When I slam open the doors, all six of their gazes swing to me. They’re sitting on the hardwood floor, lined up like they’re about to face the firing squad.
I stop in front of Mariella, glaring down at her and the roll of masking tape in her hands.
“Where is she?” An undercurrent of fury bleeds through my words.
“None of us know,” she says. “That’s the entire point.”
If I hadn’t seen the journalist’s notes myself, I might not have believed her. But before Ray killed her, she had infiltrated their organization under the guise of being an abused woman herself. She broke down the entire process of how they moved women through different safe houses, the anonymity behind it, the secrecy, the codes, and the enormous network of women risking their own lives to help others escape theirs.
The scale of what they’ve accomplished under the watch of theCosa Nostraand IVI is impressive—I’ll give them that. But it’s also fucking dangerous. In my gut, I already know Mariella is the woman who’s been supplying the poison to the worst cases. I can see it in her eyes as she rips a piece of tape from the roll.
She holds my gaze with more courage than most men can, lifting the tape to her mouth with one final word.
“Omertà.”
She passes the roll to the next in line, and Valentina repeats the performance, ripping off a piece of tape before she glances up at me.
“Omertà.”
And so they continue down the line.
“You think this is fucking cute?” I clip out.
They all stare back at me, unmoving.
“Angelo.” Rafe meets my gaze.
He doesn’t have to tell me it’s been a long fucking night and everyone’s exhausted—or that the wound is too raw for me to deal with anyone right now.
“Take them to Mariella’s wing,” I tell him. “Keep them there until I say otherwise.”
I exit the ballroom and wind my way through the halls of the estate until I’m back in my wing. In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of whiskey and drain the glass before I enter our suite. Everything is as Abella left it. All her clothes, jewelry, and keepsakes remain untouched.
I can’t bring myself to look at them, so I walk to the window where the sun’s beginning to rise. A suffocating pressure chokes the air from my lungs as I consider how far she might be already. How much distance has she put between us?
In the forest, a flash of movement catches my eye as the black stag emerges from the trees. He stares at me through the window, stomping his hoof as he snorts. It feels like he wants something from me, but I’m also fairly certain that I’m losing my goddamned mind.
With bleary eyes, I watch him walk back into the forest until he vanishes from sight.
50
ANGELO
“Angelo?”
Mariella’s soft knock on my office door pulls me from my thoughts.
It’s been two weeks, and after she refused to say anything else, I haven’t spoken to her. I sent her friends home, and I’ve avoided her and Valentina since.
I’m still so fucking angry I don’t even want to look at her. I’ve been absorbed in trying to track Abella’s movements, and I have half theCosa Nostrasearching for her.
It’s not a matter of if I’ll find her, because I will. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s gone right now.
“Are you going to stay mad at me forever?” Mariella asks.
“If that’s what it takes to get my point across.”
“You would have done the same for one of your men,” she says. “It’s a promise we made to each other.”
