by Lana Sky
The style and cut leave nothing to the imagination as to the kind of women Antonio himself preferred. Black and velvety, it’s short with thin straps. Lucky for her, she’s small enough that the dress will cover far more than the designer intended.
But is that a good thing?
No, I tell myself, clenching the damn thing in a fist. I should be parading her before these men, humiliating her in any way I can. Because regardless of who she is, only one identity she possesses matters—daughter of Mischa Stepanov, the man who tried to kill my son.
I drop the dress, watching it hit the floor. Then I step over it and head down the hall, joining Luciano in the gaudy entryway.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say that I might be doubting this little deal with a devil.” He sounds so damn serious. I have to laugh. Then I sigh on my way to the minibar. Liquor is a better vice than any woman. I grab a bottle at random and take a sip without bothering to read the label. It’s strong—but it would take the whole bottle at least to get me back to my usual mind state—numb, dumb, dulled to my darker impulses.
I set it down without drinking more. Still, the burning liquid searing down my throat gives my senses enough of a bitch slap to refocus.
“I knew you were a sick bastard,” Luciano remarks from behind me. “But damn. I don’t think the rumors did you justice.”
“Justice,” I parrot the word as though it’s a foreign term. Maybe it is. I’ve never felt it for myself. I’ve chased it. Waxed poetic about it once upon a time. Dreamt of earning it for myself. Only to come to one brutal realization.
“I don’t believe in justice.”
“Okay,” he says mockingly. “Think I might have figured that after what you did to Paulie. Shit, man. He was a dick, but no one deserves that—”
“Didn’t he? Taking a gun to a pregnant woman and child may be a cut above ripping apart said child killer.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Don. You don’t give a flying fuck about the Stepanovs. That was personal. So now that you got off on torture, what the fuck now?”
“Now?” I raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious? You had it recorded like I asked?”
He nods, wincing.
“Good. We send it to Mischa as a little present—along with an ultimatum.”
“The girl in exchange for the hospital?” Luciano suggests.
“Eavesdropping prick.” I don’t even have the energy to scowl. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to trust your crazy ass plan,” he counters, crossing his arms defensively. “You aren’t suicidal. You’ve got something to live for, at least. There’s a slim damn chance that you aren’t just trying to get us all killed in some last crusade.”
I scoff, though hell, he might be right. Something to live for…
But it wouldn’t be Vincenzo—I always gave him everything, and it wasn’t enough. He deserves far more than me. But Mischa?
He is something to live for. I’ll fight for every last breath until the moment I can see him suffer. He got cocky, living his life at the top of the food chain. And he’ll live long enough to see his own slow crawl right back to the bottom.
“Is everything ready like I asked?” I question, switching back to the task at hand.
Luciano nods. “You mean your little ‘present’? It’s ready. But first… You might want to see this.” He pulls a cell phone from his pocket. It must be his own, a different model from Antonio’s, already displaying a video on the screen. It looks like a newsreel from early this morning, and the chyron flashing across the bottom of the picture tells me all I need to know.
Fire blazes through Hell’s Gambit harbor.
“Fuck.” I don’t even have enough energy to put shock into my voice. Maybe because it’s been a long time fucking coming. Mischa was bound to make a move like this at some point. Better the harbor than Fabio.
“It seems like Mischa didn’t take kindly to you reneging on your harbor sale. Don’t worry—” he adds as I lurch for the door. “He hasn’t struck anywhere else. Yet. But if you aim to put your plan into action, I suggest you do it now.”
I sink onto the nearest leather armchair.
My plan.
“Send a copy of the Vanetti recording to Mischa.”
“And if he doesn’t buy it?” Luciano counters.
“Then we’ll send it to every faction with even a sliver of influence in this city,” I say, ticking the names off on my fingers. “The Saleris. The Sigerellis. Every fucking MC and every potential ally. I want them all to know that Mischa acted on faulty intel.”
“Done.” He starts for the door, adding over his shoulder, “Then what?”
