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“Illyana!” Mandy suddenly grabs Illyana’s arm and tugs her away. “Time to go. We need to get you some lunch. You can’t help.”

"Because Uncle Mario was mean to her, we can't help her?" Illyana retorts.

Mario rolls his eyes and waves them away. “Nurse, do you mind?”

Through pouring tears, I watch Mandy escort Illyana out of sight and suddenly, long, thin arms come around my body. I thrash desperately against the ground until something sharp pierces the side of my neck.

A cool trickle spreads from my neck to my shoulder and the tension in my chest eases just enough for me to take deeper and deeper breaths. Calmness follows.

“Haley was her nanny.” Mario chuckles as if I should be able to understand the joke. “A terrible one at that. Women who think they can speak up about things that aren’t their place… well, you understand. Life is like a kitchen. You’re still a chef, yes? What do you do when a cook has the wrong idea?”

I continue to gasp, glaring up at him through my tears while each breath slowly becomes easier. The tang of iron at the back of my throat makes me gag and Mario grimaces.

"Perhaps this was the wrong idea," Mario says in a voice that seems oddly far away. The thin arms around me retract and then the thin man appears at Mario's side. “I thought introducing the two of you would motivate you, not send you into… whatever this is. He really did pick a weak one, didn’t he?”

"My…" I gasp out. "My daughter. You… how do you… why am I…?"

I blink, and my eyelids rapidly grow heavy while Mario crouches down in front of me with that smile that vanishes under his mustache.

"Let's not make this a bigger deal than it has to be. If you want to return to your life in New York, then be gracious and give us your kidney. I will see that you are compensated. Otherwise, I will kill that pretty little brain of yours and take the kidney, and then keep you warm in case we ever need the other one. Understand?"

9

CASSIAN

"Sicily is one hell of a beautiful place." I rest back in the driver's seat with one hand on the steering wheel while my other elbow rests on the fully lowered window. With the top down, the warm afternoon breeze tickles over my forearms and across my freshly-shaven jaw.

"I still think you should have brought more people," Raven replies from my phone resting on the dashboard. "Anything could happen to you out there."

"I've brought just enough to be inconspicuous."

"And yet your car is empty."

"I know you're worried, Raven. But I'm going to be fine."

"You were shot less than two weeks ago. Now you're in another country with barely even a full protection squad and you expect me to just relax?"

I glance affectionately at my phone where Raven's face darts into view with a frown. "I want you to trust me. I know what I'm doing and I can't just… I can't just leave Sabina until I know she's okay. The Viscontis lied about killing her, which means they snatched her for a reason. And I could have stopped it. If I'd been faster or smarter that night, then she would be safe and I wouldn't be here."

"You shouldn't blame yourself." Raven sighs deeply. "None of this was on our radar."

"But I do blame myself. I keep thinking that if I'd just sucked up what I was feeling and asked her out, then I would have been there and I could have helped her."

"Not if the Viscontis were telling a partial truth," Raven reminds me. "We can't rule out the possibility that she is connected either to a Triad branch or something else. She might not be the sweet chef she's led you to believe she is."

Something twists in my gut, and I cast my gaze out past the road to the shimmering blue sea that flashes between the buildings as I drive past. Raven's right. They lied about killing her, but that doesn't automatically make her innocent. If everything else is true, then I can't get in their way, no matter how I feel about her.

"So." Raven pops her lips together. "How do you plan on finding her? Where do you even start looking?"

"If you'd come with me, you would have found her already."

"I hate traveling."

"I know."

"Besides, it's because of me you know she landed in Sicily and was carried off that plane alive. It'll be harder for me to keep an eye on things, but I'm working on it."

Raven's skills for hacking and retrieving information that others could only dream of are sometimes a hundred times more useful than anything I can gain from a fist or a solid kick. But I'm not completely out of my depth.