Chapter Two #2
I can only imagine what it means in his world when a woman is kidnapped for an alliance. I have a pretty good imagination, but that’s not something I even want to consider. Still, here I am, kidnapped by Vittoria’s brother, so it feels like comeuppance of a sort that she’s also been taken.
My own callousness disturbs and shocks me. Just because Vittoria was willing to be cavalier about what happened to me doesn’t mean it’s all right for me to be uncaring and unfeeling about what happens to her.
Still, I grit my teeth and spit out some of my anger. “I’m having trouble feeling any sympathy for her.”
“There is no point to sympathy. I think you’ll find this life doesn’t allow it. But remember that when you think of Vittoria as well. She was only doing what she had to do to take care of herself.”
I’m scared now. Because my plan was to try to escape him. But I realize now that if everything he’s saying is true, I have enemies outside of this vehicle. And I won’t be able to see them coming.
He might be the first man to come after me, but he won’t be the last.
And at least he’s invested in keeping my baby alive.
But I ache over what I’m losing.
My life.
Everything that I’ve worked so hard for.
Yes, if he keeps his word, if we all stay alive, there is meant to be a payout at the end of all this.
And that was a dream. A real, wonderful dream.
But so much of what I have now I got for myself with my blood, sweat and tears.
It had felt like doing something to make the path easier wasn’t the greatest sin.
Apparently, it was.
I’m a fool. It was a shiny poisoned apple. I’ve taken a bite, and now here I am, trapped with hell’s version of Prince Charming.
The car stops, and he grabs my arm as he opens the door, getting out, and pulling me with him. It’s an airfield. And there’s a small, sleek jet parked there.
He begins to propel me toward the jet. “You don’t have to force me. I don’t exactly want to stay behind and take a headshot in the street.”
“Glad to know you’re reasonable,” he says.
“I have a little thing called a survival instinct. Or at least, I usually do. Apparently, it turned off when I met your sister.”
He shrugs. “She has that effect on people. She’s very disarming.”
“You’re a lot older than her.” I’m just being spiteful, honestly.
He looks at me, one dark brow raised. “My father had many children with many different women.”
“Then why does he need you to lead?”
“I’m the oldest. Living child anyway. Vittoria is maybe fifteen years younger than me.”
“Clearly,” I say.
“In my life, this life I was born into, not making it into your thirties is a skill issue. One I don’t have. So as an insult, going after my age won’t work.”
“Very modest, gangster.”
“I’m not a gangster. And I’m not modest. Get on the plane.” He’s holding on to me again as I’m dragged up into a luxury seating area. Everything in the aircraft is representative of more money and excess than I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
“You’re not a gangster?” I ask, just because he already said he wasn’t and I have a feeling it will annoy the hell out of him for me to keep pushing.
I sit down on the plush couch, and I’m irritated that my sore body appreciates the luxury.
“No. First of all, crime families are not gangs. Not in the way that you’re thinking.”
“It’s the Mafia,” I point out dryly.
“No,” he says, looking almost wounded for a second. “There’s no such thing as the Mafia.”
Then he grins, like the very devil. I’m not going to respond to that smile. I’m sure women literally throw themselves on his body daily. I’m not going to be one of those women.
“Okay,” I say, doing my best to be uninterested. “Likely story.”
“Think of it as kingdoms, if you like. You asked before if I was a king, and in some ways, the answer is yes. Now that my father is dead. What I have inherited is a kingdom filled with corruption. What I have inherited is a kingdom that I do not want. But it does not change the fact that I inherited it. If a king dies, what happens?”
“‘The king is dead, long live the king.’” I pull a face. “They are immediately replaced.”
“Exactly. If not me, it will be someone else. Someone probably far worse and far more dangerous. That is a fact. Now, I have made no secret of the fact that I did not approve of my father’s actions.
And everyone knows that me taking control is going to signal change.
Which is why they want a war. To break the Corretti family into factions and absorb them into themselves.
Kill me, likely kill my sister if they can and then go after any of my father’s other children. ”
“But you said that one of your enemies wants to marry her.”
“Complicated. What he wants is an alliance. Again, think of it like kingdoms.”
“Yeah, but these aren’t kingdoms. You exist underneath the real world, like rats in tunnels under the actual city, the true kingdom, chewing holes in people’s genuine lives. You’re just planting a flag on a kingdom, a country, a city, that exists already.”
“And tell me, what about that is not like a kingdom? Are you not educated on colonialism?”
I laugh, short and rueful. “Wow. The woke mob. Anyway—” I roll my eyes at him “—I don’t need to be lectured about the history of the world by a man participating in a corrupt system.
I can acknowledge that the world is corrupt, and that the systems that run it are inherently wrong, and not engage in the moral relativism that allows for him to decide that because there is corruption he gets to traffic guns and human beings. ”