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And a whole fucking team of backup was ready to come in with guns blazing the moment I hit my panic button.
It took only a moment before a car peeled around the corner and raced toward me. It stopped a mere foot from the back of my bike, and Valentino himself shot from the backseat. He approached with rage covering every inch of his face. “If you’re fucking playing me—"
“You have something I want,” I told him in a calm tone. The calm was easy, even with the roiling pit of fear and rage burning beneath it. “I plan to get it back, even if it costs valuable information.”
He moved forward and grabbed the gun from my hip, tossing it behind me. Then he unclipped the back holster before narrowing his eyes.
“Then get in the fucking car, and I’ll take you to them.”
Maybe it was stupidity, maybe it was desperation, but I didexactlyas he asked.
I slid into the car beside my enemy, and I allowed him to drive me to the front door before following him into the house.
Even if Sienna hadn’t warned me beforehand, his irrational decision told me all I needed to know. Something had him rattled. Something more than my existence in the New York crime scene. He didn’t just hate me because I challenged him.
No, Valentino hated me for taking Sienna.
And I knew he’d extinguish that problem the moment I was no longer useful to him.
35
Sienna
Horror struck me in a way I never thought I’d experience as I held up one of the retrieved guns with my right hand and sidestepped in front of Bria.
I would have pulled the trigger if it had been just Valentino walking through that door. But in front of him walked Dante, eyes stony as he took in both Bria and me. His eyes barely drifted over her before settling on all the injuries I’d received from both the car accident and the conversation with Valentino.
And worse than anything that could have occurred in one of my nightmares, Valentino held a gun to the back of Dante’s head.
“Drop the gun, Sienna. You know it won’t bother me to take this shot.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t taken it yet,” I admitted, trying to hide the shaking in my tone. I’d beg if I had to. I couldn’t letit end the way Valentino had planned, but Dante wouldn’t have come in here without a plan. He had to know better than to be caught like this.
I had to believe in him, so I bent my knees and rested the gun on the ground, making sure my body remained in front of Bria’s.
He shrugged. “I believe I told you what was going to happen, did I not?”
I recalled a few of the last words he’d said to me, and they made sense.I’ll take everything from him, and I’ll start with you.
“Why?” I asked, my voice rising. “Why do any of this shit?”
“Because this is all playing out the way another situation did a long time ago. It’s like history repeating itself, and itsickensme. This is Mabel and Angelo’s story all over again, and you don’t even realize it, do you? You’re making the same fucking mistake as both of them made, and you’re doing it without even questioning your actions.”
“Mom and Dad?” I asked, shaking my head. “They have nothing to do with this. Not when Dante wasn’t responsible for their deaths.”
He tipped his head back and laughed. “You’re so smart, and you still haven’t pieced it all together?” I could only shake my head again, slower this time. “A love story struck by tragedy where the poor dad succumbs to his enemy. Mabel was left with two options: choose me or die trying to protect you. It’s ridiculous how easily it all played out once Angelo was dead.”
He’d never talked about my dad like this. Our conversations had always seemed to share a similar longing for him to be here. Valentino acted like he had loved him as a friend, but now…now, he acted like he was an inconvenience.
“Your mother was the prize, and he knew it.”
I glanced at Dante, still standing still and staring into my eyes with an understanding that I didn’t want to acknowledge. There was still another piece to this whole story, and I knew it. Dante knew it. The sinking feeling of realization began settling inside me at his words. It couldn’t be true. My conclusion had to be wrong, especially when Valentino had spent my entire life shaping me into a monster to kill the person responsible for my father’s death.
He lied about it being the Guerras, and he couldn’t give me a straight answer about the identity of the person.
The masked, shadowed man in my dream hadn’t been the size or build of a young Dante, and certainly not his father. I thought it was another misremembered detail, but now that I thought about it, the figure did match someone I knew.
“You’re the one who killed him,” I whispered.