“Then… We make the rounds,” I say. “If I were Mischa, I’d already be trying to cultivate an army to my side. We need to head him off.”
“Anyone particular in mind?”
I swipe at my chin, thinking. “Gregori Saleri,” I state out loud. “The hospital is in the heart of his territory. If I were Mischa, I’d already have invited the bastard over for tea.”
Luciano skeptically cocks his head. “You think?”
“Hell yes.” I rake my hands through my hair and wind up running them over the front of my borrowed suit. It’s too small on second thought, constricting my forearms. I feel like a sausage shoved into it, just like I did during that fucking debutante ball, all in a bid to impress and pander. Fuck it.
I shed the jacket and throw it on the floor. One by one, I attack the buttons of the dress shirt, ripping them open and leaving my chest bare. Now, I can breathe.
And think.
“There is a reason Mischa isn’t setting fire to the entire city looking for me. No…” I approach a window, bracing my hand over the glass. My outstretched fingers slice the view beyond into portions, much like the political layout of the city itself.
“He’s biding his time, trying to smoke me out,” I say through clenched teeth. “If he can rob me of allies, I’ll have nowhere left to hide, in theory. He knows the hospital would be the one place I’d risk trying to infiltrate.”
“Because of your nephew,” Luciano says softly. “But you have his daughter. I’d personally hunt you down and cut your balls off if I were in his position.”
He isn’t Mischa Stepanov, a rumored brute, vicious and more than capable of doing a hasty castration—but you don’t get to the top by acting primarily on impulse.
“He thinks I won’t hurt her,” I say, still thinking aloud. “He’s counting on that. She’ll be traumatized, maybe battered, but alive. He has a bigger goal in mind than merely finding her. I’m guessing he only needs her to hold out another day at most. Then he’ll make his final play and come for her.”
“Why the delay?”
I exhale, thinking it through. “Why?”
Because old Mischa isn’t trying to punish me for these recent events—this is deeper than that. Personal. He wants to save his daughter from her nightmare once and for all as any father would. Drive me from the city. Crush me into dust.
Destroy every trace of all Vanicis.
Me. Vincenzo. He wants us gone.
Much like Vin’s imaginary monster haunted him, his precious Willow can’t live her life if we’re still here.
The sheer cruelty of it hits like a punch to the chest, flipping my stupid hope right on its fucking head. If I go to Mischa now, even with proof that I wasn’t behind the attack, it won’t matter. He might let Vin be admitted to the hospital, if only to have direct access to kill him later.
It’s what I would have done. Hell, I have done it. Some crimes can’t be punished merely with death, but with brutality.
Gino Mangenello is proof of that.
This war has its roots in what happened seven years ago. I hurt his daughter, and by merely existing, I threw that pain back in her face. In Mischa’s thinking, I struck first; therefore, anything is justified.
I could always fight fire with fire and launch a full-out war on the mafiya.
Or better yet, I can turn
the tables on Mischa and beat him at his own fucking game.
I can make his daughter the perfect weapon.
“Change of plans,” I say as the plan begins to unfurl in my mind. “We won’t wait for Mischa to come for the girl.”
“What do you mean?”
I lick my lips in grim anticipation. I can’t even say it out loud. Yet. “You’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, set up a meeting with the Saleris.”
“When?”
“As soon as you can. Tonight,” I say, heading down the hall. “Just give me an hour.”
It’s time to drop the pretense of captor and captive. Giovanni had it right from the start—life is all a fucking game.
So I’ll let Mischa’s daughter decide for herself. To remain a pawn? Or become a more powerful piece...
A queen—one fully under my control.
13
Willow
I know pain. I know agony. I’ve seen horrible things in my life, and throughout it all, I’ve survived. Scarred and battered, but still alive, only there are no wounds as proof of this most recent ordeal. No blood to clean that is my own, at least.
It’s all in my head, and that’s how he wanted it. Mental scars inflict the most lasting damage—he taught me that.
