Chapter 12
Cristiano
Nico and Paulo stand before my desk, loose-limbed and unconcerned. Tommaso radiates cold fury, his hands clasped behind his back like he’s restraining himself from reaching for his weapon.
“Three Sokoli men,” Tommaso is saying. “Casing the Diamond Grand. Paulo spotted them at eleven, and by midnight they were in the river.” He pauses for effect. “Without a single word to me.”
Nico shifts his weight. “They were Sokolis inside Don Cristiano’s casino. We dealt with it.”
“You dealt with it,” Tommaso’s voice is tight with barely suppressed anger, “without clearing it through the proper channels. Without consulting the capo responsible for that territory. Without—”
“Without waiting,” Paulo says, “for three men to report back to their krye.”
Tommaso turns to me, his jaw working. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. No structure. No discipline. Your father had a chain of command that existed for good reasons, and these two treat it like it’s optional.”
I glance at the monitor angled toward me, showing the security feed from the spa.
Mina is there, her dark hair pulled back, her hands working the shoulders of a woman in a manicure chair.
Even in the grainy footage, Mina is beautiful.
The way she moves, confident and graceful.
The way she tilts her head when she’s concentrating.
Her smile is professional and distant. I wonder what she’s thinking about. Whether she’s thinking about me.
Probably not. And if she is, it’s nothing good.
“Don Cristiano.” Tommaso’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Are you listening?”
“Every word.” I don’t look away from the monitor. “Nico and Paulo stopped a Sokoli reconnaissance team before they could report back. You’re upset they didn’t ask your permission first.”
“I’m upset about the lack of discipline. The lack of respect for how things are done.” His voice rises. “If every soldier starts making unilateral decisions, we have chaos. Your father understood that.”
“My father’s methods didn’t stop the Sokolis from beating up croupiers from the Diamond Grand twice last month.
” I keep my voice level. “Or harassing patrons at the Obelisk the month before that.” I finally look up at him.
“Tell me, Tommaso, how was the proper chain of command helping when that was happening?”
Tommaso’s mouth tightens. “There are too many Sokolis. Too much chaos. You don’t simply—”
“I don’t simply what? Protect what’s mine?”
On the monitor, Mina’s fingers move with gentle pressure across her client’s shoulders.
I know I’m a monster for watching her like this.
I’m poison to her. I’ve always been poison.
She’ll never love me, and I don’t deserve her love anyway.
I locked her in my wardrobe when I was fifteen because I couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving me.
I stalked her through the streets of Malus until she opened the door a crack, and I forced my way back into her life.
I seduced her and left her tied up in my bed while I went to murder my father.
She already thinks I’m the worst kind of man. What difference does watching her on a camera make? I’m already damned. I might as well have these stolen glimpses rather than nothing at all.
I lean back in my chair. “Nico and Paulo saw a threat and neutralized it. Silas Cross warned me weeks ago that the Sokolis won’t stop until someone makes them stop. Last night, someone did.” I glance at my men. “Keep Sokolis away from my casinos. That’s the only protocol that matters to me.”
Nico nods. Paulo looks like he’s trying not to grin.
“This would never have happened in your father’s time,” Tommaso mutters.
In all his years of loyal service, Tommaso never once flinched at the things my father did.
My fingers curl against the desk, knuckles whitening.
Nico and Paulo sense the shift in my mood and exchange a glance.
Slowly, I rise from my chair. Tommaso is older than me. He was killing men before I was born. But when I step around the desk and approach him, he takes an involuntary step back.
“My father,” I say with quiet menace, “was a violent drunk who murdered women and beat children and nearly started wars with the Vicis and the Dervishis. It’s thanks to my sister that Vincenzo Vici hasn’t put a bullet in your skull or Dashamir Dervishi hasn’t chainsawed off your limbs.
You, Pietro, and his other capos seem to have encouraged his worst instincts. ”
Tommaso’s face darkens. “I earned Don Agnello’s trust—”
“You haven’t earned mine.” I hold his gaze until he looks away. “You’re far from earning it, Tommaso. Now get out. All of you.”
