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LARA
My father is a shrewd and clever man, and he knows just how far to push Christian. As soon as we’re discovered, he wastes no time using the current situation to his advantage. “Come now, Christian,” he says right after we’re escorted back to my father’s office by the police chief and his comrades. I glare at my brother the entire time, but in truth, I’m so hurt by Loreto’s betrayal that I can’t even see straight.
“I don’t think either of us want any more blood to be spilled,” my father continues, ignoring me and directing his words to Christian only. “Let’s talk about this privately likegentlemen.” His suggestion makes me wince. My father has never been a gentleman. He’s barely a “man” at all, more like an impudent toddler trying his hand at playing a king. That being said, he definitely does have the upper hand at the current moment. And since Christian is too powerful for my father to simply knock off without facing severe repercussions from his uncle, thecapo, I can see he’s trying to negotiate. Still, we’re on his turf, and no one but Loreto and the Police chief knows that Christian is here with me, and that makes this less than ideal. Now that the biker gang has been essentially all but eliminated, being at odds doesn’t benefit either Christian or my father.
“I’ll speak with you privately, Valentino,” Christian says. “But let me be very clear before any words are exchanged that I won’t be leaving here without Lara.”
My father gives him a thin smile and motions for Christian to walk with him back into his office so that they can talk behind closed doors. That leaves me alone with my brother, who I can’t even standto look at right now. Loreto has always protected me, and now he’s flat-out betrayed me. The silence dangles in the air like a noose until I can’t stand it any longer. I turn abruptly to face him, jutting out my chin and piercing him with my eyes to break the silent treatment I’d been trying to uphold. “Why?” I ask, knowing my single-worded question is all that’s needed for him to understand what I want an answer to.
But Loreto’s answer is a tangled, knotted and crooked one. I’ve never known my brother not to give me a straight answer, but this time he’s being purposefully vague. “It’s complicated,” he says.
“Try me,” I hiss back at him, unwilling to let him slide on this.
“I’m still doing my best to protect you and Christian, Lara.”
I can’t possibly roll my eyes back far enough in my head in response to him. “I don’t believe you. We were protected in hiding, and we were going to escape, until you showed our father where we were. How could you?” I stare at my brother as I wait for his answer, but none ever comes. For the first time, I notice just how fatigued and desperate Loreto looks. There’s something he’s keeping from me, something he’s hiding, maybe for the purposes of protecting me like he said. But I’m hurt he won’t confide in me about whatever it is that’s going on. We’ve always been a team, always there for each other, and it’s always been my older brother who’s done the heavy lifting to watch out for me and keep me safe from our father. But now, maybe it’s time I’m the one to try and save us.
I look around to see that no one is near enough within earshot to hear us, and then I grab onto my brother’s sleeve and pull him into the corner. “I have something,” I whisper to him. “I took a book from that office that turned out to be our father’s hitlist ledger. And it shows that he’s made kills withinour own family.”
Loreto’s face remains blank. He doesn’t look shocked or surprised at all.“Didn’t you hear me?” I say with growing urgency. “Don’t you know what that means?” He doesn’t need to answer me in order for me to instantly read his face. In that moment, I can tell my brother’s gotten himself in over his head with something. The lack of surprise, the wash of guilt and remorse that crosses his eyes, tells me he knew about this well before I told him. “Loreto, tell me you weren’t involved in any of our father’s treachery.”
He sighs deeply before answering me. “I helped him do a lot of that shit, Lara,” he says as my heart sinks. “It was the only way to keep our father from bringing you deep into it. He threatened all the time that he was going to use you as bait to lure his targets into his traps so that he could take them out. I wanted to protect you, so I helped him orchestrate the kills he wanted, no matter who they were. But then, I got in over my head. He started wanting innocent people dead, even relativesor people who’d been adopted into the Ricci family. At that point, I knew I had to get out.”
“And that’s when you left to be the Giotticonsigliere,” I say as the pieces fall into place in my head.
“Yes. Malacoda and I had been friends for years and he trusted me. When I approached him with my conundrum, he didn’t have aconsigliereand he offered me the position within hisborgata.”
“But why didn’t you just go to Christian? He’s your best friend and acapoas well. Surely he would’ve taken you into hisborgatatoo.”
“I didn’t want to put my best friend in danger. I knew Malacoda has a hugeborgatathat can hold its own. I was trying to protect Christian by keeping him out of this.”
“Just like you were trying to protect me?” I ask, feeling terrible that my brother had gotten himself into this mess partially because of me and our father’s obsession with making my life a living hell. All this time, I was envious of my brother’s freedom, but really, Loreto is every bit still as controlled by our father as I am. “I still don’t understand why you would give us up,” I say. “Why not just go to the Giottis and ask Malacoda to help get you out of this trouble?”
“I can’t. Before I became Malacoda’sconsigliere, I made some hitson a few low-level Giottis that our father had demanded no one know about except for him and that damned ledger. But now—”
“Let me guess,” I interrupt. “Now our father is using it against you to try and get you to do his bidding?”
My brother looks down at his feet in shame. “I didn’t want to sell you out, but I had to tell him where you and Christian were hiding. If I didn’t, he was going to go to Malacoda and tell him about the men I killed under his protection. That would mean that the Giottiborgatawould no longer be on our side, and that Christian would have no allies in the city. The entire Giottiborgatawould be against us, and the three of us would all be as good as dead.”
I understand why my brother did it, but I still don’t like it. Our father has a way of whittling down a person’s resolve until they’re desperate enough to do just about anything, a despicable skill that was likely the cause of my mother’s suicide, which was framed as a murder. Although I’m still mad and hurt, I understand and forgive Loreto for what he did. He didn’t have any other choice, and he opted for the decision that would hurt the three of us the least.
Unfortunately, however, the situation is looking pretty dim.
20
CHRISTIAN
Valentino Ricci is an untrustworthy snake. I know better than to trust the man to keep his word.
Still, I need to come up with some sort of arrangement that will allow me to take Lara and Loreto out of here unscathed. I admit to being shocked that Loreto sold his sister and me out, but I know him well enough to know that he must’ve had his reasons. And knowing Loreto, those reasons likely had something to do with protecting us.
“I only want one thing, Christian,” Valentino says in his slippery voice. “Territory.” Of course. I would expect nothing less from a guy like Valentino, whose ambitions are far loftier than his abilities. “Your restaurants are a solid cover for all of your criminal operations, and I want them,” he says as if he’s dealing out his demands like cards. “You see, I’m a businessman at heart, and I see a ripe opportunity here. I want to expand my business and grow my distribution channels throughout lower Manhattan. And your restaurants and the shielding they provide will be the perfect opportunity for me to do just that.”
“Like hell,” I growl at him. Not only would handing my restaurants over to Valentino cause a crisis in my own family’s business, it would cost me my foothold of power and territory in Hell’s Kitchen. Plus, I love my restaurants. It makes my skin crawl thinking that Valentino would sink his claws into them. He doesn’t even know the first thing about the culinary arts or appreciate fine cuisine. He would destroy them and turn them into filthy storefronts to cover up his devious misdeeds. Still, Lara and Loreto are even more important to me than my restaurants.
“Think about it, Christian,” he says, visibly enjoying the position he’s put me in. “Surely your best friend and the woman you love are worth a few dining venues.”
“Fine,” I snarl at him. I’ll simply plan to take my property back at a later date. “Let Loreto and Lara go, and you can have them.”
