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“Hello, Sienna. Missed me?”
32
SIENNA
Mateo stood before me, dressed in a freshly-pressed black suit. His dark, beady eyes watched me in slight amusement as if all of this was just a game to him. He looked well-rested, his skin tanned from the sun and glowing despite the sickly glow of the warehouse lights. His dark hair was slicked back, and a new gold watch flashed at his wrist. All in all, he looked as if he were about to head off to a gala or maybe even a board meeting.
Confusion ripped through me before realization hit me like a fucking truck. My mind flashed back to what Dante had said to Ivan—the other underboss who had betrayed his Don and the countless men who had turned tail and ran to the enemy with open arms. But I didn’t understand. Mateo couldn’t be the Snake. He just couldn’t. The Snake had taken Gemma. The Snake had killed my father, Mateo’s best friend since before I was born. And my mother, who had been nothing but kind and caring to Mateo after he lost his wife.
“Surprised?” Mateo’s lips curled. “You shouldn’t be. After you captured Ivan, I was sure you would connect the dots. I guess my daughter was a better actress than I thought.”
His words slammed into me. Nausea writhed low in my belly. “Gemma wouldn’t–” My words caught in my throat. "I don’t understand—”
Gemma, the girl who had been there for me through everything. The girl who had survived high school by my side. Who had cheered me up when I thought I’d failed my father. Who reminded me there was more to life than killing and death and loss. Bile rose in my throat at the thought of her betrayal.
“And why would you?” Mateo stepped closer, studying me as if I were a roach beneath his shoe. “You were spoiled. Raised with everything you ever needed. Trained only because you wanted to. You were given a life that you didn’t even know what to do with. Even when the title of Don passed to you, what did you do? Shrugged off your responsibilities to me.”
My mouth opened and snapped shut, the words locking in my throat. Finally, I choked them out. “That’s not what I did, and you know it. I was grieving. I’d just lost my father! My husband had run off to the streets to escape his pain, leaving me to fend for myself.”
“Excuses.” He brushed my words away as if they meant nothing. “You passed off your responsibilities because you knew I would take care of it. Because I have been taking care of it for years. Even your father would shirk his responsibilities and force me to run the business.” He paced around me slowly, every inch the predator that had finally caught its prey. “Lucky for me, that opened up opportunities I just couldn’t pass up.”
“The overseas deals.” Everything was slowly clicking together.
Mateo nodded. “So, your little agent friend told you what he knew. I was tired of being in your father’s shadow while doing all the work a Don should be doing. I had all the responsibilities, but none of the power. Do you understand how…frustrating that is?” His bitter laugh echoed around the warehouse. “I’d been forced to live in your father’s shadow, never to inherit, simply because I wasn’t full-blooded Italian.”
“But times are changing, Sienna. I know it. Ivan knew it. The whole fucking world is noticing it. The old ways are dying and new powers are rising. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. I wanted power. Influence. And, through the Snake, I got all that and more. Your father, Sal Scarano, they were both too short-sighted, too content to battle it out between themselves instead of having the fucking balls to want any more than that.” Mateo’s eyes narrowed. “But I am clearly not your father. I wanted more than this. More than the scraps he gave me.”
“So your plan was to take down not one, but two mafia families?” I asked, stalling.
He scoffed. “The Scaranos and Rosania have been at each other’s throats since they arrived in the United States fresh off the boat. It was only a matter of time before they took each other out. This way, I would keep both families thriving—a monopoly of sorts. You can think of it like a merger.”
“Even if you succeed, you really think the FBI would allow you to gain that much power?”
He stopped just behind me, his presence suffocating. I could smell his cologne wrapping around me like a python. “Oh, but they already have.”
I whipped around, the confusion so clearly written all over my face.
“Oh, you think our mutual friend found you simply because the Snake had targeted you?” Mateo looked downright gleeful now. “Oh, no, Sienna. You’re just far too gullible. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “Stop with the riddles and just tell me. You get one chance for your villain speech—make it count.”
Something dark glittered in his eyes. “Bold words from a woman surrounded by powerful men.”
“Women are more dangerous than you think.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.” He smirked, straightening his suit jacket. He smoothed the sleeves down his arms, rotating the gold cuff links that blinked at his wrist. “You forget—I watched you grow up.”
“Which just makes all of this more twisted,” I said flatly. “Almost a cliché. Is this the part where you reveal your psychotic plan before you try and kidnap me again?”
“No. Just the part where you die.” His hand curled. A signal.
A man stepped through the open doorway of the warehouse, the light shining behind him. His face was wreathed in shadows, but there was something familiar about him. Something I recognized but couldn’t place. As he drew nearer, the shadows blended together to form lips, a nose, and eyes that I knew all too well. The same facial features I had seen every day for the past two weeks.
“David.” It was the only thing I could say. Shock slipped down my spine, cold as glaciers, freezing me in place.
David was still dressed in his suit, though he’d ditched the jacket. I thought he had been in his room when I’d left, but—as I thought back—I hadn’t seen him since the piece of paper slipped under our door. Mateo’s words about how the FBI had already let him get away with his stupid ass plan echoed in my mind.
You think our mutual friend found you simply because the Snake had targeted you?
