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“I’m the boss!” I shouted at her. “When my father died, he gave me the title, and if I think this will be best for our businesses moving forward, I’m going to do it. I don’t give a fuck how it affects me.”
“What about how it affects your relationship with us?” Luca asked. “I won’t be able to look at you the same if you decided to do this. None of us will.”
I closed my eyes tightly, my mind flashing to my sister and father’s bodies lying on a slab before me. He had been riddled with gunshots, but I could tell it was him. My sister, on the other hand, had been shot in the head. Half of her skull was gone, and her face had been rendered unrecognizable. The only way I knew it was her was the small butterfly tattoo with a spiraling C that she’d gotten behind her right ear. It was the only ear that remained on her corpse.
“Doing this won’t get your family back. It will only tear apart the family you have left,” Caterina said softly, and I heard her drop back into her plush seat. I opened my eyes and looked back around the table at the family who remained. I knew she was right, but the thought of letting Pete’s crimes go unpunished tore at something inside of me. My father had run things in a way that we kept close to home. He’d been as good as a man can be in this career, and by doing this, I’d be stomping on his legacy. I knew that’s what would happen.
“Killing her isn’t enough,” I said, shaking my head. I saw the fury in Caterina’s eyes, but I continued before she could argue. “If we can find another way, I’ll consider forgoing the other part of the plan. But if we can’t think of anything…”
“I can infiltrate again. I’m sure they upped their security since I went last time, but there’s always a way in. They have so many damned hired hands at that house, nobody will see me. I’ll find someone else important to him,” I could see Caterina already planning the route in her mind. She was the best spy I’d encountered in my time here, and she knew it.
“There is nobody else,” Luca retorted.
I recognized that none of us would agree to any decision right now, so I took a deep breath and nodded. “Then we wait. We keep her here, and we think about alternatives. She’s under my protection, and you all make sure everybody knows that. The only one allowed to touch her is me until we decide what we’re going to do.”
“We could just kill her,” Alessio suggested.
I only shook my head. “Not until we know if there’s a way to use her first. Whether it be for a pregnancy or something else.”
I stood and, without another word, ended the conversation by striding out of the room. I could’ve gone toward my bedroom or office, but my legs had a different idea. I ended up turning toward the room where we kept Mia. I strode down the hallway and stopped beside the locked door. I grabbed the key from my pocket and pressed it into the lock, pushing the door open.
There, standing at the end of the bed, looking fighting mad, stood Mia. “It’s beentwo days!” she shouted. “Two days of being alone in this room and wondering if you would leave me in here forever.” She’d been fed, and she’d had a small bathroom and a bed, yet she still stood there fuming, not seeming to have a single regard for her own life as she stared up at me. Everything about her intrigued me, and that fact pissed me off more than I wanted to admit. But goddamnit, the interest I felt wasn’t going anywhere, and that was more dangerous than anything, especially when I knew this situation would by definition end one way or another with her dead.
5
MIA GENOVESE
The last visitor I’d had was Vincent yesterday, and he had stayed inside for less than a minute before silently turning and walking out. Maybe I should’ve been nice and tried to sweet-talk him and earn some freedom, but I knew it wouldn’t work. Plus, I wasn’t even sure if I could stomach it. It didn’t matter how attractive I found him. I couldn’t believe I’d beenintimatewith him.
I’d paced across the room no less than a thousand times over the last couple of days, waiting for anyone to come and offer me company. I knew Vincent wanted me dead, so I should’ve been grateful I had a decent room and regular meals, but I couldn’t. He and his family had been responsible for everything that had gone wrong with my family and me for years. They’d killed and betrayed, and they ran things so differently than we did. We’d managed to keep the peace with the Irish mob for years, recruiting only the most pure-blooded Italians loyal to the cause, but the Colombos had a different philosophy. They recruited whomever they pleased, creating made men from imposters. We’d all paid for it when one of the dirty micks had opened fire at a Commission meeting, killing a variety of people from all five families.
Everyone was in agreement: the secret-spilling nature of the Colombo family was not something we could continue allowing. I planned to swear my allegiance to my father as soon as the situation was handled, and I hoped it would settle itself sooner rather than later. I hoped I could be the one responsible for ending this once and for all. I just needed the opportunity.
When my door opened, I sprung to my feet, prepared to defend myself from any oncoming attackers. Instead of someone rushing me, though, a man walked inside and rubbed his hands together, looking me up and down. He looked familiar, and it took me only a second to place him as the man I’d seen in the alcove with Vincent the night at the club. The man who had waited outside the curtain for us. He looked similar enough to Vincent that I knew there was some kind of relation there. Brothers or close cousins, I assumed. He stood nearly as tall as Vincent, though slimmer and less innately intimidating. His nose looked like it had once been long and straight, but the slight crook at the top told me that it had been broken at some point. His hair and eyes were the same hues as Vincent’s, though I saw more sadness than rage in his expression.
“I’m Alessio,” he said, holding a few large folders in front of himself as he strode into the room like he owned it. I supposed hedidlikely own it. “I’m Vincent’s brother, and I came to have a conversation with you.”
“Are you planning to tell me how you’re going to kill me? If so, Vincent was extremely thorough in his explanations, and you don’t need to waste your breath,” I told him, crossing my arms over myself.
His jaw clenched, and he leaned into a wall on the other side of the room. “You’re very talkative for someone who’s been put in her place.”
“If I’m going to die, I’m not going to make it easy for any of you.”
He chuckled, though there was little humor in his eyes. “Frankly, we haven’t decided what we’re doing to you. You’ll die, though. That’s non-negotiable. We just can’t decide yet if we’re going to do morethan that. We all have our own ideas for what to do in addition, but Vincent is responsible for choosing, and he hasn’t. Consider yourself lucky. He’s actually a good man. I don’t think he’ll be able to go through with anything more than killing you, unless you prove you’re as horrible as your father.” I nodded, but I didn’t say anything more. “You don’t seem like you particularly care about this situation. Do you feel nothing for what happened to our family because of your father?”
I bit my lip. This I could do. I could fake remorse. “I’m sorry for your losses,” I told him. “But I didn’t do it.”
“You don’t seem very sincere,” he commented. Probably because I wasn’t.Losing people was difficult, and I could respect that he grieved, but I also knew all about the horrible cruelty this family found pleasure in, because my father had told me all about it. Some people in this world genuinely have bad things coming to them, and the Colombos were one of them. I couldn’t feel sympathy for a family who was more monstrous than even my own. After everything I’d heard over the years, I couldn’t bring myself to care, no matter how much he wanted me to. Did that make mea bad person? Maybe. But it made me an alive one too.
“Well,” he commented, pushing off the wall. “This conversation cemented my stance on the situation. Vincent should have killed you already, but instead I’m going to make you useful.”
My eyes dropped to the pile of documents he’d rested on my dresser. “What are they?”
“Account balances and money owed to us. Our usual accountant hasn’t been keeping up very well with this information on top of her more serious duties, so I’m bringing it to you. See if you can find anything amiss.”
I tilted my head. “Why would I help you do anything after you’ve made it clear that killing me is your only plan?” I asked.
“We can keep you in a much worse room than this,” he said. I understood the message. He looked between me and the stack of documents, and before walking out the door he paused. “And a single of these documents is found destroyed when I come back, I’ll pull out your fingernails and send them to your father.” I gaped at the threat, but I knew it was genuine. “Have a good evening, Mia.”
