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My breathing quickened, and I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.
“Get in the car, and we can talk about it.”
I had no choice left. I had to do as he demanded if I ever wanted to see Vincent again. And I had to see him again. He had to know how much had changed for me. I’d gone into his home with every intention of destroying him from the inside out, but so much had changed between us, and he knew that. He would forgive me when I explained everything. He had to. He couldn’t die thinking I’d betrayed him this entire time like my dad had insinuated.
I walked around the car and sat in the passenger’s seat. I knew I needed to hold my tongue, but I couldn’t. “You let me go like I meant nothing to you. You acted like I didn’t matter to you at all when you let Vincent take me. I’m your daughter, and you were okay with me being sent off like a cow to slaughter.”
He huffed, his hands tightening on the wheel. “You’re my employee,” he said. “Getting this territory is more important to me than anything, and you were my key to getting it. But you only proved that if I want to have something done, I have to do it myself.”
I thought about the way Vincent proposed running away with me. Would that change now that he knew the truth? God, I wanted to curse myself. I knew I should’ve told him what I’d initially planned, but I didn’t because I was scared of what he’d think. I wasterrifiedthat it’d change how he felt about me. “Is he alive and unharmed?” I asked, thinking about the gunshot.
“For now,” he said, hesitating. “His guard didn’t have the same courtesy. We couldn’t have someone talking.”
His guard? My chest constricted, and I felt like someone had punched me there. Alessio was the only other one in that room, and if he’d been killed… God, I couldn’t even imagine a world where Alessio had been killed. Vincent had lost too many people—too many close family members. And Alessio had been the last one alive. He wouldn’t be able to heal from this. Had my father truly killed the smiling, kind-hearted Alessio? I thought about the fleeting glances and touches that he and Caterina had shared when they thought nobody was looking. Vincent had leaned on him as a best friend, and I knew it was a loss he’d never be able to fully cope with—not as long as my father lived. God, Alessio had so much left to do in his life, and it wasn’t fair that my father had killed him. None of this was fair. And my father had no idea what he had done.
“You’re so fucking stupid,” I whispered, shaking my head.
“What did you just say to me?”
“I said you’re fucking stupid!” I shouted, slamming my palms down on the dash. “That was Vincent’s brother. You deserve to go to hell for what you’ve done to him.”
He swerved the car rapidly, and my face slammed into the side of the door, my head banging on the metal of it. “Talk to me like that again and you’ll see how little being my daughter matters to me.”
I stayed silent, trying to consider every repercussion of his actions. Vincent would kill him. There would be no forgiveness for this, and frankly, my father didn’t deserve it. It was my father who had been brutal and heinous over the years, not the Colombo family. He had manipulated and cheated and lied his way all the way to the top. He had enough favors in his pockets that he felt untouchable, but he wasn’t. He was anything but. Vincent would kill him for this, and I wondered if he’d kill me by association. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did, and I wondered if I’d deserve it for lying to him and following my father for so long.
“Let him go, and you have my word—”
“What the hell do you think your word is worth, Mia?” he asked, pulling into his compound. As I looked around, I realized that was precisely what it was. It wasn’t a home full of love and affection the way that the Colombos had been. There weren’t loving murals painted on walls or a family who sat around the table for dinner. There was nothing but a cold need for power, and I hated that I’d gone so long without seeing that.
“Nothing,” I finally said. The only warmth I’d ever had in this place was my friendship with Isabel, and I hadn’t spoken to her in months. As I considered it, I realized that I hadn’t evenheardfrom her. A sinking feeling filled my chest, and I tried to ignore as it wrapped around me and brought goosebumps to my flesh. “Why would you kill the woman back there?” I finally asked, hoping there’d been a good reason. I needed to change the subject. I couldn’t think about Isabel right now.
I had to hope that he had some regard for life, but as he shrugged, I realized I had been wrong. “She was a pawn, too.” How was she a pawn? What was he using her to accomplish? Was everyone in his life a pawn?
