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I pressed the back of my hand into her arm and froze. She wasn’t even cold yet. It made a chilling kind of sense. “We need to get out—”
Four figures exploded from the room, guns drawn. I reached for my gun, but a voice drew me to a halt. “I wouldn’t do that. They have orders to fire if you pose a threat. It won’t be any skin off my back.”
I whipped my head toward the voice of a man who strode through the back hallway of the home. A familiar man. My entire body went tense as I faced the man who murdered my family, and I considered the repercussions of opening fire anyway. I genuinely believed I’d have enough time to fire one shot before I was taken down—one shot to avenge my family. But half of the family who remained stood at my side, and I couldn’t see them meet the same fate.
I could feel Mia just as tense at my side, and I considered how we could possibly get out of this situation. “Mia, I want you to go,” I told her, not moving my gaze from where her father stood with a cunning smirk on his lips. “Now.”Get the others and call for helpwere the unspoken words I didn’t need to say.
“Mia, dear. Don’t take a step.”
She looked between us, and I knew she weighed who had the most power over the situation. At the moment, it was Pete Genovese, and she knew it. “I don’t take commands from you,” she spat at her father, taking a single step away.
His brows shot up as he trained his gaze on her. “Oh, really? Is that why you stayed withVincent,then?” He said my name as if it were something dirty on his tongue. “You, dear, could have gotten away from the kidnapping. I knew you could. I trained you long enough to know that unless you were chained, you would escape.”
“Dad—”
“You willingly stayed, and you did it because you were loyal to me. Because you wereworkingfor me. You were supposed to be the key to ending this whole thing.” He paused and looked between us. “Did you tell him any of these things before turning your back on me?”
I saw her shaking her head out of the corner of my eye, and the words processed in my mind. It made an alarming amount of sense, and I ground my teeth as I looked at her.
“Or are you still playing on my side?” Pete asked. He chuckled. “I know you have more of me inside of you than you want to admit. Have you been playing him? Stringing him along to his final execution?”
“No—no. I’m not working for you anymore!” she shouted.Anymore.
“Did you tell him what you were planning to do? About the reason for the marriage?” I knew I needed to keep a clear head, but hearing this had my mind reeling. She’d sworn herself to me, and that meant that she should’ve told me everything. If she were truly loyal to me, nothing Pete said should surprise me, but I had a feeling there was something coming. Pete Genovese looked at me with a smirk. “My dear daughter was meant to kill you, Colombo. She was trained for years to do it, and when you kidnapped her, you unwittingly let a wolf into your home.”
“No,” I told him, but Mia didn’t say a word.
“She knew her job, and when you took her, it was an opportunity for us. She’s always been one of my strongest soldiers. Isn’t that right, sweetie?”
I looked at her, and tears streamed from her eyes. “Is this true?” I asked. She didn’t say anything as she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. Had she lied when she’d sworn herself to me? Had she done it, knowing that she would gain more trust and inevitably kill me anyways? I thought about all the moments we’d had—the moments I thought had been genuine. I’d told her that I loved her, and she hadn’t said it back.
She turned and sprinted from the room, and Pete laughed, gesturing to one of his men. “Go and retrieve her.” Alessio and I were all that remained, and he looked between us before sighing deeply. “I thought you’d be a better adversary than this.” At once, all of his men swarmed. A shot fired, and I expected to feel the pain of it, but when I didn’t, I looked toward the noise. Before I could pinpoint the barrel that had fired, Alessio collapsed at my side. I whipped toward him, quickly catching his head before it hit the ground. The rest of him slammed into the hardwood with a bruising force that had me wincing.
We’d both taken hits like that before, though. I’d caught his head, and that was the most important part of him. The most valuable part. My hands felt sticky with blood as I examined his relaxed face. His closed eyes. The small hole that punctured the center of his forehead leaked blood onto the floor. I couldn’t process what I was seeing as I held my brother. He was all I had left—the last part of my family and the only one who could truly share the loss of my sister and father with me. I held him tightly, but harsh hands jerked me away. A hard blow brought darkness over my senses, and only then was I aware that I had been shouting Alessio’s name.
23
MIA GENOVESE
When a shot rang out, I ran faster, knowing that I needed to get to Luca and Caterina—knowing that I needed to get their help. We had hourly check-ins scheduled with them, and when they didn’t hear from us, they’d come looking; but an hour was too long, especially when a bullet had been fired.
I heard one of my father’s guards pursuing me, but I kept running. I took side streets and alleyways, losing him as I sprinted. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d gone faster than right now. I’d never needed to. I recognized the loud exhaust of my father’s sports car before he pulled up to my side, driving alongside me. “Get in the car, Mia.”
I wondered if I could swerve and lose him. In the time I’d been here with Vincent, I was confident I knew the streets better than him. I could get to Luca and Caterina, and they could help us. They had to.
“I’m going to execute him.”
I halted in my tracks, turning to face him. Both relief and terror coursed through me—relief at the fact that he wasn’t already dead, and terror about what was to come.
“Get in the car and we can talk.”
If he was here, it meant that he had men already bringing Vincent somewhere. If I found Caterina and Luca, I realized that I still wouldn’t know where Vincent was being held—not without talking to my dad. They’d come looking within the next half-hour, but I was in the position to do something now. Maybe I could negotiate on his behalf. And if he’d been shot, he’d need attention. We wouldn’t have timeto look for him. “You can’t kill him,” I said boldly.
“When the Commission learns about all the things he’s done, they’ll side with me on his execution.”
I stepped toward the car. “He hasn’t doneanything,” I argued.
“A representative of the Commission is at the house, and she’s going to assess the situation. She will approve his execution, and then I’ll do it publicly so that everyone knows what happens when they cross me.”
