Chapter 11 #3
Every head in the place turns as we enter. Hard faces, leather jackets, tattoos crawling up necks and across knuckles. They stare at me openly, taking in my cream sweater and jeans like I’m a lamb that wandered into a wolf den.
A group of women near the bar snicker behind their hands. One of them says something I can’t hear, and the others laugh, their gazes raking over my outfit with open contempt.
I feel my cheeks burn, but I keep walking. This is for Vincenzo.
“There.” Matteo’s hand brushes my elbow. “By the pool tables.”
I recognize him immediately. The soldier with a scorpion tattooed on his throat, the one who brought us to Aleksander last night. He’s leaning against the wall, watching us approach with flat, assessing eyes.
“We need to speak to Dashamir Dervishi,” Matteo says when we reach him. His voice is steady and authoritative. “Tell him Adora Montoni and Matteo Vici are here.”
The soldier’s gaze slides from Matteo and lingers on me. I force myself not to shrink under his scrutiny. I wonder if he recognizes me from last night without all the makeup and the provocative outfit.
“Wait here.”
He pulls out his phone and steps away, speaking in rapid Albanian. I catch Dashamir’s name but nothing else. The music is too loud, the bass vibrating through the sticky floor beneath my feet.
The soldier returns, pocketing his phone. “Come with me.”
He leads us out the front to a black SUV.
“Follow me in your car.”
Matteo and I return to his car and pull out behind the SUV. The drive takes us deeper into Dervishi territory, through streets that grow progressively darker and more industrial. Finally, we approach a walled compound. I can see armed men just inside the gates.
The SUV stops. The soldier with a scorpion tattoo gets out and walks back to Matteo’s window.
“Only the Montoni girl.”
“No.” Matteo’s jaw tightens. “I’m not letting her go in there alone.”
“Then she doesn’t go in at all.” The soldier shrugs. “Dashamir’s orders. The girl alone, or nothing.”
Matteo turns to me, conflict written across his face. “Adora, you don’t have to do this. We can find another way.”
But there is no other way. Vincenzo has been in there for almost nineteen hours. Every minute I waste is another minute he’s suffering, and another minute closer to Dashamir deciding he’s not worth keeping alive, if he’s even still alive at all.
I look at the compound walls, high and imposing against the darkening sky. Armed guards. Enemy territory. And inside, the impassive and ruthless Dashamir Dervishi.
Matteo doesn’t want me to go in there. Vincenzo would absolutely forbid it if he knew I was here. Sofia would pull me into a motherly hug and tell me that staying out of it is what her nephew would want.
No one would blame me for running away.
A memory flickers across my mind. Something I haven’t thought about in a long time.
I’m fifteen years old, sitting in the garden with my brother Cristiano, the roses blooming around us.
He’s nineteen, and girls in the street slow down and stare at him he’s so good-looking.
With broad shoulders and tousled golden hair, he has a Botticelli face and a linebacker body.
“What if I’m becoming just like him?” Cristiano said, his voice tight with anxiety. “What if I don’t know how to stop it?”
Cristiano runs cold, not hot, and grows quieter and quieter when he’s angry.
He clashes with our father constantly because of the pressure Dad puts on him as his “heir.” That’s how he talked about Cristiano.
As an heir, not a son. I overhear them sometimes, Dad shouting and slamming things, while Cristiano replies in a low, fierce rumble.
I remember the panic that seized me that Cristiano chose me to confide in.
I was worried I might break down and confess that Dad was hurting me, and I felt so desperately ashamed of that.
No one could know, not even my own brother.
It was better—safer—to pretend that everything was fine and that our family was normal.
“Don’t be silly, Cristiano,” I told him, averting my gaze and forcing a laugh. “You’re nothing like Dad.”
I hoped he would get the message that I didn’t want to talk about anything to do with our family. Cristiano and I hadn’t been close since before Mom died, and he was the golden child. What could meek little me possibly say to help the Montoni heir?
Cristiano stared at me for a long moment. When I finally looked up, I watched something die in his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Okay.”
Three weeks later, he was sent to Italy. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since. Ever since, I’ve wondered about that brief conversation. What did Cristiano see in himself that made him worry he was turning into Dad?
Here, outside Dashamir Dervishi’s compound, I know I failed Cristiano that day. My brother came to me for help, and I turned away because I was too scared to see what our family really was. I lost Cristiano because I was a coward.
