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My cheeks reddened. I would never admit such a thing to him. I knew that the moment he suspected something was between us, I’d no longer be useful to him. I may have been his “daughter” for all intents and purposes, but a betrayal like that would cut deep.
“I’m fond of our survival,” I pushed. “And there’s more here than either of us knew. We knew the Guerras kept their life out of the public eye, and we knew we could only get limited information on them going into this mission. It’s why I’m here. It’s why I’m on the inside. We didn’t want surprises after we killed him, right?” I didn’t pause long enough for him to answer. “Well, his connections to the Sicilian mob scene are too deep. He has a bigger empire than we knew. Killing him would be a mistake. It would bring too much trouble down on us. Maybe we can take him out, but we can’t take out all the international connections, too.”
“There’s more thanyouknew.” I hesitated, wondering what information he hadn’t shared with me. “I’ve known about these connections for quite some time, and it doesn’t affect your job there. It’s good that you engrained yourself deeply enough to join him on a trip to Italy, though. If you do your job right and do it before you come back home, I can deny all accusations of involvement.”
I sucked in a breath. “We don’t have enough—”
“We don’t need more information, Sienna,” he said, his tone growing cold. “You know that as well as I do. Once Dante is gone, I’ll have a foothold to exploit. There was a reason the information wasn’t ever essential, to begin with. I preferred to learn more about my enemy, but I never put a stake in it.”
“You wanted all the information, and I’m close to getting it.”
“And I have enough. Do your job.”
I shook my head. “Valentino, it’s not a good idea.”
It was, though. His plan would ensure he was far enough not to catch the blame. It would take the heat from him and place it elsewhere. I had the stomach to kill plenty of people in my life, so why was this one so different?
“Are you questioning me?” he asked. I couldn’t push—not with Valentino. I’d been sent here for one reason, and if I reneged on that reason, I would stand to lose everything. “Did you forget who killed your father? You’re the one who found him, so I thought you’d remember the way the Guerra family left him. Are you forgetting about your dear mother? The woman who gave you life and admirably raised you until she couldn’t handle the pain anymore and died of a heart attack?”
“Of course, I haven’t forgotten them. I—”
“Dante is the vengeance you’ve been wanting for years. Do you remember the day you came to me after your mother’s death? You asked me to remain your stepfather, and youbeggedmeto train you the way I’d train an assassin. You told me that if anyone was going to get revenge, it would be you.”
I remembered that conversation as though it happened yesterday.
But Dante promised his mother he’d never be like his father. That thought ran through my mind as Valentino continued.
“Did I misunderstand your need to get revenge for your dead family?”
“I—”
“You realize that it wasn’t only Rocco Guerra there that day, right?”
My chest grew heavier with those words. “What do you mean?”
“Dante was there, too. It was a part of his initiation into the mob to pull that trigger. Dante is as much to blame as his father. His father told him to do it, but he followed through.”
I thought back to the night that had haunted my dream since childhood. Someone broke into our home, and Dad told me to hide. He handed me a gun—one I’d never used before. He showed me the safety before going downstairs to confront the thief.
And then I heard a gunshot.
In my dreams, there was always one man with a gun. One person standing over my dad’s body. But was I misremembering? I’d tried to shoot at him, but the recoil of the gun prevented me from landing a single shot.
Was Dante there, too?
How did I not remember that?
“Dante’s death will give you the revenge you need to move on. Can I trust you to do this for me, or do I need to send someone else to take care of it? I gave this mission to you as agift.Was I mistaken about your drive to end this?”
I shook away the haze. There was no reason Valentino would lie about something like this. He was the only consistent person I had throughout my childhood. My parents died, and rather than turning me away, he brought me into his home. He fed me, clothed me, and acted as a second father. He may have ruled the household with an iron fist and trained me more brutally than a father should have. He may have made mistakes. But he was like my father, and he was the only one I had left.
He'd protected me for years in the only way he could—by teaching me to defend myself.
I had to trust him because he was the only person I had in my corner. I knew that. I loved him, and even though he showed it in a complex way, I knew he loved me, too.
Valentino was my trainer and boss. But he was also my second father.
What he said had to be true, and that thought turned my stomach.
