The Rocchetti Queen - Bree Porter Page 0,45
You may not like it, but that does not mean it will change.”
Alessandro did not agree with his father. “You had no proof.”
“I had enough. Leaving the house during the night? Abandoning her sons? Being cold to her husband? What could make a woman do that but foreign cock?”
My husband said nothing.
“You judge now, my son. But one day you may very well be in the same position. Mother to your children, love of your life, and instead of behaving how you both agreed to behave, she steps out, sneaks out in the night. Leaves her family to go take some French man’s dick up her—”
Alessandro lunged.
Like an elastic band snapping, my husband’s rage won out against his self-control and he took his father to the ground. Toto was caught briefly by surprise but met every one of his son’s punches with his own.
They rolled into the foyer, already blood trickling from behind them.
No guns, no knives. Just brutal strength and anger.
“Stop it!” I shrieked. “If you wake the baby up, so help me God.”
Neither of them stopped trying to kill each other. They went for weak spots with all their strength, so focused on their offense that they let the other person get some past their defense.
To my surprise, they both fought exactly the same. Half-feral, dirty. It was like watching two reflections beat the shit out of each other.
“Enough! You’re getting blood on my rug!”
The sounds of the fight bought Teresa into the foyer. “Oh my!” she gasped when she took them in. “They’re going to kill each other!”
As soon as she said that, I heard the crack of bones. They were moving too fast, too violently, for me to be able to figure out whose wound it was.
I wasn’t getting in there to try and stop them, so I rushed to the door, “Raul! Oscuro! Anybody!”
A few soldati headed my way, Beppe’s familiar face at the forefront. He pushed past me into the house, swearing when he took in Alessandro and Toto the Terrible.
“Is this for power?” he asked me.
“Oh, please, like I would let my crown be dependent on some fight in my foyer,” I snapped. I don’t know where the sudden burst of anger had come from, perhaps it was a mix of exhaustion and stress, but I made myself calm down immediately. “Alessandro thinks Salvatore killed his mother.”
“The tests came back as Danta?”
“It’s her,” I confirmed.
Beppe pressed his lips together and turned his attention back to Alessandro and Toto. His eyes roamed over the two men, trying to find a weak support, a point where he could intervene.
He rubbed his lips. “I’m going to go and get Cesco. Don’t let them kill each other.”
I’ll try my best, I mouthed, watching as they collided with the coatrack. The rack went down, hitting the floor with a bang.
If they broke my coatrack, I thought, I’m really going to go homicidal.
Alessandro hit Toto so hard that I saw blood fly across the room. Toto responded by going straight for my husband’s knee, the sound of it hitting the floor almost equivalent to pushing in a tin can.
Oscuro and Beppe arrived just as my husband grabbed Toto’s ankle, flipping him. Toto wasn’t down for long. He leaped up, throwing himself straight into my husband’s stomach.
They both went back down to the ground, fists flying.
“I’ll get Alessandro, you get Toto,” Oscuro instructed Beppe. “At the same time, one, two...three!”
Oscuro went in, Beppe close on his heels.
For a few seconds, it looked like all four of them were fighting, throwing punches and hits. But then there was semblance of order. Beppe got Toto around the neck, yanking him back in one smooth movement, “Woah there, Uncle Sal!”
Oscuro got Alessandro, grabbing him around the shoulders and tossing him to the side.
To no one’s surprise, Toto bit down on Beppe’s arm.
“Asshole!” Beppe threw Toto, and he went down to the ground.
Within seconds, he was back on his feet and—
Alessandro went for his father at the same time he went for him.
This time, Beppe stepped in between the two of them—something I wouldn’t have done for any amount of money—and shoved them both in the face.
That gave Beppe and Oscuro both the chance to grab the father and son, holding them tightly and pinning them to the ground.
Alessandro shook his head. “Get off me. I’m good, I’m good.”
Oscuro followed the order but stayed close, ready to grab him again at any moment. I watched as my husband pulled back his shoulders, holding his