I won’t lose Vincenzo the same way.
“Adora?” Matteo’s voice pulls me back. “You okay?”
I take a breath.
I’m not going to be the girl who freezes because the man she cares about confesses he’s falling for her. I won’t turn away from hard truths and hope that everything will work out on its own. That girl has spent her whole life being her father’s victim.
I’m done being her.
“I’m okay,” I tell Matteo, and my voice comes out surprisingly strong. “Wait here. I’ll be back with Vincenzo.”
“If you’re not out in an hour, I’m coming in.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“Then don’t take longer than an hour.”
I almost smile. “Deal.”
I open the car door and step out into the cool evening air. The guards at the gate watch me approach, hands resting on their weapons. I’m a college girl in a cream sweater walking into a compound full of killers. I look soft, sheltered, and completely out of my depth.
But looks can be deceiving.
The gate swings open, and I walk inside.
The compound is larger than I expected. Several buildings arranged around a central courtyard, all dark brick and iron gates. Guards everywhere, watching me with cold curiosity as a soldier escorts me toward the main building.
Inside, the décor is surprisingly elegant but spartan.
Raw concrete walls smoothed to silk. Steel and glass.
Not a single unnecessary object in sight.
The kind of minimalism that costs more than excess ever could.
It’s nothing like the rough biker bar we just left. This is where the real power lives.
The soldier leads me down a hallway and stops at a heavy wooden door. Knocks twice.
“Enter.”
I recognize that voice. Soft, accented, dangerously calm.
The soldier opens the door and gestures me inside.
Dashamir Dervishi sits behind a large desk, papers spread before him, a glass of neat vodka at his elbow. He looks exactly as he did last night, his eyes tracking my every movement.
“Adora Montoni.” He says my name like he’s tasting it. “Or should I call you doe?”
The pet name hits me like a slap. Dashamir knows exactly what Vincenzo calls me in his softest moments. I feel sickened as I wonder how he knows it, but I refuse to let him see how much that rattles me. “I prefer Miss Montoni.”
“I am disappointed in myself,” Dashamir continues as though I haven’t spoken. “I’ve been scouring Malus for Vincenzo’s woman. I didn’t guess that you were the tramp he brought to the fight, even after I saw your picture.”
He holds up a phone, and I realize with a jolt that it’s Vincenzo’s. On the screen is a text exchange that includes a formal picture of me.
“Please, sit,” Dashamir invites me graciously.
I take the chair across from him, grateful my legs don’t shake. “Where’s Vincenzo? Is he alive?”
He studies me for a long moment. “I must admit, I’m curious about you. When my men told me Agnello Montoni’s daughter wanted an audience, I assumed your father would try to assassinate me. And yet here you are, alone, no weapons, no backup. You’re either very brave or very stupid.”
“Just tell me he’s all right,” I say, struggling to stay strong and keep the pleading out of my voice, “and then we can talk.”
“You can see him for yourself.”
Dashamir turns his laptop toward me. On the screen is a video feed. A small room, concrete walls, harsh lighting.
And Vincenzo.
My heart seems to stop.
He’s tied to a chair, slumped forward, barely conscious. Blood is matted in his dark hair. His face is swollen and bruised, one eye nearly shut. His shirt is gone, and I can see dark bruises blooming across his ribs.
But the worst part is his hands. His fingers are bloody, raw, the nails missing from at least two of them. The flesh beneath is exposed and weeping.
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“He’s quite resilient,” Dashamir says calmly. “Refused to tell me anything useful. I was beginning to think he’d rather die than talk.”
There’s a flicker of a smile around his lips. This monster actually finds this funny.
He leans back in his chair. “So. What information could you possibly have that would make me release Vincenzo Vici? I presume that’s what you want.”
I force myself to look away from the screen and meet Dashamir’s cold eyes.
“I can give you proof that my father killed Lira Dervishi.”
The laughter dies. Dashamir goes very still.
“What did you say?”
“Your cousin, Lira.” I keep my voice steady, even though my heart is pounding. “You think my father killed her because she refused to marry him. If that’s true, I can get you proof.”
Dashamir stares at me for a long moment. His expression is stubbornly unreadable. I’ve caught him off guard, and he hates it, but the carrot I’m dangling in front of his eyes is too enticing to ignore.
