“No, Ma. He needs to hear this.” Matteo turns back to me, his eyes blazing. “It’s been seven weeks of you obsessing over Agnello Montoni and doing fuckingnothingwhile our territory falls apart. The Dervishis are moving in on our businesses. Our soldiers are restless. Half of them think you’re too broken to lead.”
“As soon as Agnello is dead—” I begin.
“And when will that be?” Matteo demands. “You took one shot at him last week, and it wasn’t even him. What abouttonight? Were you at the Montoni mansion again, not killing Agnello?”
The question hangs in the air.
Sofia is still watching me with those too-knowing eyes. “What’s going on, Vincenzo? I feel like there’s something you’re not sharing with us.”
“I— It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?” Matteo challenges me.
“Because his death is notenough,” I shout, slamming my fist on the table and making the mug and glass jump. Some of the hot milk slops over the rim of the mug. I love Sofia, but I don’t need fucking milk.
I needrevenge.
Death is too good for that piece of shit. He should suffer even one tenth of the agony we have before I end his worthless life.
“I’ll discover what Don Agnello really cares about, and I’ll take it from him,” I growl through gritted teeth. “I’ll make him suffer before he dies, and I’m going to do it through his daughter.”
Matteo stares at me. “Wait. Adora Montoni is back? I thought she disappeared.”
“She was hiding,” I say. “From her father. She ran away after the massacre.”
“And you found her?”
“She found me, in a laundromat being tortured by Dervishis.”
Sofia leans forward, surprise etched on her beautiful face. “What are you talking about, Vincenzo? Tell us everything.”
So I do. The words spill out of me. The laundromat. The Dervishis. How Adora gave me a knife when she could have run. The balcony. Pietro’s death. The hungry, desperate kisses that I keep telling myself mean nothing. How I demanded that Don Agnello still wed her to me.
And finally, tonight. Invading her bedroom and destroying her photograph.
“There was a picture on her dresser,” I say, my voice hollow. “A family portrait. Adora with her mother, her grandmother, her brother, and her fucking father. Everyone smiling and happy.” I look down at my hands. “I destroyed it. Ripped it to pieces while she begged me to stop.”
The silence that follows is damning.
Sofia has gone very still. Very quiet. It’s worse than if she yelled.
“You hurt that poor girl?” she says finally, and each word lands like a blow.
My restraint shatters.
“My family isdeadbecause of that girl!” I surge to my feet, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. “She led them into that ballroom. She smiled and played the innocent princess while her father’s men unleashed a hail of bullets. She stood there and watched while they were slaughtered, and she was happy they died.”
“Was she?” Sofia’s voice cuts through my rage. “Do you know that for a fact? Tell me, Vincenzo. When you look at Adora Montoni, do you see your enemy? Or do you see another one of his victims?”
I open my mouth. Close it. It’s the question I’ve been avoiding asking myself since I realized who it was in the laundromat who kicked me the knife. That wasn’t the action of a self-serving, bloodthirsty mafia princess.
“She’s Don Agnello’s daughter. How can she be anything but loyal to him?” I say finally, but even I can hear how weak it sounds.
“Are you sure?” Sofia holds my gaze. “You said she ran away. That her father’s capo was torturing her. That she helped you killDervishis when she didn’t have to. Does that sound like a woman who knowingly goes along with her father’s crimes?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
With a sigh, I sink back into my seat.