They file out in silence. Nico catches my eye as he goes, a flicker of respect in his expression. Paulo just looks amused.
Tommaso is the last to leave, his back stiff with wounded pride.
The door closes, and I’m alone with the monitor.
I pull it closer, settling back into my chair, letting out a breath as I catch sight of her again. There she is. Still there. Still safe.
I watch the tension in her shoulders, the way she holds herself. She’s unhappy. I can see it even through the camera, even without sound. There’s something weighing on her.
Me, probably.
I pass my hand over my face. The kindest thing I could do is leave her alone.
But I’ve never been kind, and now that I’ve seen her again, I can’t stay away.
The spa door opens on the feed, and a woman walks in. Petite, dark-haired, expensive clothes.
I know her. Ariana Barone, the woman Tommaso wanted me to marry.
I lean closer to the screen, frowning. What is she doing at my hotel?
I watch as Ariana settles into a manicure chair. One of the staff begins working on her nails. A moment later, the spa manager appears at Mina’s side, speaks to her briefly, and Mina crosses the salon to give Ariana a shoulder massage.
My jaw tightens.
I don’t want Mina touching Ariana Barone. I don’t want Mina anywhere near her. Ariana belongs to a world that has always looked down on women like Mina, and I will not have her treated that way.
On the screen, the manicurist is talking animatedly. Ariana responds, but I can’t tell what they’re saying. The woman’s expression shifts to excitement. She gestures at something.
Ariana’s hand.
I lean closer to the monitor, squinting at the grainy image. There’s something on Ariana’s finger. Something that catches the light.
An engagement ring.
The manicurist is gushing over the ring, clearly asking questions. Ariana says something in response, and—
Mina freezes.
Her hands stop moving on Ariana’s shoulders. Her whole body goes rigid.
I’m leaning over the desk, staring at the monitor. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
The manicurist is still talking, oblivious, but Mina isn’t moving. She’s just standing there, frozen, her face pale even in the low-quality footage. What did Ariana say? What could she possibly have said to make Mina react like that?
On the screen, Mina’s hands tighten on Ariana’s shoulders. Even from this angle, I can see the tension in her grip, the white of her knuckles. She’s staring at the ring.
Ariana wrenches herself free, twisting in the chair to face Mina. Even without sound, I can see her anger, her confusion. The whole salon has gone still, everyone staring.
And Mina just stands there.
Frozen. Pale. Devastated.
I’ve seen that expression before. I saw it five years ago when she was staring at me through a car window as she slowly pulled away.
“Tommaso,” I roar. “Get back in here.”
A nauseating suspicion is swirling through my stomach.
It can’t be fucking true.
A moment later, Tommaso is standing in front of my desk again, wariness in his eyes. I don’t waste time on preamble.
“Ariana Barone is wearing an engagement ring.”
“Yes, Don Cristiano.”
My blood runs cold.
“Who is she engaged to?”
Tommaso’s brow furrows, confusion flickering across his face. “She’s engaged to you, of course.”
I push myself to my feet. “What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean, what am I talking about?”
“I’m going to ask you one more time.” My voice is deadly quiet. “And you’re going to give me a very clear answer. How has this happened?”
“Because you wanted it to happen,” Tommaso exclaims.
“I most certainly did fucking not.” As soon as I got home from that dinner, I put Ariana out of my mind completely.
Tommaso starts explaining, getting angrier by the second.
“It was a few days after the dinner. We were discussing you and Andreas and the Barone sisters. Everything seemed promising with both young women, and Andreas was planning to move ahead with a proposal to Lucy Barone. I asked if you wished to proceed with an engagement to Ariana, and you said yes.”
I remember that conversation. Vaguely. I was sitting in this office while Tommaso droned on about the Barone family’s position in Malus. My mind was miles away.
With Mina.
I’d just asked her mom about her, and I knew. I’d never stopped loving her. Tommaso’s voice had been background noise, meaningless words washing over me while I drowned in thoughts of dark hair and brown eyes and the girl I’d made hate me because I loved her so violently.
