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“I’ll make sure she gets to her building, Mr. Salvatore.”
The voice came from behind me, from one of the five men who'd unpacked the luxury cruiser tethered to the dock.
One nod from Finley, then he met my gaze. “Sleep, Anna. Classes start tomorrow. It’s just an introduction, but you still need to be focused.”
A shiver passed through me as he turned to the bodyguards at my back. “Make sure she’s inside before you leave. Any problems, I want to be notified first. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Salvatore.”
Finley just gave a nod and stilled for a second, before turning to me and leaning close to snarl, “And just for the record, Anna…the Salvatores not onlysuck,they lick and fuck, as well.”
Oh my god.
5
Finley
I hated leaving her. Hated more that burning in the pit of my stomach over what I’d done to that asshole. But where duty lay…so did the need to protect, especially where Annalise Eden was concerned.
Not her…
She was a goddamn butterfly flapping around in a hornets' nest.
But to threaten not just violence…but death.That was against the Code.
The island wasn’t a place for hotheads. It was a place where every son, and now every daughter, of those who made up the Commission attended. It was a place where no blood was dared to be spilled…because every attending family had something to lose.
An eye for an eye…or an heir for an heir.
Times were changing and for some at the head of the table, it couldn’t change fast enough. This wasn’t just a place for old, misogynistic values anymore. This was a place for women to be just as blood-thirsty and as brutal as the men. Women like Kat VanHalen, whose daddy had made enough waves to get her here. Let’s see how she liked the damn place in a day or two.
If you didn’t have an heir, then you weren’t in the fold. It was that simple. They wanted someone they could hold over you, someone that could be used as a target, because that’s all we really were, weren’t we? Targets. An end…a fucking finality.
This place wasn’t a goddamn holiday. It was a place to train, to gain the kind of knowledge that made you powerful. Knowledge that would keep you safe. If your father couldn’t be bothered to teach you, then he sent you here instead. Cosa Nostra Institute, where being bloodthirsty wasn’t a crime…it was a fucking legacy.
Helicopters flew overhead, their blinding spotlights combing through the water, making sure the new arrivals were safe. Well,safer,at least.
Armed guards dressed in business suits stood sentry on the outskirts, more than normal. A perfect knee-jerk reaction from the Commission. It made sense, given the island housed the heirs to the most powerful Mafia families in the world. A place where bad blood was shelved while they were here and alliances were created. The kind of place where a beautiful Irish Mafia Princess could fall in love with a cold, heartless bastard like my father.
An Irish Mafia Princess was one thing, but the daughter of a launderer, even someone like The Ghost, was another alliance altogether. Shit, she shouldn’t be here. She was too naive, too goddamn sweet. She was a genius with numbers, just like her father, and it was those numbers that had gotten her into trouble. With my father, at least.
My phone made abeep, drawing my focus from her. I yanked the cell out, staring at the message.
Pavlov: He’s uncooperative.
Uncooperative, huh?Well, we'd see how long that lasts.
The roar of the ocean haunted my steps as I made my way to the lowest building in the rear. The place was a damn fortress. Towering buildings fitted with not just cameras, but every state-of-the-art tracking system known to man. Not even the damn treasury was this guarded…then again, the damn treasury didn’t have us.
That fucking twitch in my eye came once more as Max pressed his thumb to the scanner and the locks disengaged. He shoved open the door and strode through the darkened foyer to the elevator. The light in the car illuminated, and I listened to the whirr as the elevator came from down below.
Fuck…he was already here.
The elevator doors opened as I worked the rings on my fingers. I followed Max inside as he pushed the button and the doors closed. We sank lower, past the first-level basement, to the one below. The one where shit like this happened away from view.
The doors opened and the salty scent of the ocean greeted me like a punch to the face. A low moan drifted out from the corner of the subbasement, the sound punctuated with the bubbled gasps of what sounded like a punctured lung.What a goddamn shame.
My fingers clenched into fists as I glanced at the discarded wetsuit jacket, then the guns, finding the sniper’s rifle amongst the weapons. Rage seethed as I jerked my gaze to the hooded figure strapped to the chair, then to the icy stare of the man solely responsible for every-one on this damn island.
