Piper didn't even have time to part her painted lips. Colino's eyes went glacial—the cold, flat stare of a man who'd learned to kill his emotions long before he'd learned to kill anything else.
"I warned you," he said, his voice like steel dragged across frozen stone. "Don't test my patience."
Then he turned to his soldiers and issued the order with the casual cruelty of a man born into blood. "Go to the funeral home. Bring her mother's body back here."
Every word was a blade dipped in venom.
"She won't learn until she's broken." His lip curled with contempt as he looked at me—looked through me. "You think someone like you deserves to stand as the Donna of the Marconi Family?"
"Feed the corpse to the dogs." He meant every syllable.
His crew moved without hesitation, their heavy footsteps echoing through the marble foyer like a death march. These weren't men who questioned orders. These were soldiers who'd buried bodies in unmarked graves and slept soundly after.
"No! No, please!" I lunged forward in blind panic—only to be seized by another enforcer. His grip crushed my arm with practiced brutality. I heard the crack before I felt it.