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“Alex, back so soon? The guards let me know that you—” Teo stopped in his tracks as he entered the foyer. His face was stoic but there was a strange expression I couldn't quite place. “I thought you were taking her to the airstrip. Did something happen?”
“I was on my way there when I realized something. Can we talk in private?”
“Of course. Vennie?” He called out and Vennie hurried in from the other room.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Take Ms. Marino to the kitchen for a drink while Alessandro and I talk.”
“Of course.”
Teo led me into the parlor where we did most of our meetings, his calm facade crumbling the moment the door closed behind us.
“What the hell are you thinking, bringing her back here?”
“Teo, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t—”
“I told you that I’d have one of the other men take care of it if you couldn’t do it. I knew this was going to be too hard on you.”
“There has to be another way. There has to be a way to save her life.”
Teo paced the parlor floor. “There was, but she chose not to stay. We can’tforceher to stay.”
People relate getting an idea to a light bulb going off and I never truly understood that phrase until that moment when the idea of how to save Sienna’s life came to me. The desperation left my voice, replaced with confidence and determination.
“But why can’t we?”
Teo stopped and turned to face me, studying me like I’d grown three heads. “Why can’t we what?”
“Force her to stay.” Teo cast me an incredulous look and turned away, heading for the drink cart. “Teo, think about it. We’re already criminals so I know that your aversion to it isn’t because of some concern for the law.”
“We don’t deal in human trafficking and slavery, Alex. And that’s what it would essentially be. You are asking me to let you keep some girl against her will? Have you truly lost your mind?”
“What’s worse? Letting me keep her or having me kill her?”
“She’s not some stray that you found on the side of the road. She’s a person.”
“A person who you want me to kill.”
“Because she knows too much. She’s too dangerous to our family to just let her go.”
“Exactly but that doesn’t mean that she has to die. If I keep her with me, I can make sure that she never puts the family in danger while at the same time making sure that she has a good, long life.”
“You really think that a strong, independent woman like the doctor is going to be okay being your possession?”
“Happier than if she’sdead,” I said with a little more bite to my tone than I meant. “I’m sorry. I just...Teo, as my friend, please? I can’t let her die.”
“You really care about her,” he said thoughtfully as he walked over to me. “Have you really thought this through?”
“Is there any other solution where she lives?”
“None that I can think of.”
“Then I'm sure,” I said without a doubt in my voice.
“She’s not going to like this.”
“Oh, I know. She’s going to hate me for this. But at least she’ll be alive to hate me.
