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“But you’ve already taken so much—Alister’s mother, his sister. Let’s say for one second I buy into your creepy, senseless Mafia logic, the Amatos have paid their debt to you in full two times over.”
“No.” Vitale shakes his head. “I lost myonlychild. While one dead Amato child is tragic, it is not the same.”
“You’re crazy. Alister has done nothing to you! Nor Sophia, nor Cara! And no matter what you believe about my mother, she was just a girl who fell in love. Your daughter’s death was a tragedy, and you did not deserve to lose her the way you did, but my mother was innocent. She never deserved your wrath. She didn’t deserve any of it.”
“And what of you?”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you deserve? The way you speak of the Amato siblings and even my connection to the Irish mob, it’s veryfamiliar. I suppose you’re the reason Alister has gotten so close to the truth. After nearly twenty years of manipulating him and his father, I knew something or someone must’ve tipped him off for him to suddenly question Gabriel Parisi the way he did.”
So, he knows about Parisi. Perhaps that’s what led him to me. He must’ve seen me at the club that night with Alister.Damn it.Alister was right. I shouldn’t have gone in with him.
“Actually, that was your screwup. We only learned Joseph Cullen, before his untimely death, was working with someone in New Orleans after your men’s botched abduction attempt against Sophia. You led us straight to your secret squad of hitmen.”
“Hmm,” Vitale mumbles to himself as he tilts his head to the side. “Tragic what happened to Joseph.” As Vitale speaks there is an unsettling gleam in his eyes.
“You killed him, didn’t you? You…you got what you needed from him, Walsh, and his crew, and you got rid of him so you could control his men with them none the wiser. Gallagher thought Alister was responsible for Cullen’s death. You’d hoped the Irish would go to war with the Amatos of their own accord and do your dirty work for you after Domenico’s death, but you settled for their help in secret when they didn’t take the bait—using them to abduct Cara and trying to repeat the process with Sophia.”
Vitale nods once more, his eyes narrowing. “And who was it that thwarted that attempt? I was told it was a woman with dark hair, someone my men had never seen before in all their time surveilling the Amatos. It was you, wasn’t it?” At that, Vitale laughs. “We could’ve been quite a pair had I had my way with you.”
“And what way was that?” I ask as my mother’s final words echo between my ears.Good luck finding a ghost.
“Oh, come on, Ariana. You’re the smart, well-educated FBI agent with an act for profiling. You tell me.”
My blood runs cold, and not because of the wind or even the rain. For him to know I’m FBI, Vitale must have been aware of me longer than just the few days since my appearance at the Temptress. That, or he has an inside man at the bureau, like Alister, or possibly both. Regardless of how he found out, he knows. And if his track record has proven anything, it’s that he gets rid of people who know his secrets, especially those in positions of power. My status as an FBI agent only makes me more dangerous to him.
As my grim reality sinks in, so does understanding of why Vitale wanted to know where I was the night he took my mother from me.
“You said you wanted to take Domenico’s children from him, because he took Veronica from you. You wanted to do the same thing to my mother—the woman you blamed the most for your daughter’s death.” I lift my eyes to meet Vitale’s and find his lips drawn into a sly grin. “You let her keep me because I was your leverage to keep her in line. But even that plan had an expiration date, didn’t it?”
Vitale nods, pleased with my deduction. “I planned to use Valentina for all she was worth until you reached your sixteenth birthday, the same age Veronica was when she died. And then I planned to take you from her, so that she could know the feeling of what it is to lose a child before I killed her.”
Tears of pity well in my eyes. I once told Alister that there was never hope for me or my mom. Vitale’s admission only makes it even truer. He was always going to destroy her, one way or another. At that, lightning cracks overhead. It illuminates the sky, though only for a moment. It makes me think of Alister and the day we wrestled in the rain. What I would give to be in his arms right now, shielded from this man and all the pain he represents.
Vitale stands and crosses the small space to where I sit. He reaches for me again and this time, I don’t have the will to pull away from him. He brings his hand to my chin and tilts my head so that my eyes meet his. “You were meant to be my replacement, Ariana, my second chance at having a family. As it stands, I see you’ve chosen my enemy over me.”What?
As the clouds above break and more lightning ensues, they shed rain down upon me with such ferocity I feel as if I could drown in it. Vitale retreats toward the stairwell where there is some overhead cover from the remaining floorboards while I sit stuck in ashy mud.
“You know, I’ve known Alister almost all his life,” Vitale calls out. “He was just a boy when I first met him. None of his other siblings had even been born yet. And in the time since, I’ve never seen him keep the company of a woman or even look at a woman the way he looks at you.”
Vitale’s lips lift into a wicked smirk, and my stomach twists inside me. Christio Vitale has his own reasons for coming after me. I am his great-niece. That makes him interested. I know the truth about him. That makes him lethal. But if my encounter with Avery Gallagher and Alister’s warnings of what someone would do to me to get to him are worth anything, then I’d be a fool to think my presence here has nothing to do with my relationship with Alister. As the rain drenches my clothes and hair, I struggle to keep my eyes trained straight ahead. But I have to. I can’t let Vitale out of my sight, especially now that I know why I’m truly here.
“And what do you know of how he looks at me?” I ask.
“Enough to know you’re the key to ending the Amato reign once and for all.”
33
It’sa long drive from New Orleans to the country estate where Ariana is being held hostage, and it’s only made longer by the pouring rain and snapping lightning overhead. I suppose the one bright side to the storm is it kept my mind focused on the road and not what Vitale has done and is doing to Ariana, at least, for the most part. But as I turn from the timeworn road onto the private gravel drive leading to the structure housing Ariana, Vitale, and his men, I can no longer keep my mind at bay. Images of Ariana bruised and bloody flash through my mind. He went after her because of me. She’s in pain because of me. And who is to say she isn’t already dead? The mere thought makes my heartbeat quicken in my chest. I’m not prepared for this. I’m not prepared to see her lifeless body, to touch her ice-cold skin. I never will be. But I have no choice. If there’s a chance she’s still alive, I have to do everything I can to get her to safety, even if that means giving Christio Vitale what he wants—my crown and my life.
When the gravel road dead-ends into soggy pasture, I stop the SUV and take a deep breath. As the dark storm clouds above give way to early nightfall, my headlights are the only light shining in the field. They shine for many yards yet reach only the edge of the decrepit structure, no doubt full of armed men and yet completely shrouded in darkness. Though, in their path, I do find two figures, tall and jacked. As menacing rain dances across my windshield, I watch as the two men walk toward me. They are dressed in tactical gear, like mine, and wield rifles.
“I’m about to go dark. Position check?” I say, speaking into my comms.
“Team 1 and Team 2 are almost in position. They’ll move closer once Vitale’s men have their attention on you. But Team 3 is still five, ten minutes out to target,” Gio says, his breath ragged.
“Which is it, five or ten?”
