Chapter 24 #2
An uneasy feeling rested between my shoulder blades while I slipped into my jacket.
Maneuvering through the precinct didn’t take long, nor did finding the exit onto Fifty-First Street.
I jogged down the steps to the street, shaking my head.
Dante lounged against a bright orange Ferrari LaFerrari. Not conspicuous at all.
“About time,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve been waiting hours.”
I whistled and tapped the hood when rounding to the passenger side. “You didn’t happen to bring dinner, did you? I’m fucking starving.”
“Fuck off. This bitch cost a cool 1.4 mil. Nothing but your ass is touching that Nappa full grain leather. And watch your greasy hands—hanging out with all that filth inside, and now in my car. Gesù Cristo.”
I laughed as we both ducked into the vehicle, but humor died in my throat as soon as we were settled. “Did Vivi get home okay?”
He stared at me as he pressed the starter, the engine roaring to life. It took a moment, but he nodded and shifted into gear. “Is it time to have a conversation with my father?”
Resentment curled my hand into a fist on my thigh, but I wouldn’t punch his dashboard.
This self-deprecating anger burned inside me because I fell for the forbidden.
Wanting her didn’t change much of anything.
Vivi was still the princess, and I was the pauper.
“How’s that going to work out, you think?
” I asked while pedestrians blurred on the sidewalk from his sudden acceleration.
“I have no connections. I’m already his devoted soldier.
Vigo gains nothing from an alliance with me. ”
“Vivi’s a problem. For Vigo,” he corrected when I turned and glared my rage in his direction. “If it’s not you, then it’s someone else. Don’t mistake his intentions. He’ll make sure her husband has a strong enough hand to keep her in line and silent.”
Beat her into submission was what he meant. Fire seared through my veins. The thought of someone’s hands on her boiled my blood.
“Goddamn, Dante.” Air squeezed out of my lungs, and there wasn’t enough left in the car to inhale.
I was so close to having everything I’d worked years to accomplish, and now this.
How could I force Vivi to stay when she wanted more than anything to leave this life?
If she was tied to me, she’d have no choice but to stay because I was in too deep and I would never allow her to go.
I’d become her greatest burden. “I can’t do that to her,” I mumbled to the window, then swallowed my bitterness.
“That’s your choice, then. Give her up to another man?”
Dark spots blurred my vision from just the thought of someone else pushing between her legs, painting himself with the red stains of her virginity. “I’ll figure something out. Just… no vows. Not now.”
“You’re a piece of work. Fine, if that’s what you want. But forget about any kind of involvement with my sister without Vigo’s blessing, and don’t intervene with his decisions that affect her. You do that, and you’ll have weighted chains around your ankles for a jump in the Hudson.”
I glanced at his familiar diamond eyes, which were as hard as flint. They searched my face and somehow softened. “And yes, Vivi is home. Damian escorted her from the scene before anyone could stop their escape. The cops give you shit?”
“Same dance, different detective. The Cantina’s owner is another story. He’s on Angelinis’ payroll, and his guards were well trained as waitstaff. They had time to plan, which is interesting since I just learned about the outing this morning.”
“I’ll handle the aftermath with Stefano. But you got all his goons today?”
I had no overt reason to lie. There was only the instinct churning in my stomach to keep the numbers to myself, and I never ignored my gut. “Yeah.”
“No one’s left to talk, you’re sure?”
On the open road, the speedometer pushed thirty miles per hour beyond the limit. The law didn’t mean much when you were a Cabello. It’s how I escaped a long interrogation: good lawyers and connections who breached the highest level of law enforcement.
“They’re in the morgue, Dante. Unless you know how to raise the dead, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“That’s all I need to know. Vigo will want to hear it too.”
I nodded and shut up for the rest of the ride.
The facts didn’t sit right in my gut. Simone was murdered in retaliation for Bruno’s death.
Or was it because of the secrets she intended to spill about her husband?
The funeral came to mind—the guns vying for Vivienne and the sharpshooter’s weapon.
Evidence supporting a clear intent to kill her too.
The motive at the Cantina was different.
If Angelini’s men wanted her dead, they could’ve ended everything there.
They took her instead. Whatever she knew was more important than her silence.
So what was the endgame—death or confession?
The answer eluded me as we pulled into the compound. A guy met us in the circular drive to take the car. He drove it to the garage, while Dante and I went directly to the catacombs. We rushed downstairs and through the corridor, but an armed guard stopped us from entering the office.
“The capo is not to be disturbed.” He brought his semiautomatic up as if it would defend his directive.
Dante scoffed. “Get out of my way.”
His spine snapped straighter. “No one. Those are my orders.”
The faintest cry broke the standoff. I grabbed his gun, jerking him forward and crashing my skull into his. Then I leveled the barrel between his wide eyes, and he scrambled away from his post. Dante pushed inside. I followed, viewing the scene through the sight’s crosshairs.
Stefano stood in the center of the room. His chest rose and fell from huffing breath, his knuckles torn and bloody by his side.
The scope dropped to a silver pool by his feet.
Vivienne.
My Vivienne curled into a ball on the Persian rug.
Angry marks streaked the ivory skin on her bare arms and legs. Red bled into a puddle beneath her temple.
A low, animalistic sound vibrated in my throat as I centered the sight on her brother’s heart. My trigger finger tensed. Dante cuffed my shoulder.
“You cannot intervene.” I didn’t miss the dark edge in his tone, like he would shoot Stefano himself if the opportunity existed.
Jesus Christ, how could I not end him after he laid violent hands on her?
“Good of you to join us.” Vigo’s voice dragged my attention to where he loomed in the corner, a director to the gruesome scene. “We just finished a nice conversation with our dear Vivi about her time with the Angelinis. Would you care to verify, Luca?”
Everything went static, like the still shot of the Palermo Cathedral behind him. I lowered the weapon, staring down my nose at the boss.
“Tell me everything. The entire sequence of events,” he demanded.
This was a test. Vivienne shared a story that I was meant to corroborate or contradict. And if I failed? That was a dangerous question I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t look at her battered body as I began, with that gut instinct still churning through my stomach.
The church was an easy run-through. It was only Father Musa for an uneventful thirty minutes.
I knew of the woman and her daughter hiding in the back rooms, but they were unrelated to Vigo and my first omission.
The second was the missing men and the five minutes I’d lost Vivienne.
Vigo nodded when I finished. “Very well,” he said with a sick smile for his eldest son. “We agree on our next move.”
Stefano stepped toward Vivienne.
I moved to intervene.