by Lana Sky
He didn’t doubt what his uncle Don told him. How sick is it that I never truly stopped to think what her loss might have done to him? Sure, I’ve seen his pain when her name was mentioned—because he was usually the only one brave enough to ever bring her up. Perhaps I was selfish enough to hope he’d forgotten.
Of course, he wouldn’t. And I’d give anything in the world—my own goddamn life—to erase the pain twisting his mouth. His eyes widen and what little color remains in his skin drains away.
“Saf…Safy?” He tries to sit up, triggering a series of alarms from the machines connected to him.
“Easy, Vinny! Easy!” Fabio appears at his other side, smoothing his sheets and easing him down. “You have all the time in the world to talk—”
“How?” he demands, but he’s not looking at me. “How are you… How?”
“I think you three have a lot to discuss,” Fabio says, clearing his throat. “I’ll leave you to it.”
I barely notice him slipping from the room. The slender figure who comes to take his place consumes my focus.
In this moment, there are a million fucking ways she could spin her own narrative. Cry. Gape. Give any indication of how cruel I was to her. How vicious.
She keeps her face blank, revealing nothing and a paranoid part of me scoffs at that. She’s just biding her time.
“Saf…” Vin gapes at her like she’s a ghost, though hell, to him she is. I can’t even recall what exactly I told him. Just that our beloved Safy died in an accident. No funeral. No grave.
For seven years, I let him live with that lie.
“You’re dead,” Vin says softly. “Uncle Don?”
It’s not fair. Even weak, he still possesses the same hope Fabio does. Like the answer to their question has the ability to fix everything. Only if you tell the truth. Lie, and you’ll break something in them beyond repair.
“Vin…” I grab for his fingers, but smaller, paler ones beat me to it. She moves to stand closer, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. I don’t argue.
I don’t have the right to. It isn’t long before I feel like an outsider, intruding on a private moment.
“Get some rest, Vinny.” I step back, even though it kills me. “You need your beauty rest.”
I walk past her on my way out, but she doesn’t even look my way.
“That went…better than expected,” Fabio murmurs, appearing by my side the second I step over the threshold.
“Is this your way of gloating?” I can’t even put the right amount of anger into my voice. I’m too busy watching her, standing near Vin’s bed.
“No,” Fabio replies softly. “I’m just glad that everything is going according to plan. A nice, heartwarming visit with your nephew should lift your spirits so that my next news will have a shot of going over a tad bit easier.”
I raise an eyebrow, instantly on guard. “Get to the point. What’s the bad news?”
“Nothing about Vincenzo,” he clarifies. “He’s recovering far better than even the most optimistic of estimates.”
“So, then what?”
“You know those mysterious purchases in the west end? Well, what I didn’t mention was that it was a two-pronged purchase. I had assumed that it was all from the same buyer, but I was wrong.”
“This sounds like a bitter chaser to a happy reunion,” I snap. “What aren’t you saying?”
“The larger purchase of the two can’t be traced, as predicted. The culprit is most likely our original attacker of the Stepanov family.”
“And the other? Spit it out.”
He sighs. “It seems as though Gregori Saleri has taken a sudden interest in waterfront development. He bought several of the properties with cash, as well as the rights to several tenant buildings. It was all done rather expertly. I don’t think anyone else would have uncovered his name, at least not this quickly.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Fabio says in agreement. “And I don’t believe that now of all times would be the ripe moment for investment. The Saleris have stayed relatively contained to their corner of the world until now. Why decide to branch out at the same moment a threat against you has risen? Especially one concerning another section of the harbor. It doesn’t pass the smell test to me.”
“It sounds like you’ve been keeping tabs,” I admit, unsure if I’m impressed or alarmed. “Aren’t you the one always telling me not to dwell on the past?”
