I perch on the very edge of a plain wooden chair that’s been placed in the center of the room. My uncle paces back and forth, his fury a ghost chasing his steps. “How long have you known your brother was alive?” he spits at me.
Armando’s words about the futility of hiding things prompts me to answer truthfully. “Since I returned to Reno after the wedding and he made contact with me.”
“How the fuck is that possible?” he asks Enzo.
Enzo pales and shakes his head. I actually feel sorry for him until he says, “The little slut may have seduced one of my guards. I’ll have them all tortured to see what they know.”
My mouth flies open to protest, but Silvio’s attention snaps back to me. “Did you plan this with him? To abduct my daughter?”
“No!” Oh God, they think Ronan wanted to kidnap Sofia, and I helped. “Sofia didn’t want to marry Carlo and…” Total honesty, be damned. Admitting that Ronan was plotting ways to get me and Mom to Boston won’t benefit me. “I asked Ronan to help her. That’s all. Except I don’t think he got her away. I saw him outside the school alone.”
“Alessio confirmed he bumped into Ronan, and Sofia wasn’t with him. He didn’t recognize him at first with a beard and having only seen a flash of him on the street,” Armando adds, and I’m grateful for any support.
“A man we’ve believed dead, your own nephew, steals your daughter away the day before she’s to wed my son, but someone else wound up taking her instead, Silvio? Is that the fable we’re meant to believe? Or have you been concealing it from us all this time?” Don Vicini asks, suspiciously.
The tension in the room mounts, and my uncle is soon screaming that he’ll skin the men ordered to kill Ronan three years ago and threatening to burn anyone alive who had a hand in Sofia’s disappearance. His irate pacing brings him closer and closer to me until he’s standing behind me, his thick fingers resting menacingly on my shoulders. “You are my blood, but that will not protect you. I will break every bone in every finger if you don’t spill everything. Then I’ll really go to work on you, little girl.”
“There are other ways to get information out of women, Uncle," Rocco suggests. "Give me fifteen minutes alone with her. I'll make her sing." I know what my disgusting cousin wants. Uncle Silvio smirks at Rocco. I'm shaking so much, I can barely stay on the chair.
“Step away from her now, or I'll gut you both.” Heads turn at the newcomer’s threat. It’s Carlo, blowing into the room like a thunderstorm and holding a knife. I nearly weep with relief at the sight of him.
“She played a part in this, Carlo,” Uncle Enzo says. “Rocco's way wouldn't mean irreparable harm.”
Carlo's eyes narrow dangerously as he turns toward me. "It was my fiancée that was taken.I'llbe the one to question her."
I gulp, all my hope draining away. He's not here to help me. He's going to hurt me.
"She lives and dies under my rule," Uncle Silvio argues, but the rest of the men look to their Don.
"You're in New York whereIrule, De Luca. Get answers," Daniele tells his son with a flick of his hand.
Still holding the knife, Carlo tugs me out of the chair and throws me over his shoulder, the same way he did during the attack at the reception. Blood rushes to my face and the world spins. I can hear a few scattered chuckles as he carries me out of the room. My impending pain is funny to them.
By the time he slams a door shut and sets me on my feet in what appears to be the library, I'm dizzy. It doesn't stop me from trying to run. I only make it three feet before his powerful arm loops around my waist, and he plops me down on a brown leather sofa. I can't seethe knife now, so I choose to fight, clawing at his face. I don't manage a single scratch before he has both my wrists between his hands.
"Still more spirit than sense," he says, chuckling as he takes a seat. "There are twenty-seven bones in the wrist and hand. They say a fracture to the scaphoid… here, is the most painful." He presses lightly on the area of my wrist he means, but he's not hurting me. "I want a few answers, and you will give them to me."
"I don't know anything more than what I already said."
His thumb sweeps the inside of my wrist, an unexpectedly erotic sensation. "That was a lie, Francesca. Where was he taking her? Boston?"
How did he know that? "I…"
"Were you going, too? Don't test my patience," he prods as I chew on my bottom lip.
"Yes, Boston. No, I wasn't going because I was the distraction."
"And what a distraction you were. Why wouldn't he take his sister instead of Sofia?"
"I don't… he was…"
"Don't lie again. You're not that good at it. Where was he taking her in Boston?"
I scowl at him but answer truthfully. "I don't know. Our conversations were always very brief."
Another sweep of his thumb over my wrist and he nods. "Who was helping him in my city?"
"No one. Ronan planned it. He went to the school a few days ago and was able to look around. He told us what to do and where Sofia was to meet him once she climbed out the bathroom window."