Fittingly, all there is to mark this moment is my own reflection watching me from a bathroom mirror, my skin pink and tender.
The sight chills me more than any scar would.
This woman is a stranger to me, her brown eyes wide with shock, her lips pursed in a perpetual frown. The ill-fitting dress she’s wearing hangs off her lanky frame, highlighting the dichotomy within which she finds herself.
Captive and toy.
Accomplice.
Murderer.
Tears glisten in her eyes, reinforcing the terror written across that face. Inside, however? I feel nothing to match her outward expression. No prickling behind my eyes to herald the moisture falling down my cheeks. Nothing aching in the pit of my soul.
Of everything I’ve been through in my life, this feeling is the strangest to grapple with.
Numbness.
Emptiness.
Nothing.
But as if to mock me, my ears pick up a distant sound—a footstep—and a million conflicting emotions flood my veins. Fear. Unease. The building horror that I’m trapped...
Another heavy footstep echoes off the cavernous walls, creating a cage more binding than this structure itself—but it’s invisible, entirely of my own making. The reality is that I could have run from here all along. I didn’t have to follow him into this building, this room. Didn’t have to submit to his torment, or wear the dress he left for me.
In theory, I don’t have to stay here now, and yet with every additional step to break the silence, I’m frozen, unable to move a muscle.
While I may be paralyzed, the face in the mirror isn’t. With every step to draw nearer, that pink mouth tightens. Throat quivers. When the footsteps finally stop? Her tongue flits out along her lower lip, and her dark eyes widen as a masculine laugh catches the air.
She can instantly identify the culprit.
His shadow paints the floor beside the doorway, but he doesn’t enter. Yet. He wants me to sense him first. For my nostrils to flare with the faint scent of musk that precedes him.
He wants me to remember, every grisly, twisted memory. Not just what happened in the shower, either. My skin is overly sensitive, speckled with throbbing scarlet blotches, but I’d rather be boiled alive than relive the previous moments.
I can barely admit it inside my own head—I watched him kill a man. Butcher him. Take pleasure in doing so…
But you watched, a part of me taunts. You didn’t look away.
Not even when he met my gaze, his fingers dripping blood. For a second, he’d sported that grim, knowing smirk—as if he were seeing inside my head.
And what he found…excited him.
“Look at yourself, principessa,” the present Donatello demands, maneuvering to appear in the mirror’s view, leaning against the doorway. He isn’t fully naked, at least, wearing a pair of black pants, but his chest is exposed, each letter of the tattoo clearly visible. In this moment, I take the time to examine them in a way I couldn’t before.
Each sloppily craved letter looks fresh given the coloring. As if he wrote them all in blood.
SAFIYA.
They do the one thing I can’t do with my own voice—prove him a liar. The girl he claims meant nothing? The past he’s tried to ignore...
It’s here. It’s always been here. My fingers twitch at my sides as if aching to reach out and touch one of those marks. Graze that lopsided A with the tip of my nail and force him to acknowledge me. How would he react? It’s not hard to imagine.
With rage. With scorn and hate.
But we’d both know the outcome, in the end…
I’d gain the upper hand.
“Look at that face,” he taunts, drawing my attention back to his mouth. Then my own. “Those eyes. In them, you see the same thing I do.”
Does he see horror and despair?
He should.
“You know what I see? Nothing,” he says, countering that hope. “You don’t regret what we did, do you? I can see it all over your face. You enjoyed it.”
Enjoyed. Is that the emotion to describe my blank expression or the pink cheeks streaked with tears? I shake my head, responding to my own question rather than him.
He laughs again, and those steps echo louder, playing a twisted melody off the walls. As his reflection appears behind mine, I suck in a breath.
Throughout my life, I’ve witnessed various iterations of Donatello Vanici. The stoic protector. The playful guardian. The vengeful betrayer.
