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“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t do this. Don’t let them kill you because of me. I’m a fucking failure.”
I moved toward him and touched his head briefly. “You are the one from all of us who deserves death the least, Adamo.” I removed my hand from his head, but before I could move on, he grasped my forearm, his fingers curling over my Camorra tattoo. “It’s us against the world,” he croaked.
“Us against the world,” I said.
Samuel gripped my arm, and I shoved down the instinct to smash his face. I saw his fist coming toward my face and smiled. The first punch only blurred my vision. His kick to my balls brought me to my knees. And his gun to the back of my head finally pulled me into blackness.
SERAFINA
Samuel and Danilo dragged Remo into the safe house, his arms and legs bound, his nose busted and dripping blood, his hair sticking to the back of his head with more blood. I slowly rose from the sofa where I had been waiting for almost one hour with two bodyguards.
Dad moved toward me, trying to shield Remo from my view—or me from his. I wasn’t sure and didn’t care. “Dove, you shouldn’t be here.” His eyes narrowed on my bodyguards, harshly, cruelly. I touched his arm.
“I will stay,” I said firmly, my voice resolute.
Dante was the last to enter.
The men exchanged a look. Their word was law, not mine, but their guilt gave me power over them, more power than they’d ever held over me. I hated using it against them, but they would never allow me to possess power for any other reason.
I walked past my father, toward Danilo and Samuel holding Remo between them. His head hung down, body was slack. I tried to hide the tremor that had taken hold of me the moment I’d spotted him.
Remo Falcone.
Danilo’s expression twisted like it always did when he saw me. With guilt and a flicker of humiliation because something had been taken from him, because Remo had taken it from him. He was a strong, powerful man, and having lost me haunted him like it haunted every man in the room. I was their failure. Their pride a tattered sullied rag. Every time they had to peer into my eyes, and worse the eyes of my children, they were reminded.
They’d never let me be anything but the dove with broken wings. They couldn’t. But I wanted to fly.
“Have you come to watch the bastard die, Fina?” Samuel asked, his face cruel, eager, brutal as his blue eyes settled on Remo, who still hadn’t moved, but I noticed the almost imperceptible shift in his shoulders, his muscles twitching. He was waking up.
My heart beat faster, my palms becoming sweaty.
“I know you deserve your revenge, dove, but this is going to be more than you can stomach, trust me,” Dad said, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. His voice was soft, compelling, but his face held terrifying eagerness and cruelty as he regarded the father of my children.
“What are your plans for him?” I asked my uncle, because he was the man who would have the last word on the matter.
His cool blue eyes weren’t as controlled as usual. He, too, wanted to tear into Remo. They had waited a long time for this moment. “We will prolong his torture as long as possible without risking an attack from the Camorra.”
“He won’t die today?”
“Oh, he won’t die today,” Samuel muttered. “But he might wish for it.”
I gave a nod. It was what I had expected. Remo wouldn’t experience any mercy at the hands of the Outfit, not that he’d ever ask for it.
“He’ll beg for death,” Dad said harshly.
“I don’t beg for anything, Pietro.”
I shivered at the familiar timbre, at the underlying threat, the undercurrent of power. How did he do it?
Remo lifted his head, and my brother and Danilo tightened their hold, but they blended into the background when Remo’s eyes finally met mine. Fourteen months.
The force of his gaze hit me like a tidal wave. In the time since he’d released me, I’d often wondered if I could ever forget him, if I could move on and live a new life, but now as I looked at him, I realized I had been foolish to consider that an option.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile. “Angel.”
My brother punched Remo’s face, but he only laughed darkly as blood spattered on the ground.
“This is your chance to ask for forgiveness,” Dad said.
Remo looked from each of them until his eyes finally settled on me. “Do you want me to beg for forgiveness?”
His eyes dragged me down fiercely, mercilessly, irrevocably as they’d always done. As they always would. “I won’t give you my forgiveness,” I said quietly.