He shrugs. “How does that saying go? Friends close and enemies closer? That’s not all I’m concerned about, though. Think about it from this angle—if Gregori and Mateo made a move to buy up the harbor, even if it’s to expand their local business interests, they didn’t do it on a whim. A fish market. A meatpacking storage facility. Those enterprises don’t exactly scream targets of a sex club owner, do they?”
I frown. “No, they don’t. Unless that sex club owner suddenly needs to store a lot of shit.”
“Exactly,” Fabio says. “Or he’s merely serving as a proxy to secure the property for someone else. Someone with a more vested interest, like our mystery man, for instance. Or even… Mischa Stepanov.”
I whirl to face him. “And here I thought you wanted to be his best fucking friend. I thought you put your suspicions to rest already?”
“I don’t have any evidence he’s involved,” he says quickly. “But it’s a potential theory, and in my line of work, potential theories tend to have a lot more merit where millions of dollars are involved. Mischa’s built his empire on importing and exporting weapons that one may not be able to attain via legal means. If he is behind the sale, he could be working to counteract the other mysterious buyer. Or…”
“Or he’s been working with the bastard all along. In fact, it makes fucking sense if he was.” I laugh at the logic. “He and his partners conspire to frame me for an attack on the Stepanovs, giving Mischa the opening to come after me directly. But why hit Vin and not me? Targeting him over me wouldn’t make sense, unless…”
“Unless Mischa knows you better than we both suspect, and he counted on you cleaning up the loose ends, such as Antonio Salvatore.”
“And with this stupid fucking truce, we’re playing right into his hands.” I spin on my heel, marching toward Vin’s room. If Fabio is right, I brought the daughter of his potential murderer here. Hell, knowing her hatred of me, her aim might be to finish the job.
“Wait,” Fabio warns. “That could be the case, I won’t deny it—”
“You sound very fucking calm considering this was all your fucking idea!”
“Or,” he says over me. “The other possibility is that Mischa Stepanov is an impulsive, though calculating, man prone to reckless violence when those he cares for are threatened. Which means that whoever is behind this, knew both of you well enough to manipulate your worst character flaws. The main question is why. Why go through the trouble?”
“Or why the fuck are we still standing here when Mischa could be setting us up to take the fall?”
“Donatello…” He sighs in exasperation. “This is why I’ve kept these concerns to myself for the time being. I still would if another idea didn’t occur to me.”
“What? That Mischa’s wife was faking her injuries this whole damn time, and we bought it all hook, line, and sinker?”
But if she wasn’t… That alone would prove Mischa’s innocence. No way in hell would any man knowingly put the lives of his wife and children at risk. Never.
“I won’t deny there is a chance,” Fabio admits. “But I also thought of another solution. One that only you are capable of enacting, and one that could turn the tables, so to speak on any plans Mischa might have, nefarious in nature or otherwise.”
“What?” I scoff. “Have me kiss his ass literally? Hand the harbor over to him? The keys to the Kingdom? Go in there and rip out Vincenzo’s oxygen to finish the job he fucking started?”
“Not quite,” Fabio says softly. “If Mischa really intends to play us for the foo
ls and was willing to sacrifice his own family to do so, then I have no qualms in suggesting that you forge another path around our apparent negotiations.”
I feel my eyes narrow at his tone of voice. It’s the sly, cold, calculating one I’ve only heard him utilize a handful of times, proposing I go along with Mischa in the first place among them.
“So, what is it?”
He inclines his head, and I follow his gaze into Vin’s room. A woman stands at the bedside, watching us. She’s so damn beautiful my brain blanks before I remember who she is. What she is. God, those eyes…
They’re warped mirrors in a carnival sideshow. I look in them and see a grotesque monster staring back.
“Her?” I say absently. “Have you forgotten about the sham of a fucking wedding already?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Fabio says. “You’ve been content to parade her around as your toy, but have you stopped to even consider the tool you have in your possession? If you actually chose to utilize it, that is?”
