Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 144979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
When it’s Valentina’s turn, a fresh wave of guilt settles over me. With our father gone, her life is under the direction of the Vitale men, and she’ll have to live at the estate until she marries. That’s the way things work in the Cosa Nostra.
“You could come with me,” I offer.
Even as I say it, I know it’s not true. She has a life here. Her career. Her friends. I can’t ask her to give that up for me. It’s the same reason I never wanted to leave.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Do you want me to?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t even know where I’ll end up. Your life is here, and mine will be somewhere else. I need to figure that part out on my own.”
Val nods, silent tears streaming down her face.
“You’ll find a way to thrive wherever you go,” Mariella assures me. “You’re one of the strongest women I know.”
“I’m going to miss you so much,” Gabi sobs, embracing me in a rare hug.
Gabi hates hugging, and that’s how I know this is really goodbye.
“We’ll see each other again,” I promise, even though I don’t know if that will ever be possible.
Someone clears their throat, and when I glance over, Cipher is waiting with a manila envelope containing my new life. Beside her is my next transporter.
“You have to go now,” Mariella says softly. “It’s time.”
I nod, and after one final round of hugs, I’m secured in another hidden compartment in the back of the flower van.
The engine starts, and everything I’ve ever known fades away.
49
ANGELO
“Anything?” I grit out the question as soon as I answer Nicky’s call.
“Nothing yet,” he says. “Did you make it to the island?”
“I just got here.” I glance up at Cristian and Romeo as I stalk across the dock to meet them. By the look in their eyes, I can tell they don’t have anything for me either.
“Follow every lead,” I tell Nicky. “Burn the fucking city to the ground if you have to. I want to know where she is.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line, a moment of hesitation before he answers. “Sure thing, boss.”
I disconnect the call, an incendiary cocktail of anger and disbelief seething through my veins.
She left me.
She just fucking…left.
That bitter wound has reopened, leaving a gaping hole inside my chest.
I swore I’d never let it happen again.
She kissed me like it meant something, and then she just walked the fuck out of my life.
Her records and her rushed goodbye are still folded into my pocket. I’ve stared at them twenty times over, replaying every moment of the last six years through a different filter.
Everything she did. Every lie she told. Every sacrifice she made.
She did it for me.
It wasn’t her sword to fall on, but she did. And then she let me punish her for it. Over and over again.
I want to punish her right now for not trusting me to protect her. But I can’t. Because she fucking walked away.
“What are you going to do if you find her?” Cristian glances at me as he drives us back to the house.
He sounds concerned, and I don’t like it. “That’s for me to figure out.”
“You can’t bring her back here.” He lowers his voice. “Not if you’re going to crush her. You know what it will do to her if you have a baby with someone else. You saw what her father did.”
“Stop,” I growl.
“You need to decide what to do about the treaty—"
“The last thing I want to hear about right now is the goddamned treaty,” I snarl. “She’s my wife.”
Wisely, he chooses not to say anything else as we pull into the drive and get out.
“Where are they?” I ask him.
He hesitates. “We can talk to them.”
“Where. Are. They?”
He sighs. “In the ballroom.”
I stalk up the stairs and into the house, Romeo and Cristian trailing after me. Rafe and Michele have been with the girls since they picked them up in the city, trying to sneak back into the ball. It’s been hours since they helped Abella escape, and knowing what I do now about Aegis, I can just imagine how this will play out.
When I slam open the doors, all six of their gazes swing to me. They’re sitting on the hardwood floor, lined up like they’re about to face the firing squad.
I stop in front of Mariella, glaring down at her and the roll of masking tape in her hands.
“Where is she?” An undercurrent of fury bleeds through my words.
“None of us know,” she says. “That’s the entire point.”
If I hadn’t seen the journalist’s notes myself, I might not have believed her. But before Ray killed her, she had infiltrated their organization under the guise of being an abused woman herself. She broke down the entire process of how they moved women through different safe houses, the anonymity behind it, the secrecy, the codes, and the enormous network of women risking their own lives to help others escape theirs.