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“Leave my daughter alone!” he growls.
I just laugh. “Oh, you mean the daughter you were going to marry off to me? I don’t think so. The marriage is still on, and so is the deal. Only difference is, you retirenow. And your organization falls to me.”
It’s easy to ignore his furious response as I watch Ava pick herself up from the ground. She doesn’t look at me as she approaches, keeping her eyes downcast.
“Please,” Maria sniffles, kicking her feet. “Please, don’t kill us.”
A smile spreads across my face. “Oh, I won’t kill you. Your daughter made sure of that. It was one of her conditions.”
Next to me, Ava twitches. I watch her parents as the realization dawns.
***
Ava
My father stares at me in disbelief from his position on the ground. “You?Ava?You gave away our safe house? Tohim?”
I glare back at him, filled with contempt. “I did what I had to do to make sure you’ll never control me again. If you gave even the littlest shit what I wanted, maybe this could have been different.”
“You ungrateful bitch,” he sneers, absolutely shaking with rage. “After everything I did for—”
“Careful,”Alessandro says dangerously. “That’s my fiancé you’re talking about. I would be quiet if I were you.”
“You’ll regret it if you marry him,” seethes my father, “I swear—”
“Ava and I will be married,” Alessandro announces, and my stomach tingles as he puts a possessive arm around me, drawing me close to him. “Tomorrow.”
Behind us, my family’s “vacation” house burns to the ground, the smell of gasoline thick in the air.
***
Three hours earlier
I sit with my back against the wall in the closet of my safe house bedroom, the door closed. I’m holding my cell phone, trying to convince myself to take the plunge.
Am I really about to do this?
It’s already decided, I tell myself. I already got the number from my dad’s phone.
I can sit here, or I can act.
Fingers trembling, I press the green button on my phone to make the call.
It rings four times. Finally, I hear the click of somebody picking up. Several seconds tick by before Alessandro speaks.
“Hello,” he says in a rough tone. Almost like he knows it’s me.
“I’ll tell you where my father is hiding,” I blurt out without preamble. “And support you taking over the Gagliardi family. But you have to follow my conditions.”
A long pause. “That’s very generous of you, Ava. What are your conditions?”
“You don’t kill my family. Or hurt me, obviously.”
“And what exactly would be the point of knowing where your father is if I’m not allowed to kill him?”
“You can capture him. Make him surrender to you. Win the mob war. He doesn’t have to know you won’t kill him.”
“That’s a high price, Ava. I just watched my grandfather die. Blood demands blood.”
