Chapter 34
EVA
It’s been several days since Ivan kidnapped me. To be honest, I’m surprised I’m still alive. I’m also disappointed that there’s been no sign of Adriano. Maybe today, as I know Ivan sent a messenger to the Dante estate.
Ivan’s demands were ridiculous. Even he knows it. He’s just poking the bear.
Wanting to prod the Dantes, Adriano in particular, into doing something.
In this case, he hopes Adriano will try to save me, and he’s lying in wait for that to happen.
I both wish for him to come and for him to forget me. I want to be out of here, and he’s my only hope.
But I know that he stands little chance of surviving a breach onto Bratva property.
I would rather die in this room than watch Ivan kill Adriano.
The hardest part of my situation is thinking about Mirabella. I
s she still sick?
Is she asking for me?
Does she think I abandoned her?
How has Adriano explained my absence?
I jerk upright at the sound of the door knob turning. The door swings open, and Ivan saunters in like he owns the world, which in this moment, he might as well.
"Your Romeo seems to have lost interest," he announces, leaning against the doorframe.
“He’s not coming to rescue you.”
I keep my face carefully blank. "I never expected him to."
"Liar." His smile is shark-like. "You've been watching out that window with bated breath.”
"What do you want?"
"To deliver news of your beloved." Ivan steps fully into the room, hands clasped behind his back. "We received an answer to our proposal. Your life in exchange for their surrender."
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. "You don’t need to tell me. I already know they’ll never surrender to you."
"Perhaps not. But what we received in return…" His expression shifts to something darker. "Well, I thought you should see their answer yourself."
He snaps his fingers, and one of his men enters carrying a box.
The smell hits me first.
Copper and rot. When the lid comes off, I can't stop the scream that tears from my throat.
Glazed eyes stare back at me from the severed head of Ivan's messenger.
“I have to hand it to them, they are dramatic.” Ivan watches my reaction. "No counter-offer. No demands for proof of life. Just this."
The room spins as I struggle not to vomit. This isn't just a rejection of terms, it’s a message back. They won't negotiate. Not even for my life.
It means one thing. Adriano believes I betrayed him.
"Ah, there it is." Ivan's voice is smug. "The moment you realize he's chosen his family over you."
I turn away from the grotesque display. "You've made your point."
"Not quite." Ivan grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. "Now comes the part where I use you to destroy them anyway."
I recoil from Ivan's touch, my skin crawling where his fingers gripped my chin.
"He thinks I betrayed him. I’m of no use to you anymore.” And so now, I die.
Ivan's smile widens. "You did betray him.”
I turn toward the window, trying to tell myself I’m glad that I’m no longer in limbo.
I’m not living in a purgatory where I wonder if today is the day I die.
The decision is made. Alessandro would have been the one to send this grotesque message to Ivan.
He was probably happy to do it. To get me out of Adriano’s life, once and for all.
Adriano once told me he could protect me from Alessandro, and I believed him. But he’s not protecting me now. He has finally seen me for what I truly am.
A liar. A spy. A traitor.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears threatening to spill.
The last thing I need is for Ivan to see me break.
But it’s difficult to accept that Adriano has given up on me, even as I know it’s what I deserve.
I kept the truth from him even after he found me, even after we reconnected. I was too afraid he'd hate me if he knew.
Now he hates me anyway.
As painful as it is, I’m grateful too. It means he won’t do something stupid like try to save me and walk into Ivan's trap.
"The Dantes have made their position clear. I'm not leverage anymore."
Ivan's eyes glitter with amusement. "Perhaps your value has shifted."
"What does that mean?" I demand.
"It means, Eva, that there are many ways to break a man." He circles me slowly. "The Dantes think they've neutralized the threat by rejecting our terms. They believe they've won this round."
"You're wasting your time. I've told you I have no intel, and they clearly don't care whether I live or die."
"Ah, but there's someone they do care about." His voice drops to a menacing whisper. "Someone who looks just like you, only smaller."
The air vanishes from my lungs. "Don't you dare—"
"Your daughter would make an excellent guest." Ivan's casual tone makes the threat all the more horrifying. "Children adapt so quickly, don't they? I wish I hadn’t agreed to let her go. That was a mistake on my part."
