I love him.
And now he’s gone.
And then.
There’s a scream.
Cassandra, who was curled up on the ground, is now being dragged backward by her hair.
My mother’s claw-like fingers curl through the dark strands of Cas’ hair as she stands over her. With one swift movement, she brings a knife to the pregnant woman’s neck. “Get up, whore.”
I watch in terror as Cas wordlessly complies.
“Let her go,” the plea erupts from my mouth without thought.
But Ida Natali isn’t looking at me. She’s looking at my brother.
“You always wanted to know what it would take to win my approval. Let me teach you now so that you can become the leader I know you to be.”
Leon’s arms go rigid around me. “What?”
“Your sister has brutally disappointed me,” she says. “But none of our plans need to change. Vitale is dead. Moretti is dead. All that remains is this whore and her unborn child.”
I can feel Leon’s heartbeat begin to elevate.
“All you need to do is kill her. Then all of this, the war, the Guild, will be over. You will become the new don of the Italian Mafia. There’s no one left to stand in your way.”
It’s all he ever wanted. I know it is.
“Please, Leon. Don’t do this,” I whisper.
But mother’s voice drowns me out. “I’m giving you a gift, Leon. See how willing she is to accept her death?”
Cassandra is still violently shaking, but her neck is stretched out and exposed to Ida’s knife. Though weeping still, her eyes are closed in resignation.
“This is all that must be done” Mother tightens her grip on Cas’ hair and removes the knife from her neck.
Only to rest it on Cas’s stomach.
Cassandra’s eyes flash open in an instant, and she’s struggling, seemingly willing to tear her own hair out just to escape my mother’s threat.
“She still has some fight in her,” Ida grunts under the effort of keeping Cas restrained. “You need to learn what drives a personbefore you kill them. Then you’ll know who will come after you when they die.”
“I suppose you learned that the hard way.”
My heart stops beating.
Teo.
Staggering toward us, covered head to toe in soot and grime. Limping awfully but alive. Alive. Alive.
I don’t think. I just run, tears streaming.
He catches me in an instant, wrapping his arms around me protectively. And he’s filthy, and his burns reek of sizzling flesh, but he’s alive and here. And God, oh God…
“I thought you were dead.”
There’s a choking sound, and it doesn’t come from either of us.
