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“What do you need?” I finally asked.
“Do you work for Virgil Lucchese?” Carlo asked.
“Considering you just pulled me off the street in front of his parking garage, I think you know the answer to that.”
The menace in his voice was clear. I’d never heard him sound so…cruel. Not toward me, at least. “You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “If you’d just tell me what you mean, maybe I can answer your questions a little more efficiently,” I told him. “I didn’t realize communicating is such a challenge for you these days.”
“Put away the fucking attitude,” Carlo said.
“Then you put away the cryptic bullshit,” I spat back at him.
“Jesus Christ,bothof you shut the fuck up,” Frankie said. He didn’t need to raise his voice for me to hear the serious nature of the words. “Sierra, are you affiliated with the Luccheseborgata?”
I only gaped, raising my brow at the question. “Of course I’m not. The Lucchese family isn’t either. I’m renovating their house, not their secret lair.” Neither of the men spoke. Frankie continued staring ahead and Carlo examined my expression, almost as if trying to decide if I was telling the truth. My smile and laugh faded into shock as I processed their question and reaction to my answer. “Wait, Mr. Lucchese is in themafia?” I asked, looking between them. “LikeThe Godfather? That mafia?”
Once again Frankie’s shoulders shook, and Carlo sighed deeply. “That’s the one,” he muttered. I gaped. He was so well-known in town for contributions to charity and being involved with the schools and other organizations, but I supposed I’d never asked what he did for a living. Frankly, I had no idea. “He’s the boss of the Lucchese crime family, and Frankie is the boss of ours.”
Ours.
“I have no idea what you want from me, but I’m not interested in being any part of…” I waved my hand in front of me, gesturing to Carlo specifically. “This.” How long had they been involved in organized crime? Had they already been in it when Carlo acted interested in me all those years ago? Had it been because of them that I was taken? I know that human trafficking is central to organized crime, and I have no doubt that’s what my kidnappers had intended to do with me after drugging me and taking me from the bar on my twentieth birthday. I wanted nothing to do with any of this, especially if it would lead me back to the people who had taken me and scarred my face.
“We need you to gather intel on the Lucchese family,” Carlo said. “We just need information, and you have access to it through your job. They’re a threat to our family, and you’re the only in we have.”
It looked like it pained Carlo to ask this of me, but I didn’t particularly care how he felt about it. I wasn’t putting myself in a position to experience the same fear I’d had in the past. “I’m not doing it,” I told him, crossing my arms and shaking my head.
“You will,” Carlo said.
“You don’t understand. Ican’tdo this, Carlo.” I stopped myself before telling him the reason. Nobody knew what had happened. As far as my brother knew, I fell on my way out of the house, gashed my head, and stayed in the hospital for a few days because of it. He didn’t know that I fought to escape capture. He didn’t know that my head was cut as a man threw me in the back of a van. They left me in a basement, cold, bleeding and hungry, for days before I worked the screw out of a narrow window and slipped through it. It had been my only choice after hearing the man upstairs talking about what price I’d now be worth with the cut on my face. He spoke about killing me and ridding himself of the hassle. He said many things that I still couldn’t fully process. Nobody knew any of that. It was my story and mine alone.
“If you don’t agree to help us,” Carlo said, leaning toward me and resting his elbows on his knees. I wanted to curse myself at the way my eyes lingered on his forearm muscles. “The only other option will be asking Hunter. He’s the only other person with no connection to the mafia.”
My head swirled as I considered my kind, gentle, protective brother becoming involved in something so dangerous. And Carlo was his best friend. If he went to Hunter, my brother would agree in a heartbeat, damning all the consequences. I’d hated Carlo for so long for abandoning me when he said he’d come back for me. Now I hated him for this, too. “I thought he was your friend,” I replied. “No good friend would ever do something like this.”
His eyes narrowed, a hint of guilt in them. “That’s how important this is,” he sighed. We’re in a life-or-death situation here,tesora. Now, do you agree or not?”
I had no choice. It was either put myself in this position or risk losing my brother, and I would damn myself a million times before ever risking Hunter. “Fine,” I spat. I never realized how easy it would be to sell myself to the devil, but now I knew.
3
CARLO
I’d never seen Sierra so full of rage and hatred before. She looked at me as we got out of the car, and I no longer saw the bubbly, happy girl I’d known before my father’s death. It wasn’t just the way I’d approached her. Even as she sat silently, I could see the lines on her forehead—the stress lines accompanied by a scar that must have been a ghastly wound at one point. I saw more than I wanted to, and wondered if she hadn’t lived the luxurious life I’d envisioned for her when deciding to stay away.
Now, she rushed to the bathroom of the house and slammed the door behind her as Frankie and I made our way to the first-floor conference room of our home. “I don’t know what you did to that girl,” Frankie said coolly as we entered the room, “but you need to get your shit together before sending her back into the lion’s den.”
I knew exactly what I’d done to her. I’d lied about finding a way to be with her, but therewasn’ta way. Not when my father had made it clear that she’d be the collateral for any mistakes, and not later when he’d turned out to be right. Even after his death, I knew that bringing her into this life would be too dangerous. I ran my hand through my hair and tugged at the ends, tipping my head back and taking an exasperated deep breath. “I’ll take care of it.”
We strode through the doorway, and I nearly ran into Frankie’s back as he stopped abruptly just inside. I managed to veer around him before sighing. “Tommy, you aren’t supposed to be up.”
“And you aren’t supposed to be mothering me,” my youngest brother said, holding his abdomen as he readjusted himself in a reclining chair on one side of the room.
“I told him to stay in his room, but when he heard we were discussing a plan to gather information, he insisted on being here,” Louis said, rolling his eyes. “Even though he had no interest in participating in this shit until three weeks ago.”
“Hecan hear you,” Tommy retorted. “Andhedoesn’t have much of a choice after being shot. Dad got some things right—once you’re in this life, you can’t get out of it.”
Tommy was the smartest of us. At eighteen he’d already been accepted into a computer science program across the country, then when Dad died, he took his opportunity and left. We’d all encouraged it, especially after seeing how our father had brutalized him for being “too soft.” He graduated top of his class, and became an exceptional computer scientist in California. But the Luccheses hadn’t let the distance stop them from sending a hitman.