Something inside me snaps like a wire pulled too tight. "If you touch her, I will kill you." I don’t know how, but I will. It’s a promise I’ll keep even if I have to come back from the dead to do it.
Ivan laughs. "You're welcome to try."
As he leaves, my mind races. I've been running too long. From the Bratva, from the truth, even from Adriano. And where has it gotten me? My daughter is vulnerable, and the man I love believes I've betrayed him.
This war between the families needs to end. Mirabella deserves a life free from constant threat, whether I'm in it or not.
There must be a way out, not to run this time, but to finish this.
I think of Adriano, of what he would do in my position. He'd fight with everything he had.
So will I.
For my daughter. For the future I want her to have. Even if I won't be there to see it.
I have no plans when I exit my room. I’m a little surprised that Ivan hasn’t locked me in. It’s a testament to how confident he is that I can’t escape.
I move quietly down the back stairs. In the kitchen, his staff is preparing coffee and Russian tea cakes. They barely look at me as I pass by. I realize that Ivan has company, business company. I enter the library knowing it’s next to his office.
I press my ear against the wall, straining to hear who he’s talking to and what they’re discussing.
"The Dantes have grown complacent," Ivan's voice carries through the wall. "They believe their position is secure."
"We've tried to challenge them before," a gruff voice that I can’t place responds. "It didn't end well for us."
"Because you didn't have the right leverage or timing." Ivan's voice drops lower, forcing me to press closer. "That was Maksim’s mistake as well. Together, Don Vitale, we have both."
Don Vitale? That doesn’t make sense. Why would a Mafia family join the Bratva against another Mafia family? Power, I guess.
"The Dantes are expecting a big shipment… their biggest to date since Lorenzo’s death. It will include twenty million in cash,” Ivan says. "Alessandro will send Adriano to oversee the exchange. He doesn’t trust anyone else with a sum that large."
"So we hit the shipment?" Vitale asks.
"Better." I can hear the smile in Ivan's voice. "We let them complete the exchange. Then we don’t only take it, but we wipe the Dantes out. We take Adriano, and Alessandro is all but doomed.”
“He’ll send for his brother.”
“Not if he’s dead too. Once the ambush begins, a call will go out. We’ll be able to eliminate the head and the body of the snake.”
I swallow as I hear Ivan discuss the total destruction of the Dante family.
“But this only works by outnumbering them by at least five to one. The Dantes are skilled at taking out many men, often before they know what’s happening. You have to be one hundred percent committed.”
“It’s true that underestimating the Dantes is a mistake. One I’ve made as Alessandro hasn’t looked strong as a Don, but he’s managed to survive. When he killed Maksim, I don’t have to tell you, Ivan, that made many families take pause. But yes, I’m committed.”
“This goes down Friday. We need to be ready.”
“I’ll be ready.”
My mind races. Whatever Adriano believes about me now, I can't let this happen. I need to warn him.
But how? Ivan lets me roam about the house, but there’s no way I’d make it two steps up the drive before I was stopped.
Still, I’m resourceful. They've been careful not to leave me anything sharp, but they've underestimated what desperation can accomplish. I've spent years running, hiding, surviving. I've learned to turn anything into a weapon or tool when necessary.
I return to my room, brainstorming my options. Once everyone is asleep, I exit my room, scouring the house for anything I can use to escape or even send a message.
“Sleepwalking?” Ivan’s voice startles me as I rummage through the empty drawers in the desk in his library.
“I’m bored.”
“It’s late enough that you should be sleeping.” I can see he doesn’t buy my story, but he’s more amused than mad. He enjoys toying with me, giving me bits of hope and then taking them away.
“If I could sleep, that’s what I’d be doing.” I give up on the desk and move to exit the library to return to my room.
As I pass him, he grips my arm, hard enough to remind me how easy it would be for him to kill me. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, Eva, but it won’t work. It’s possible you’ll survive this, but only if you don’t fuck it up.”
He’s lying. As soon as his plan is achieved, he’ll kill me.
I’m only still alive because he thinks I might be useful.
I don’t reply, only tug my arm free and go up to my room.
He hasn’t scared me away from my plan.
Once you’ve accepted that death is inevitable, nothing scares you.
Except failing in warning Adriano, because if he dies, Ivan will come for Mirabella.
And I will do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen, even if it results in my head being placed in a box.