a lifeline. “A-ayaw ko na, Dad. I can’t do this anymore. Just because we’re rich, just because of your name, people keep coming for me. What if I die, Dad? What if next time I don’t make it home?”

I sucked in a shuddering breath, letting it hitch. “I was okay before, I swear I was. But Dad… he had a knife. He put a knife to my throat, Dad! A real one! I could feel it. I thought— I thought I was gonna die because of your money, because of this life. I don’t wanna die, Dad!”

I collapsed into sobs, ugly and loud, burying my face in my hands. My shoulders shook. My whole body did. If there was an Oscar for weaponized vulnerability, I’d win it every year.

Dad played his part flawlessly.

He stood up so fast his chair scraped. For a second, just a second, he looked like what the outside world thought he was — a terrified father. His voice shook when he spoke, and it wasn’t all acting.

“I’m sorry, princess,” he said, pulling me into his arms like I really was breakable. His hand cradled the back of my head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. God, I didn’t know you were this scared. I’m sorry this happened to you. I failed you.”

He pulled back, gripping my shoulders, his eyes glassy. “But don’t worry. We’ll fix this. I’ll hire you a bodyguard. The best. Someone fast, someone smart, someone who can blend in and tear a man apart with his bare hands if he has to. I swear on your mother’s grave, Detta… you will be safe. No one will touch you again.”

He held me for three more seconds. Then he winked. Quick. Barely there.

I bit my lip to keep from grinning and forced another trembling sob instead.

“T-thank you, Dad,” I whispered, all innocence and broken glass. “Thank you.”

I clung to him like I was a scared little girl who’d never held a blade.

And somewhere, on the other end of that hacked audio feed, I hoped the bastard was listening.

Because the game just started.

And Giada Rosetti never loses. Never.