“You can get me proof, or you have proof?”
“I can get you proof.”
“How?”
“A confession. Recorded, in his own words. My father likes to drink, and he likes to boast.” I leave out the part that he neither drinks with me nor boasts to me, but I can figure out the details later.
The most important thing right now is securing Vincenzo’s freedom before this asshole kills him for fun.
“Why would you betray your own father?”
“Because I believe he killed my mother.” The words come out flat and hard.
“He beat her for years, and when she became too much of a problem, he had her murdered. I was thirteen. He beats me as well. Two months ago, he told me I was marrying Vincenzo Vici, and he slaughtered his whole family in front of me.” I lean forward slightly.
“I have no love for my father, Mr. Dervishi. He’s a monster. I want him gone as much as you do.”
Dashamir says nothing for a long time.
“If I get my confession,” he says slowly, “I will kill your father. I demand to kill your father. Do you understand that?”
I think about my mother. About the bruises I’ve hidden for years. About the poison he gave me to kill Vincenzo.
“Yes.”
The word hangs in the air between us. Dashamir studies me with unblinking eyes.
Then something shifts in his expression. Not quite respect, but something close to it. “I almost believe you.”
“You have to believe me. I can get you what you want, and in return, you’ll release Vincenzo immediately—and give him back the guns you stole.” I may as well go for broke. Dashamir can believe I’m serious, crazy, or deluded, but as long as he gives me Vincenzo, I don’t care.
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he stands, walks to the window, and looks out at the darkening courtyard.
“If you try to fool me,” he says without turning around, “if this is some elaborate trap or if you fail to deliver what you promise, I’ll introduce you both to the chainsaws that Vincenzo was so curious about.”
A chill runs down my spine. I don’t let my voice waver as I say, “I won’t try to fool you. I want Vincenzo’s freedom and the guns. You want justice for Lira. We will both get what we want.”
Dashamir turns back to face me. “You can have Vici. The guns when I get my confession and my revenge.”
My heart leaps. “Deal.”
“Don’t make me regret this, Miss Montoni.” He picks up his phone, makes a call in Albanian. Then he looks at me with those cold eyes. “My men will bring him to you. He’s in rather poor condition.”
I stand on shaking legs, and though I hate him for torturing Vincenzo, I keep the bitterness out of my voice and politely say, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” Dashamir’s voice follows me as I turn toward the door. “I expect results soon.”
I walk out of his office with my head held high, even though my hands are trembling and my stomach is churning.
I did it. I walked into the compound of one of the most dangerous men in Malus with nothing but words, and I negotiated for Vincenzo’s life. I stared down Dashamir Dervishi, and I didn’t flinch.
My whole life, I’ve been told what I am.
Agnello’s daughter. A pawn. A bargaining chip.
My father hit me and I took it. He ordered me to kill, and I considered it.
But tonight, I assessed what Dashamir wanted and offered him something more valuable than revenge on a single Vici, and I saved Vincenzo.
I’m not the helpless girl who froze at the engagement party while people died around her.
I’m Adora goddamn Montoni.
I still have to deliver on my impossible promise to Dashamir, but right now I feel powerful, and I like it.
They bring Vincenzo to me in a small room off the main hallway. He’s barely conscious, supported between two guards who dump him unceremoniously into my arms.
He looks half dead, and the horror of what’s happened to him crashes over me
“Vincenzo.” I struggle beneath his weight as I try to rouse him. “Vincenzo, can you hear me?”
His eyes flutter open. They’re confused at first, then focus on my face. “Adora?” His voice is a rasp. “What are you… How are you here?”
“I came to get you.” Tears are streaming down my face now. I can’t stop them. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” He tries to stand up straight but winces in pain. “It’s not safe. Dashamir…”
“It’s all right. I made a deal, and I’m getting you out of here. Matteo’s outside.”
His damaged hand finds my face despite the pain it must cause him. “You came for me.”
“Always,” I whisper, his bloody fingers becoming wet from my tears. Dashamir ripped bits off him, but he’s alive, and the relief is immense.
But the relief only lasts a heartbeat. I still have to tell him about the poison, and I have to somehow extract a murder confession from a man who’s never admitted to anything in his life.
I just promised Dashamir the impossible.
Later. I’ll face all of that later.
Right now, I just need to get Vincenzo home.