“Dad,” I whispered. “Why haven’t I heard from Isabel in all this time?”
I hoped he’d tell me that he’d demanded she stay away from me. I hadn’t given her much thought while I was with Vincent, as I’d assumed she was safe here. For a long while, I assumed that my dad was a decent person. I thought I’d have a warm welcome when I came back, but I was beginning to wonder.
He didn’t reply.“Dad,” I repeated more forcefully. I thought back to the last time I’d seen her, still tired and hung over from the night before. She would’ve known I was missing. She would’ve raised all the alarms and forced him to send people after me. She would have made a mess of his plan to stay quiet.
“She wouldn’t accept my decision to leave you there, so I had to take care of her before she became a problem.” Every part of me constricted as he turned off the car and stood nonchalantly. He didn’t give a fuck that he’d taken everything from me. In fact, he looked in high spirits as he strode toward the house, leaving me behind in the car. I heaved, my stomach constricting so tightly that I thought I may hurl. Alessio. Isabel. How many other people would he take before it was enough?
It wouldn’t end with Vincent. He’d continue murdering everyone in his way, and he’d ruin lives as he did so. Isabel…God, she’d been a great person. She’d been a fierce and protective best friend, and I couldn’t believe he’d kill her for something as stupid as spreading the word that I’d been kidnapped. Sure, she would’ve orchestrated a way to come save me. She would’ve done everything to make sure I was safe. And in return, I hadn’t even thought of her in the months I’d been away. She had been rotting in the ground for months, and I hadn’t even known. I stepped out of the car, but I didn’t feel my limbs as grief consumed me wholly.
“And Mia?” my father said, turning back toward me with his hand on the door handle. I only had time to look up and meet his smiling eyes before he spoke. “If you interfere in any way with my plans to execute Vincent, I’ll kill you, too. Anyone who stands against me will die.”
He didn’t even realize how ignorant he was to leave me alone, standing outside the house I wanted nothing more than to burn to the ground. I wouldn’t let him get away with this. I wouldn’t let him take another person I loved. If he was going to hurt Vincent, he’d have to go through me first.
24
VINCENT COLOMBO
I’d tried as hard as I could, but I wondered if any of it was even worth it. I’d lost my entire family and the only woman I’d ever loved; and now, as I sat in a chilled basement, bruised and aching in every part of my body, I could only think back on one of the last family memories I had with both parents and my siblings. It had been before my mother left and long before anyone had died. Technically, it had been a business trip for my father, but Alessio and Harper had been there, getting on one another’s nerves the way they always tended to do. My father had constantly been reprimanding all of us. But we were together, and if I could go back to that moment and live there forever, that’s the one place I’d go above all other places.
I found myself conflicted with the need to fight the Genovese boss and gain some level of revenge, but it didn’t feel like enough. Nothing I could do would be enough to pay him back for what he’d taken, and his death would only bring the Commission down on my own head. I would either die here today, weak and without any revenge, or I would die soon, an enemy in the eyes of the Commission for killing Pete without cause.
Despite all of the things I should be concerned about, most notably the death that awaited me outside the door to this basement room, the most concerning part of all of this was Mia and her involvement. She seemed just as shocked to see her dad as I had been, but what if she’d orchestrated all of it? What if she’d been the one to betray us, and she’d been the reason for my brother’s murder? She’d never been innocent. We’d let her live because we’d considered her innocent of everything her father stood for, but she had played a part in all of this from the beginning. If I saw her again, I’d kill her for what she did.
I worked at the ropes that bound my hands together, and it took longer than expected to slip them from my wrists. When I’d been brought here, I’d been beaten to bloody hell. They kicked me in the ribs and the arms, threw punches at all my exposed flesh, and then tied me to circular hooks that had been screwed into the concrete walls. I hadn’t felt any of it—not past the pain that Alessio’s death had brought me. Every time I looked at my red-tinted hands, the dull ache within me returned and drowned out the external pain. But now, the pain throbbed everywhere.
