“A setback?” Anthony asked. “You think losing Angelo’s inroads in the drug industry that stretched from here to the western seaboard, not to mention your father’s and brothers’ extensive contact lists, asetback?” He slammed his hand on the seat next to him, causing me to jump. “This was allyourplan? You didn’t topple a great structure?” He shook his head. “And to think I actually thought you were smart.”
My master’s degree was a pretty good indicator that I was, but what did I know? “The Varassos were already nearly done packing up by the time I got to them, and Donovan and Dante had been worm food for six months. This is what happens when you try to take too much. The plan was to stop my mom, not to take over the Binachis and Varassos all at once. You got greedy.”
The next laugh that Anthony let out was low and barely audible. He looked me up and down, and it wasn’t because he was checking out my assets. “Maybe I did. We’ll have to rectify that when we get home.”
My heart started to race a little faster. I could sit with my chest puffed out all day, but it wasn’t going to change anything if Anthony shoved a gun down my throat the second we touched down. Inside, I knew I was fighting a losing battle all along.
I always had been.
When the plane finally started to descend back toward the earth, my head started to get fuzzy and light. They say that it can be calming to know that you’re about to die, but that was not the case for me. I didn’t want to die. All my life, I had been accomplishing other people’s tasks. I wanted to find a life of my own. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be that lucky.
During the ride from the airport back to the Carducci estate, I silently thought back over everything that had happened and thought about the string of mistakes that had led me to where I was. The sleek, black town car we rode in had a set of seats that faced each other, and Anthony and Arturo sat facing me with identical glares while Ashton sat next to me. Every few minutes, he would throw me a nervous glance. I looked out at the Chicago skyline. It’d been a while since I had been back home. Would my mom mourn my loss? Would she retaliate on my behalf? Or would she consider me a failed attempt just like Anthony did?
The car pulled to a stop in front of the Carducci’s large, imposing manor. Anthony had gone with black bricks and a dark gray slat roof, perfect for his personality, and a pair of towers on either side reminded me of his twin boys. Not long after the car pulled up, the double doors opened, and Callista Carducci walked out. Her brown hair said she was a Carducci, but her crystal blue eyes said she was a Costa, just like mine did.
“End of the line, Binachi.”
One of the Carducci attendants walked over to the car and opened the door, and Anthony held out his hand, so I led the way out. Callista’s eyes thinned in my direction as I approached, and I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze. Diabolical plots aside, I’d grown close to my sister in the past handful of years. Maybe I should have just settled for that, but I dreamed of a life where my mother’s disgusting seeding didn’t haunt me. That was probably the biggest mistake I’d made.
“Take Denise downstairs. I’ll be there in a minute,” Anthony growled behind me, and a few seconds later, a rough hand strangled around my arm. Arturo wasn’t expecting the fight and nearly fell over when I tried to yank my arm free, but I slid right over into the barrel of Anthony’s gun. I shifted my eyes toward him, and he glared at me. “You know as well as I do that fighting is useless. Be a good girl and don’t cause any more trouble.”
I went slack in Arturo’s grip and allowed him to pull me through the double doors and into the Carducci’s ornate marble foyer. Unlike the Varassos’ estate, the Carducci household’s main and upper floors served only as a home. Each of the Varasso children had bedrooms and workspaces of their own on the second floor, and Anthony and his wife lived on the top floor and ruled from the comfort of his serval luxuries. On the lower floor, the one Arturo was dragging me down the stairs toward, was where all of Anthony Carducci’s organized crime business took place.
At the bottom of the stairs was a single hallway that allowed either a left or a right turn, and when it came to Anthony Carducci, you didnotwant to go to the right. The left meant business. Anthony Carducci’s trade was loan sharking, and most everyone who went to the left entered with nothing and left with everything. It was as close to a bright and hopeful future that those in this life could get.
The right, on the other hand.
The right led only to the giant, soundproof, cement-slab walled room where Anthony and his kids took their kills. Anthony liked to invite people to the right todiscusstheir unpaid debts and see if they could work something out, and they always did. They traded their lives for the money they weren’t able to pay.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Arturo dragged me to the right.
“Hey,” Ashton said from behind me. “Let’s go to the office.”
“You know damn well that he didn’t mean the office, Ash,” Arturo replied. “Denise has screwed us over for the last time.”
“Denise—” but Ashton couldn’t finish his sentence before Arturo threw back an elbow and smashed it directly into Ashton’s stomach.
Ashton crumpled to the ground, and Arturo finished pulling me down the hallway to the right and into the kill room. A single chair situated in the center of the room was the final resting place for many before me, and I was set to be its next victim. Arturo shoved me into the chair and immediately pulled his pistol out of his waistband. He raised it and started to swing it down toward my head when, in a blur, Ashton knocked him to the ground. Given that they were twins and wore clothes that were nearly as similar as they were, for a moment, I couldn’t tell who was who.
“Knock it off, you two!” Callista entered the room just as Arturo and Ashton got to tussling with one another. She walked over to where they were locked together on the ground and started to kick one of her stiletto-adorned heels into the fray. “Ashton! Let go!” Finally, she wound her leg all the way back and sent her foot down into one of the men’s sides.
Arturo let out a gurgling grunt and rolled over to one side. He glared up at Callista. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
“I thought you were the other one!”
Ashton started clamoring to his feet and looked ready to lunge. Three guns cocked simultaneously as Callista, Arturo, and the newly arrived Anthony all pointed their guns in Ashton’s direction.
“I’ve told you more than once, we listen to the women in our lives,” Anthony growled down at Ashton.
“Aw, what a beautiful sentiment,” I hissed.
Anthony ignored me in favor of helping Callista get Ashton and Arturo sorted out. Callista dragged Arturo up to his feet, and Anthony backed Ashton down to one of the benches along the wall. When both boys were calmed, Anthony turned to look at me.
“This is the kind of trouble you bring my household. I should have known from the start that you weren’t worth keeping around.”
I crossed my arms. “Youdidn’t keep me around. I came to you. Your memory of these events isn’t totally accurate, you know.”
Anthony cocked his gun and set the barrel straight between my eyes. “I like my version better, so I’ll just erase yours from existence.”
