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“My dad is an extraordinarily well-connected man,” she boasted. “He can do many things, and if given the opportunity, hewillbe successful.” None of us spoke. We’d need time to figure out exactly what could be done about Virgil now that he had staged an outright attack. We were more than justified in seeking retaliation but needed to find the best way to conduct it. Attacks against differentborgatewere frowned upon; if we went forward with one, we needed support.
“Did you tell your father where we live?” Tommy asked. “Did you expose our home to him?”
“Of course not!” she shouted, looking offended that Tommy would even ask such a thing. “I’m not a monster. I gave him the information he needed to know when he asked. I knew if I gave this…I knew it’d be a mess. He would’ve attacked far sooner, and frankly, it wouldn’t have been successful.”
“You didn’t give him this address to protect your father from himself, not to protect us?” I asked. “You knew your father was impatient, andthat’sthe reason you didn’t tell him. It had nothing to do with us.”
She closed her mouth and bit her bottom lip before leaning into the wall behind her. “I’m not a monster,” she finally said after a moment, her eyes fixing on Sierra behind me. “I even tried to get Sierra out before anything went down. Tell them,” she prodded.
I glanced over my shoulder at Sierra, and she nodded hesitantly. “Is that why you met me in the hardware store on the first day we met? To try to scare me away?”
Bella nodded prolifically. “I knew you’d be caught up in this entire situation, and I couldn’t let someone innocent be brought into it. I had no idea you were already involved, but I tried. I’ve always cared. You can make me out to be a monster if you want, but I’m not.”
Sierra looked on the verge of asking something. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before finally looking at her with hard eyes. “At the bar when the motorcycle gang came in. Were you afraid of them, or were you afraid they’d blow your cover?” she finally asked. “Were you scheming then, too?”
“Sierra,” she said in a soft tone that begged us to trust her. “Some of the gang leaders knew my dad, and they would’ve recognized me. But that had nothing to do with it. I got us out because I knew they were dangerous. I didn’t want them to hurt you.”
I wanted to scoff at her insistence that she’d always cared—that she made decisions that weren’t solely based on her selfishness. If she would have cared about any of us, she never would’ve gotten so close to us. She wouldn’t have traumatized my brother, and she certainly wouldn’t have continued with her malicious plans years after seeing that we cared for one another so fiercely. We’d treated her like family, and she repaid us with this betrayal. We’d killed men for less, and she knew that.
“It became real for me,” she continued, looking up at Frankie with pleading eyes. “A part of me will always love you, Frankie. I just—I had to put my family first. You have to understand that. You’ve always done the same with your brothers.”
“I have, and I’ll continue putting them first. Even now,” Frankie agreed, pain lancing through his expression. He turned to all of us. “Go upstairs.” It was a clear demand, and nobody argued as we all turned away and began striding up the staircase. I watched Sierra go and looked back one time, finding him staring down at his wife in sadness and disappointment. I knew what he planned to do, and the panicked look in her eyes—how she whispered pleading words to him—told me she could see it, too.
I was the last up the stairs, and I sealed the door behind me, wrapping an arm around Sierra. I needed to get her in the bath to wash the grime and blood from her, and then I’d give her a fresh pair of my clothes. Even thinking about those things, though, I couldn’t bring myself to stop staring at the door, waiting for what I knew would come. I held my breath, and Sierra tucked herself beneath my arm as Tommy leaned into the hallway’s wall and Louis ran a hand through his disheveled hair.
“This is fucked up, man,” Louis said. “I didn’t like the bitch, but Frankie having to do this…” He trailed off, but the thought lingered with all of us as we waited and waited…
Bang. The gunshot was loud enough that Sierra jumped, staring wide-eyed at the door. Frankie only took a moment to ascend the stairs. He didn’t meet any of our eyes as he passed us and strode toward the office, slamming the door closed behind him. I’d never seen Frankie so hard and calloused, and I wondered if I now had another brother with trust issues. Louis was hardened from a betrayal in his past, and now Frankie…he’d experienced something just as horrible.
I felt Sierra trembling at my side, and when I looked down, I found tears streaming from her eyes as she cried silently. This was the breaking point after everything she’d gone through, and I could understand that. I placed a hand on the small of her back, giving Louis and Tommy a small nod as I guided her up the stairs and turned toward my room. I brought her into the adjoined bathroom and got to work silently. I allowed her to cry as I slid each piece of clothing from her and turned on the warm water.
I unraveled her hair from a band that had been holding it all together, and it fell down her shoulders and back in a stream of black. The dimness in her emerald eyes hallowed my chest as I helped her sit in the tub, rubbing a sponge along her back and the blood that coated her skin. The grime turned the water murky. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
I leaned forward, stopping the trail of the sponge as I took in her words and gaped at her. “Why would you think that?”
“Virgil said this was all a part of the plan, and he sounded so confident. I tried to convince myself he was lying, but a part of me thought you were dead, and nobody would come for me.” She took a shuddering breath. “It’s why I didn’t wait. I thought I had to escape on my own. I thought I had to get Bella out of there because I thought she was taken, too.”
It didn’t matter that I wore clothes as her voice broke and sobs overtook her again. She covered her mouth as I sunk into the tub behind her and wrapped both arms around her. She turned just enough to bury herself in my arms.
“I never thought I’d be able to tell you that I love you. I love you so much that it hurts, and I can’t lose you, Carlo. Not after everything we’ve been through together. What I feel for you means something.Wemean something.”
I held her more tightly, looking at the ceiling. I hated that I’d let her go through any of this, especially after promising to protect her from everything. Now she’d wear another scar across her stomach for the rest of her life because I’d been too late. It wouldn’t happen again. Nobody would touch her ever again.
“I love you, too,tesora,” I whispered, resting my lips on the side of her neck. “Nothing will happen to me, and nothing will happen to you, either. I’m going to make sure this is over once and for all. And when it’s over and you feel comfortable talking about it, I’ll be here to listen to everything you’ve gone through.”
She glanced up at me, and I saw the love in her eyes as she did. A budding bruise rested on her forehead, and I tightened my grip on her. Then, with tear-filled eyes, she began telling me everything. Everything about the night of her twentieth birthday and the horror that happened afterward. The hospital stay and all the lies she felt like she had to tell. And then she told me all about today and what had almost happened. She told me everything, and I forced myself to hold still and listen as she finally opened the raw wound inside her chest and spilled everything from it. I listened, and with every word, I vowed never to let it happen again.
38
SIERRA
Hunter’s eyes remained narrowed as he stared at Carlo, and I couldn’t help but cringe as I wondered what would come from his mouth first. We’d prolonged this for a while, knowing there were many things the brothers needed to prioritize first. They’d brought the Lucchese family’s crimes straight to the Commission, and they’d have a meeting within the next three days to prevent further bloodshed. Nobody knew what that meeting would bring, so all they could do was wait.
That’s what led us to this—Hunter sitting in front of me and Carlo at one of my sides. He’d called a family meeting after I ignored his calls, texts, and spontaneous visits over the past few weeks, and I knew I needed to be honest with him. It made it easier when I learned that Carlo had been called into the meeting, too. We all sat silently and stared at one another, waiting for Hunter to say anything about what I’d told him. “Do you have anything to say?” I finally asked.
“Sierra, I’d like it if you’d leave the room,” Hunter said, and I could see the fury burning in his eyes.
“Absolutely not,” I told him. “You’re not fighting your best friend because of a relationship I chose.”
