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While I felt a certain level of jealousy knowing Sabrina and Ilsa were together, at least I thought Ilsa would keep Sabrina safe. I’m irrationally angry hearing that she abandoned her instead.
Even though I was the one who lost Sabrina first.
Jasper is lurking around the buffet, listening to everything we say. He throws me a quizzical look. We’re both wondering the same thing:
If Sabrina’s not with Ilsa, where is she?
“Were you aware of the Gallo’s history with the Bratva when you brought Sabrina here?” Foma Kushnir sneers.
“If Dean Yenin doesn’t hold a grudge against them, I don’t see why you would,” I say to Foma, coldly.
“Because they took our greatest prize,” he hisses.
“Alexei Yenin made them pay.”
“Not enough.”
Serafim Isidor nods slowly, his expression pained. “There is no forgiving the loss of the Winter Diamond.”
“That this girl even dares to show her face in our city is an outrage!” Foma cries. “She’s disrupted our finest families,” he gives Nikolai Markov an obsequious nod. “Stolen from the High Table and destroyed our property!”
The fact that none of the wrongs in question were done to Foma himself doesn’t lessen his vitriol. It’s me he’s here to attack, by proxy through Sabrina.
“You brought her here,” he accuses me. “She’s your responsibility.”
“Yes she is. And I’ll deal with her.”
“We’re past that,” Isidor says. “The High Table has issued a bounty on her head. She left the restaurant injured. Thekachkiare searching the clinics and hospitals. They’ll find her soon enough.”
Jasper winces, partly for me and partly for Sabrina.
My hands are cold and sweating. I clench them into fists.
“Cujo was killed in the blast,” Dimka says, eyeing me. “Lev Zakharov, too. Do you still claim you weren’t involved?”
“I didn’t know any of this!” I snarl, almost angrier at that fact than anything else.
My stomach churns. If Cujo got his hands on Sabrina, I can only imagine the state she’s in.
Isidor fixes me with his dark stare. “Don’t test our patience any further, Adrik. Our decision is final: Sabrina Gallo is to be shot on sight. We’ll send her head back to her father in a box, to remind him that the Bratva never forget.”
I can feel Jasper’s eyes on my back, begging me not to react, not to respond. It takes everything I have not to put my hands around the old man’s throat.
Foma smirks. “Next time, choose your partnersmore carefully.”
The shame that flushes through me at the wordpartnershas nothing to do with Foma’s sneer.
It’s the opposite—I’m not deserving of the word. I never treated Sabrina as a partner. Not really.
The meeting breaks up. I join Jasper by the buffet. He searches my face with his pale gaze.
Speaking low and quiet so we won’t be overheard, he asks, “What are you going to do?”
“What the fuck can I do? If I try to protect her, I’ll get us all killed. She doesn’t want my help anyway. I told her to come home, she refused.”
Jasper knows I’m stating the facts, while everything within me revolts against them.
On the one hand there’s logic and necessity, and the duty I owe to my men … on the other, my desperate need for Sabrina.