“I’m not following,” I snap. “Hell, I’m not sure if I even want to—”
“Don’t make me spell it out for you, Donatello. If I were a ruthless sort of man cut from the same cloth as you and Mischa, I’d suggest using the girl to your advantage. Not as a prop, but as a partner.”
Partner. My brain shies from the term, unwilling to even consider it. “I think you should leave the ruthless calculating to Mischa, Fab—”
“She loved you once,” he points out, too softly for her to overhear. “The childish love that only a sick man would take advantage of now. Or a desperate one. You’ve pushed her away, needled her. In your mind, you’ve told yourself that you’re a heartless cunt, so no harm done, but deep down, I think you know the real reason. You’re afraid of your past. You’re afraid of the hold she still has over you. I think you should be. But if you truly want to beat Mischa at his own game—if he is truly behind this—then what better way than through his own daughter?”
I stare at him, surprised by the coldness in his gaze. Fuck, he looks like me. “You know, Fab, I never thought I’d live to see the day that you, of all people, advocate for rape and torture.”
“Of course not!” Genuine disgust rips through his voice. “Think with your brain and not your cock. Treat her with respect. Gain her confidence, even. Get her to trust you. Open up to you. You’d have a real weapon against Mischa, one he couldn’t contest lightly.”
“Do you even hear yourself, Fabio?”
He sighs, gritting his teeth. “Do you?”
“Go on and say it. What do you mean?”
“I mean, have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you react to her so strongly? Is it hate, or is it guilt?”
Something in the way he stresses that word stops me cold. “I feel like you’re talking in circles, Fab. I was never a fucking intellectual like you, so say it plainly.”
“I’m saying that you’re afraid of her, and you should try to harness that emotion instead of running from it, for once. It’s okay to feel guilty for something you’ve done. What’s even better than that? Acknowledging it and asking for forgiveness from the person you hurt.”
“You need sleep, Fab. Your emotions are getting the best of you—”
“If they were, you can bet that my fist would be planted in your mouth right now.” He sounds more tired than angry, exhaustion reflected in his bloodshot gaze. “You are not the heartless monster you pretend to be, and I think that’s why it’s so hard for you to face her and—”
“And what?”
“And risk knowing that she may never forgive you. But you leave that choice to her. You seek out her forgiveness, and you fight for it, not run like a coward. You are not a coward.”
I keep walking. “We’re done with this conversation—”
“Are you afraid, is that it? Of what she represents? You’ve never let yourself go back there, not really. Even if you traipse through that fucking haunted house, you never really let yourself relive it. If you could, you would have had the place burned to the ground.”
“Relive?” I laugh incredulously. “If you mean ‘burn in hell,’ then yes, I do that. Every fucking day.”
“You don’t remember, do you?” His eyes narrow as if he finally solved some complex puzzle. “All this time… This is how you’ve protected yourself. Turning it all on her. Maybe I was wrong—you are a coward.”
I turn back to find him in the same spot near Vin’s door. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He gapes at me like he’s waiting for something. Then he shakes his head. “Nothing, Donatello. No, you know what, it is something. I have never asked you for anything, but I think I have the right to, at least in this case. You’ve spent years wallowing in your own pain without once stepping outside of your own head to understand anyone else. You aren’t the only one hurting from the past.”
His tone resonates with an uncharacteristic note of anger. He’s serious.
Rather than counter him outright, I bite my tongue. My feelings toward the woman aside, if anyone deserves to be heard, it’s him. “What are you saying, Fabio?”
“I’m saying that I want you to try, if not for yourself, then for me. Try to see beyond your hate and look at her as not a tool but a partner. Though, if you want to use her as your proxy and dwell on the past, then by all means. You’re right. This conversation is over.”
“Wait—”
“I’m leaving.”
He reenters Vin’s room, but I follow him. She’s still by the bed, her hand on Vin’s.
