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“Where?” Nonna turned to me. “We need you here, Elio. We need to start scooping up their clients.”
“That’s right, Nonna Greta.” Vinni directed himself to her. “That’s exactly what this is about, and you’re going to make us late.”
“Elio?” She swung her gaze over to me.
“Why are you questioning us?” I snapped. “Why don’t you go home, and we’ll deal with this situation once we know all the details.”
“Pardon me?” She drew a breath and brought herself up to her full height. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room anymore.
“Give us a minute.” I nodded to Mama and Vinni but motioned at Papa to stay as they left. He needed to hear this. Nonna waved off Abramo, but he shook his head and only sent the soldiers outside, then he closed the door and stood next to it. I ignored him.
“Nonna, I spent my childhood looking up to you, learning from you, but somehow you lost your way.” I let my voice slip into a conversational one. I needed her to back off. “We can either move on from what happened, or we can continue to butt heads.” I held her gaze and stepped closer to show her I wasn’t beneath her thumb anymore. “You must understand, I’m not the little boy you can boss around anymore. I will be the head of this family very soon, and you will respect that, or we’ll have a big problem. Do I make myself perfectly clear?” She glared at me without a word then looked away and snapped an order at Abramo.
With an annoyed sigh, I grabbed my coat.
“Where are you going?” Nonna shouted after me.
“To find out who the hell killed Sienna.” Vinni followed me outside, and I didn’t say anything as I eased into the back seat and tugged at my tie, wanting to be alone. Panic threatened to take over, but I wasn’t even sure how to start my unraveling.
I barely felt Vinni start the car and drive down the road. I knew he said my name twice, but everything felt far away, my hands grew cold, and my head prickled. Shit, I might pass out or worse, vomit. I hated this feeling.
“Boss?” Vinni turned around at a stop sign, looking concerned for me. “Please, can you hear me?”
I heard him, and though my body was like stone on the outside, I was my own burning building on the inside. Nothing mattered until I knew exactly what happened to her.
We turned down the driveway, and as the gravel crunched under the tires, I blinked away the madness inside my head and looked around. We were at one of our guest houses. Why were we here?
“I’m really sorry, boss,” Vinni said as he put the car in park, looking straight ahead. “You have my word I’ll never do anything like this to you again.”
“What?” What was I missing?
“It needed to look real.”
Something inside me shifted, and I squinted through the darkness at someone running toward the car. I stepped out and saw her.
She raced toward me as I ran toward her with my heart bursting with joy and fear at the same time in case it turned out to be a crazy hoax. When she was close enough, she leapt into my arms and wrapped her body around mine, kissing me like mad. I squeezed her hard and kissed back then buried my head in her neck, deeply taking in her scent.
“I thought you were dead!” I kissed up her neck, then placed her on her feet, holding her face in my hands. “I was told you were dead.”
“Almost, in more ways than one.” She paused, and I knew there was a story coming. “But nice to know our plan of pretending to be dead worked.”
“Our?”
“Humm.” She gently pulled back and pointed at Ugo, who was coming up behind her with The Finder.
“Sorry to scare you, boss, but a lot’s happened.” Vinni’s eyes begged forgiveness. I would deal with him later. “A lot of people are missing. Rosa, Salvo—hell, Mariano. You needed to have a real reaction in front of everyone.”
The Finder stepped forward. “I brought them here.”
“How did you find them?”
“She called me.” He indicated Sienna. “I’d heard something was going on and was in the area anyway. I got a call from Sienna needing my help. My apologies for not calling the moment I got there, but she wanted me to wait.”
I held Sienna close to my body with one arm and held out the other to shake his hand. “Thank you.”
“I told you once, and I’ll say it again. I’ve always been and will always be loyal to you, Elio Capri. In spite of the pretense with Ms. Greta, you know I’d never hurt Sienna. I just knew that if I didn’t take on her request to remove your girl from the picture, she’d only hire someone else.”
“I know that, and I thank you for it and for your loyalty, my friend.” I tossed him my keys. “Take my car. I’m sure Abramo is looking for me. Lead him into the city.”