Never before have I faced this specter. His eyes are so dark they gleam like coals, enhancing the hollow planes of his face. Dark stubble coats his chin like an embodiment of the shadows behind him. The most alarming feature of all? Myself, reflected in his gaze, different from the woman in the mirror. Distorted by the hue of his irises, she looks cold. Unbothered. Unafraid.
Just like him.
“Don’t,” he warns, before I even register looking away. Too late. A span of tile holds my attention now, even as thick fingers harshly grip my chin, wrenching it back to face the mirror’s surface.
“You watch,” commands the gruff voice dripping into my ear. “You see the truth there, written across those pretty lips. You may not be able to voice it for yourself, but I can tell—you enjoyed this, didn’t you, little principessa? And I’m not talking about the shower. Telling me where to cut. Hearing him scream—”
My hand flies out, landing flat against the counter, serving as a protest I can’t voice—No!
“Oh yes,” he says amid a low chuckle. His fingers creep along my jawline and graze my throat. In the mirror, two dark eyes watch me mockingly, ablaze with fire. Then little by little…any humor vanishes.
I close my eyes to shut him out. Banish the memories—the blood. The screams. I shove them all as far as I can to the darkest depths of my psyche.
But not far enough.
“We’re the same, hellcat. Both sick, pathetic creatures who thrive on pain. Accept that—” What feels like his thumb ghosts the swell of my cheek, lingering near the corner of my mouth. “We are. But you never need to feel guilty around me...”
His voice hitches, touching on an octave deeper than I think he meant to. I reopen my eyes, and even his frown can’t disguise the fleeting expression to cross his face. Alarm—as if the words leaving his throat startle him just as much as they unnerve me.
“You can coddle yourself with lies, if you want,” he says, raising an eyebrow to become mocking once more. “I won’t. You’ve been sheltered long enough, Willow. It’s time to face the world.”
Before I can recover, he muscles in beside me and turns on the sink faucet. He takes his time wetting his hands before bracing them, still wet, against the countertop. Maybe he did it to draw my atten
tion to them.
They fan out over the dark marble, gleaming like tarnished gold in comparison. Dangerous, thick digits capable of so much violence—the proof of which still smarts along my throat, burning in the heat of his breath.
To counter any self-pity I might feel is a grim satisfaction as my eyes flicker up to his jaw and the two lines sliced there, one a few days old, the other fresh. Both wounds look worse from this angle, even more vicious than the bruises left by his hands. I got my revenge.
“You hate me,” Donatello murmurs, but his gaze is distant. Years in the past, I suspect, reliving the very reasons why. Slowly, he nods. “You should hate me. I want you to. Look at me… Look!”
Our gazes meet over the mirror’s glass, and the rest of the world fades to a dull hum. His voice alone is powerful enough to rival even thunder. Somehow, his stare is even louder, outlasting the thrum of the still running water and my own frantic breaths. I can’t look away.
I can’t breathe.
“Hate me,” he warns. “If that will make you feel better. Hate me all you want. I’ll allow you that much.”
If I want. He’ll allow. I almost can’t track the irritation flicking through me until it’s too late.
As if he has any right to accept my rage like it’s a mercy.
He chuckles in triumph at the response—my lips twitching, eyes narrowing. “You want to learn something, principessa? A great, universal truth?” He positions his face near mine, lips inches from my earlobe. “Your hate? It doesn’t mean a damn thing. Though, I’m sure you think it does. If you hate me enough, it will somehow matter. Your hate doesn’t mean shit. You know what does?” He leans closer, his gaze unreadable. “Power. You need power to get anywhere in this fucking world. Even as a woman, you have what you need.”
I stiffen at the reference, but he doesn’t sneer to punctuate the punchline. He isn’t joking.
“You just never learned to use it,” he adds. “You never will. Why? You were always sheltered in the grip of power, never expected to amass your own. What I did to you was evil, I’ll admit that.”
Rare sincerity ripples through his tone, and some part of me cringes in response. It’s like a wall gives way, and for a split second, I feel everything…