“No.” My voice comes out strangled. “We were talking about Andreas. Not me.”
“We were distinctly talking about you, Don Cristiano.” Tommaso retorts. “I asked specifically whether you wished to see the jeweler yourself, as Andreas was doing, or if I should arrange things. You told me to get on with everything without you.”
I remember saying that, but I was talking about Andreas, my annoying fucking cousin who turned out to be a Sokoli spy. Now Mina is standing in my spa, staring at an engagement ring that belongs to a woman she thinks is my fiancée, looking like her heart has been ripped from her chest.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I round the desk, and Tommaso takes a step back. “You bought an engagement ring and sent it to a woman on my behalf. Without confirming with me. Without even showing me the ring.”
“A don must be married.” Tommaso’s chin lifts, defensive and pompous. “I did as your father would have wanted, for the sake of the Montoni—”
I grab him by the lapels and slam him into the wall. His head cracks against the plaster. “What were you going to do, email me a calendar invitation to my own fucking wedding?”
Fear flickers in his eyes.
“You’ve ruined everything,” I seethe. “You destroyed the one chance I had to make things right with the woman I love.”
I pull him off the wall and drive my fist into his face.
The crunch of impact travels up my knuckles, through my wrist, up my arm. Tommaso’s head snaps back. He goes down hard, crumpling against the desk, his hands flying up too late to protect himself. Blood pours from his nose immediately, dark and fast, spattering the front of his shirt.
I stand over him, breathing hard.
I think about Mina. The way she looked in the spa feed, frozen and pale and devastated.
She was staring at that ring the way she stared at me through the back window of her mother’s car five years ago.
Like all hope had just been taken from her.
Like she’d let herself believe in something, just for a moment, and then it was destroyed.
“Don Cristiano, I only meant to help you.”
I haul him up by the collar and hit him again. Harder this time. His lip splits against my knuckles, and he staggers, catching himself on the edge of the desk, smearing blood across the polished surface.
“You weren’t trying to help me,” I say. “You were trying to control me.”
“Please.” He spits blood. “I didn’t know—”
I drag him up by his collar. “You just decided what was best for the Montoni name, what my father would have wanted, and you went right ahead.”
I hit him again, driven by cold fury.
Tommaso slides down the wall, leaving a dark smear behind him, his hands raised in useless supplication. I look down at him. At the ruined face, the shaking hands, the blood dripping onto my carpet.
But I don’t see him.
I see Mina, looking like her heart was being ripped from her chest.
The bronze paperweight on my desk is a solid thing, heavy and cold when I close my hand around it.
I crouch down in front of Tommaso so he can see my face.
“You hurt her,” I say. Simply, like I’m explaining something to a child.
“She came to my hotel this morning to work a long, exhausting shift to support her little boy, thinking the worst thing that could happen to her was that she’d feel tired at the end of the day.
And because of you, she believes I’m engaged to another woman.
She thinks I’ve been using her. Like how all rich men use struggling women.
” I tighten my grip on the paperweight. “You made her feel worthless. You made her feel like nothing. And I will not have that. Not from anyone. Not ever.”
“Don Cristiano—please—I served your father faithfully for forty years—”
“If you’re so faithful to him,” I say, standing, “you can fucking join him.”
I bring the paperweight down hard on his skull.
The sound of his skull cracking is terrible. Final.
Tommaso stops moving.
I stand there for a moment, breathing. My hand is wet. I set the paperweight down on the carpet with careful precision, putting the whole matter to rest.
I take off my jacket, which has the worst of the blood spatter, grab a tissue, and wipe the blood from my hands, face, and throat. I roll my sleeves back to conceal my stained cuffs.
Then I turn back to the monitor and wrench it around to face me.
Ariana is still getting her manicure.
And Mina—
Mina is nowhere.
I grab the mouse, cycling through camera feeds. The treatment rooms. Empty. The break room. Empty. The hallway. The elevator. The lobby. I keep searching, clicking through feed after feed, but she’s vanished. Slipped away somewhere my cameras can’t reach.
She’s gone.