Fabio has always been an optimist, but this time he’s verged into fantasy territory. He’s a sad old man clinging to hope after a lifetime of suffering. Not only for assuming she would ever forgive me, but that she would stand against Mischa of her own free will, without the threat of her family’s safety hanging over her head.
No fucking way.
But, I can’t ignore how he said those words. This is how you’ve protected yourself…
Turning it all on her.
As if I haven’t spent the past seven years hating myself.
When I look at him again, he’s fluffing Vin’s pillows, his charming grin firmly in place. It’s uncanny how easily he can switch out his emotions, suppressing one in favor of another.
Could I do the same when it comes to the blond standing beside him?
Her face is a blank mask, revealing nothing either way. At least not until I catch a glimpse of her eyes darting toward me, probing and elusive.
You aren’t the only one hurting from the past, Fabio snarled. He’s right, of course. Though he confronted the wrong party to sprout his idea of peace to—it’s not a question of whether or not I could use her as a partner.
Would she ever agree to see me as the same?
The answer feels as thready and halting as Vin’s breathing, though I’m determined to hazard a definitive guess.
Hell no, she wouldn’t—and I couldn’t blame her.
15
Evgeni
I wait for her to laugh, proving her morbid statement to be yet another joke.
She doesn’t.
So, I bite. “He wants to blow up the city. Why?”
A knowing smile replaces her wide-eyed expression. In the blink of an eye, she’s coy again. Gripping the towel around her waist, she skips past me, entering the main suite, dripping water as she goes.
“I wish I had the foresight to pack,” she says, frowning at her crumpled dress. “Oh well.”
She readjusts her towel to cover her torso and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Enough games,” I snarl. “You like it rough, do you? Maybe you’ll be more willing to talk if I put my hands around your throat a second time—”
“He wants power,” she blurts as I take a step toward her. “He wants to make a splash. Be seen. Be heard. He wants to cause a diversion large enough to move against several big players at once, Mischa Stepanov among them. He won’t blow up the entire city, mind you. It’
s strategic—”
“Do you know where?” I don’t know if I believe her in the first place. It sounds insane. Fantastical.
It sounds exactly like the move of someone desperate to shake up Hell’s Gambit and make a name for himself. I’ve worked for Mischa long enough to know the type. Few men can rise to the top of this city’s power structure without a bit of shock and awe.
“I don’t,” she admits. “I know he plans on watching the show, though. From a boat, I think. One of the Saleris’—”
“I know the one,” I say. A forty-footer Gregori loves to parade along the coast. “I could head him off myself. Demand answers.”
If he resorts to utilizing a lone woman to do his dirty work, how formidable can he be?
As if reading my mind, Briar laughs. “You wouldn’t even make it onto the water. Unless it’s as a corpse.”
Her tone lacks the mocking lilt I’m used to. “You really are afraid of him.”
“You would be too if you’ve seen a fraction of what I have.”
“I’ve seen enough in my day to fear no man.”
She scoffs, kicking her legs into the air. “Well, we can’t all be as stone-cold as you. What with the things you’ve done...”
It’s a statement designed to get a rise out of me. To distract.
It works.
“You know what isn’t on that list?” I counter harshly. “Letting my child be taken by someone I deem a madman.”
“Oh, touché.” She giggles. “I guess you never loved that Willow girl, then. Despite you being faithfully by her side all those years?”
My eyes narrow. “If you won’t let me contact Mischa, then tell me. What is your plan?”
She scrambles to the other side of the bed to put her back to me. “My plan was to be on a beach in Tahiti by now.”
“But you’re not. So why stay? Why leave him? Why try to ask a man you hate for help?”
Her response is so soft I have to strain to hear her. “My perfect sister has a wee little accident, and the most powerful man in the city loses his goddamn mind.” She makes it sound hilarious, like some marvelous joke. If I weren’t used to the cadence of her voice, I’d miss the harsh note lurking beneath. “He should have been smarter,” she adds. “He should have seen through it all then. He should have gone after the threat head-on and not be so damn predictable.”
