Page 95 of The Masked King

“Let them go,” he addresses Malevsky. “This is between me and you.”

Malevsky’s lips twitch. “Maybe it was to begin with. But your girlfriend here has irritated the fuck out of me, and your sister—” he shrugs “—doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut and disappear.”

Enzo’s eyes slide to Bianca and back again without giving anything away. “Do you have sisters? They get treated like princesses when they’re growing up, spoiled, given everything they could possibly want, and then they discover that it was all a lie, and they will always come second to the men in the family.”

“Boo-hoo.” Malesky makes a crying signal with his hands near his eyes. “Am I supposed to feel something here? Because it isn’t working.”

“Maybe you don’t know how to feel. Your loss. Family relationships and love are messy and complicated and brutal, but they’re the only things worth living for.”

Enzo fires a bullet into Malevsky’s shoulder to match the one in his own, and the pakhan barely flinches. Blood oozes from the hole in his jacket, and I watch it, mesmerized, like it’s a clever illusion while my heart panics that this will all be over soon, and I’ll never get to tell Enzo I love him. I always loved him.

“They’re the only things worth dying for too,” Enzo concludes. “Wouldn’t you agree, Bianca?”

“Leave me out of this, Enzo,” she says. “I’m only here because of you.”

He watches her for a long beat, his expression unfathomable. I don’t know if she’s staring back at him, or if she’s trapped inside her own head right now, but I wonder how much he knows about the fire that killed Malevsky’s cousin and his family.

I wonder if he has always known that his sister set him up.

Enzo turns his attention back to Malevsky. “Is that correct?”

“I don’t like to leave loose ends. Unlike the Sabatellis, who have loose ends flapping around all over the place.” His lips part into a macabre grin to reveal his teeth. “Girlfriends in the NYPD, ex-lovers on the runway, kids in exclusive schools in Rome. Do you know how easy it is to⁠—”

“You leave my children out of this, you fucking asshole!” Bianca struggles to free herself from her constraints, the chair legs banging on the floor as she tries to move. “Touch them and I’ll fucking kill you myself!”

“Like I said,” Malevsky says, unfazed, “she doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

“Let them go, and I’ll give you what you want,” Enzo says.

“The deal is off.”

“Name your price.” Enzo’s expression hasn’t faltered since he entered the room.

He has barely looked at me since his initial glance when he walked in. Part of me, the irrational needy part that I never knew existed, is desperate to know that he still feels the same way as he did before, aching for a wink, or a glimmer in his eyes to tell me that he’ll make this all go away. While the rational part of my brain is yelling at me that his deliberate indifference is calculated to get me out of here.

“You gain nothing by killing the women,” Enzo continues.

“Sure, I do,” Malevsky counters. “I get to see you watch them die.”

“You know I’ll kill you before that happens, right?”

Malevsky laughs out loud. “Yet here you are still talking when you could’ve killed me already.” His laughter stops as abruptly as it started. “We both know that you can’t stop the fire once I start it. That you’ll go up in flames with them or you’ll hear their screams while you cover your ears with your hands.”

“You’ll die with us,” Enzo says.

“It will be worth it.”

That’s when I know that we’re all going to die in this room. Life holds so little value to men like Malevsky, that he is willing to sacrifice his own life in the name of revenge.

“No!” I blurt out.

We’re running out of options. There’s no point trying to appeal to Malevsky’s humanity because it doesn’t exist, but I can’t give up now, not while I’m still breathing and there’s a chance I might save Enzo and Gio and his family. I’m under no illusions that he’ll let Megan and the children live when he’s done here.

“Enzo is willing to make a deal. Won’t you at least listen to what he’s offering?”

Malevsky tilts his head to one side like I’m a curious creature he discovered in the wild. For one fleeting moment, I think he might be tempted, then, “No. Time’s up.”

He flicks open the lid of the lighter, and a flame bursts to life.