AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hold her to me and look over her head as Santino appears in the doorway. He gives me a chin lift, wanting me to follow him. I hold up one finger.
“What the hell happened?”
I hold her as she cries. “I… I got someone’s finger…”
I frown. “You got someone’s finger?”
“...in a box.”
My eyes go wide.Holy shit.
I squeeze her tighter. “Nothing is ever going to happen to you, Val, you know I won’t let it.”
“It came with some flowers,” she whispers. “I thought it was from you.”
I close my eyes as I try to not let the anger overtake me. “Where is Bianca?”
“She’s just in the restroom.”
“We’re going to the casino now, and then I’m going to take care of this.”
“I don’t understand…” she blurts out. “Why someone would send something like that…”
She pulls back to look at me sharply, then wipes her tears as she jabs a finger at me. “This is why, isn’t it?”
I hold her by the shoulders, trying to keep her calm. “Why what?”
“You said Angelo wanted me to move the office to the casino temporarily. There’s been a threat against me, hasn’t there? A serious one.”
I can’t lie to her, not like this. “Yes,” I say. “There has and we have to take it seriously, especially now.”
She shakes her head angrily. “This isn’t fair! This will only taint my business and everything I’ve built, E. Not to mention, the poor person missing their hand.”
I leave her and reach to close the door, so we can have privacy.
“The cops won’t be involved; this won’t get out. And we have DNA, so I’ll find out who this is and why they’re missing a limb.”
“I don’t want to be part of this,” she says, rubbing her shoulders as I come back to her. She holds me at arm’s lengths.
“I’ve got news for you, Valentina. You’re part of this family, whether you like it or not. You know what it entails, you’ve grown up in the life. As much as Angelo and Marco have tried to shelter you, the fact is, you’re part of the Boston Mafia, baby. I’m sorry, this is the way it is.”
“You can say that again,” she sniffles.
I hate seeing her like this. I’m fucking ropable, and Angelo is going to hit the freaking roof when he hears about this latest stunt.
The truth is, we have no Plan B. We are not paying a fucking ransom, and we are certainly not going to be fucking bribed by anybody.
What we need, once again, is our IT expert to come through, and in this case, it’s Sloane.
We need to find out where those texts came from pronto and pay this asshole a little visit.
That’s what we need to happen, but in reality, right now, it’s looking as though we sit tight and see what happens when we don’t show up with the one million dollars.
“Let’s move this stuff to the casino, and I’ll take you home.”
“I need to go see Ma.”
“Fine.” I nod. “I can go with you.”
