Chapter 44
GABI
The next morning, Ivan rushes off to work, and all I get is a sweet kiss on the forehead before he heads out.
I’m still in my pajamas but hurry to get ready before the girls wake up.
When we walk into the kitchen, Milana is already having coffee, so I pull her aside, away from Yuri’s ever watchful eye and ears.
“It’s a double wedding on Friday. You and Luca…me and Ivan.”
All color drains from her face.
“Gabriella.” She clutches my hand, her grip translating her desperation. “I…I know this wasn’t the plan. I can’t believe he’s duped me like this. Ivan…oh, fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.”
“It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand hard to stop her cursing.
Nobody got duped except Ivan and my brothers, or so I’d like to think.
It can’t be helped if the tables have turned on me, but somewhere in the past twelve hours, words started niggling at me.
Matteo saying, on the day when I walked in on him and Dominic at five in the morning, it’s basically an admission of guilt.
What did my brothers do that Ivan Petrov has a hold on them?
“I don’t see a way out. Literally,” Milana says under her breath. “For either of us.”
I nod. With the new guards in place, Luca is really her only safe way out. “Let’s not fool ourselves. I’m the daughter of a notorious mafioso. It was never going to be any other way.”
I get busy with the girls’ breakfast, glancing every now and then at Milana where she’s dropped into a chair at the table, gripping her coffee mug as if she could wring the answers to all life’s problems out of it.
Kostya walks in with a pile of wedding magazines, followed by two men who push a clothes rail of wedding dresses into the room.
How on earth—?
Ivan. Money. He’s throwing thousands at these weddings, and I’d rather he wouldn’t.
It hits me that this is real. I haven’t even spoken to my brothers. Cornered them about how they cornered me.
The girls’ eyes go wide, and energy seems to rush into the room, but I still need to mentally adjust to this new reality.
“I need to talk to Dominic, because clearly, I have some news to share with my family,” I announce, needing a moment alone to pick a bone with my brother.
Yuri looks up from his laptop, giving the new arrivals a cold stare, but at my words, his lips curl up in one corner. He holds his phone out to me.
“I have my own phone, in my room.”
“Sure,” he says with a shrug. “You’ll be Mrs. Petrova soon enough. We’ll look after the girls. Take your time.”
Milana chews her thumb, her eyes tracking my every move, knowing she’s at my mercy.
I could give her secret away to my brothers, and then this whole plan of hers would go up in flames.
As I take the stairs, I tally the pros and cons, but it doesn’t matter which side wins.
This is no longer about me. It’s about every girl in that cellar, chilled bodies hugging close, petrified.
I’ll see the wedding through for Milana’s sake. Her situation is desperate, and I can figure my life out after the fact… After my vows. Vows I never intended to make.
I dial Dominic’s number, and he answers within one ring.
“Gabi—”
“You already know I’m getting married, so consider this a courtesy call,” I cut him off, not wanting to even give him a chance to wade through our usual small talk. “I suppose you’re all invited.”
Two seconds of tense silence scream over the line.
“I didn’t want this for you, Gabi,” he says softly, the agony in his voice scratching crevices into my skin. “I wish— If I knew— If I— If we could stop it, we would.”
Nobody is stopping this now, but I have some rights, surely. “How did this happen?” I ask, my voice raw. “I just want to know what hold he has over you?”
“I killed Milana’s fiancé, and you get to pay the price.”
I sink down on my bed as the words fall into the deepest parts of me, confirming what I always suspected but dreaded to confirm: my brothers kill when they need to kill. Cruel, calculating, ruthless.
“Fuck, Gabi, I live with a shit ton of regret for a lot of things, but this…I don’t think I can live with myself if you—if Petrov—” he breaks off.
The raw truth, the deep regret, and the agony in his voice sting.
In my mind’s eye, images of Dominic as he walks into Mother Lucia’s office flash by.
My first impressions of him were that he was a protector to the core.
Then at Lake Como, he proved he is so much more than that, showing me what it means to have a brother.
And then I got to know him and Ariana together, watching their love bloom, so pure and perfect, and it hurt knowing I was observing something, a mere outsider, that I’d never experience.
Dominic has his own tortured past, of which I only had glimpses. Surely he wouldn’t kill anybody without good reason. And there was no love lost between Milana and Boryslav Petrenko.
Now is the time to tell him of my engagement to another Russian, but I clam up. I won’t bring that mess into the mix and endanger everybody. Or give up Milana’s one chance to get away. Whatever happened between Ivan and my brothers, I pushed to come here for my own reasons.
I swallow, close my eyes, and whisper, “It’s okay, Nicky. Ivan Petrov is a good man.” Chalk and cheese to the other Russian I’ve been promised to. “I’m going to be fine. Please don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“You have no idea how this situation has tortured all of us, but at least with Milana and Luca, we know Petrov won’t do anything rash.”
I wipe at my eyes, the knot of lies twisting tighter in my stomach. “He isn’t cruel,” I murmur into the phone. “There’s been nothing to fear, so please, really, please don’t worry about me. I just wanted to understand how—”
“Boryslav meddled with our plans to kill Franco Fiore and that’s how he ended up dead.” He groans into the phone. “Matteo won’t like me telling you, because the less you know the better, but Franco Fiore came up that day in Mother Lucia’s office. It was Il Consiglio who…neutralized him.”
I’m stunned into shocked silence. The world is so small. What else have my brothers been responsible for?
But if Franco Fiore really is dead, then the chances are Randazzo’s vow—his deal with that Russian—has died of natural causes. All my ideas of him hunting me down may be mere fantasy.
When I say nothing, trying hard to get my head around this reality, Dominic clears his throat.
“There’s something else I thought you needed to know.”
“What?” I ask, my voice strained.
“There’ve been four more murders, similar to Mother Lucia’s, in Italy. Women tortured, and then torched.”
“Oh, my— Are you serious?”
Maybe it was just fluke and Mother Lucia’s death wasn’t my Russian. Maybe all of this is nothing. An assassination disguised among killing many.
“They thought they caught the culprits, but news of a serial killer is making headline news. Four women are already dead, and whoever their killer is, they have very diverse tastes.”
I drag a hand down my face, goosebumps riding down my arms. “Why?”
“This time, it’s been in prostitues or young female porn stars.”
I stop breathing.
Chiara.