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“Bambina?” another voice comes on the line.
“Papa,” she whispers.
I can hear the love in her voice. A part of me imagined what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that. I shake my head out of my thoughts.
“We’re both here. You’re on speaker,” Dom replies.
“Are you hurt? Where are you?” Cesare’s voice comes through the phone.
“Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m safe. It wasn’t the Cosa Nostra behind everything. Andrew knows I’m still alive,” she whispers.
Dom lets out a string of curses in Italian.
“Amore,” Papa says, “are you sure you’re all right?”
“Oui, quand on rougit, ça signifie ‘oui,’ n’est-ce pas?”Yes, when someone blushes,it means‘yes,’doesn’t it?she replies back in French.
Where have I heard that? I wonder if she knows I’m fluent in French, too. That must be their code so she can signal to them she’s safe. Smart girl. Or she just used the code to say that she is in danger.
“Tell me everything,” Dom demands.
She explains to him how she ended up at our safe house. The two men that came after her. That the Cosa Nostra is willing to help.
“Where are you? We’re coming to get you,” Dom says.
She looks at Bash and me, and we nod. She knows what to say.
“Dom,” she whispers, “their capo has agreed to let me stay here with them until Andrew is found.”
“LIKE FUCKING HELL YOU ARE!” Dom screams so loud my eardrums could have busted.
“You don’t have a choice,” I say. “She is safer with us, and you know it. The Triad doesn’t know she has any ties to us.”
“Ties to you? The fuck do you mean? She still doesn’t,” Dom spits back, annoyed.
“He’s right, Dom,” she responds, probably not wanting him to ask any more questions on how we met. “Andrew won’t think to check out the Cosa Nostra for my whereabouts.”
“We’ll help you find him. Then we’ll hand her over, and he’s all yours. Our only condition is that you take him out,” Bash says to the phone.
Dom sighs. “Why do I feel like there’s a catch?”
“There isn’t one. We want Andrew off our asses. He cost us money, tried to manipulate us and almost sent us into a war. We’ll help you find him, but you take him out. Consider this an act of goodwill,” Bash answers.
Dom scoffs but is quiet for a moment as he thinks it over.
“If anything happens to her under your watch,” Dom finally says, “I will hunt every single one of you down, kill your loved ones one day at a time until there’s no one left, right before I kill you myself.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I pipe back, holding back a laugh.
She shoots me an exasperated look, and I can’t help but smile. She’s so damn cute.
“She’ll be safe with us. We’ll do the east, you guys take the west,” I say before he can argue any further.
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do,” Dom barks.
“As soon as we locate him, you bring her to us,” Cesare adds.
“Agreed,” Bash says.
