“Follow me in your car.”
Matteo and I return to his car and pull out behind the SUV. The drive takes us deeper into Dervishi territory, through streets that grow progressively darker and more industrial. Finally, we approach a walled compound. I can see armed men just inside the gates.
The SUV stops. The soldier with a scorpion tattoo gets out and walks back to Matteo’s window.
“Only the Montoni girl.”
“No.” Matteo’s jaw tightens. “I’m not letting her go in there alone.”
“Then she doesn’t go in at all.” The soldier shrugs. “Dashamir’s orders. The girl alone, or nothing.”
Matteo turns to me, conflict written across his face. “Adora, you don’t have to do this. We can find another way.”
But there is no other way. Vincenzo has been in there for almost nineteen hours. Every minute I waste is another minutehe’s suffering, and another minute closer to Dashamir deciding he’s not worth keeping alive, if he’s even still alive at all.
I look at the compound walls, high and imposing against the darkening sky. Armed guards. Enemy territory. And inside, the impassive and ruthless Dashamir Dervishi.
Matteo doesn’t want me to go in there. Vincenzo would absolutely forbid it if he knew I was here. Sofia would pull me into a motherly hug and tell me that staying out of it is what her nephew would want.
No one would blame me for running away.
A memory flickers across my mind. Something I haven’t thought about in a long time. I’m fifteen years old, sitting in the garden with my brother Cristiano, the roses blooming around us. He’s nineteen, and girls in the street slow down and stare at him he’s so good-looking. With broad shoulders and tousled golden hair, he has a Botticelli face and a linebacker body.
“What if I’m becoming just like him?” Cristiano said, his voice tight with anxiety. “What if I don’t know how to stop it?”
Cristiano runs cold, not hot, and grows quieter and quieter when he’s angry. He clashes with our father constantly because of the pressure Dad puts on him as his “heir.” That’s how he talked about Cristiano. As an heir, not a son. I overhear them sometimes, Dad shouting and slamming things, while Cristiano replies in a low, fierce rumble.
I remember the panic that seized me that Cristiano chose me to confide in. I was worried I might break down and confess that Dad was hurting me, and I felt so desperately ashamed of that. No one could know, not even my own brother. It was better—safer—to pretend that everything was fine and that our family was normal.
“Don’t be silly, Cristiano,” I told him, averting my gaze and forcing a laugh. “You’re nothing like Dad.”
I hoped he would get the message that I didn’t want to talk about anything to do with our family. Cristiano and I hadn’t been close since before Mom died, and he was the golden child. What could meek little me possibly say to help the Montoni heir?
Cristiano stared at me for a long moment. When I finally looked up, I watched something die in his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Okay.”
Three weeks later, he was sent to Italy. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since. Ever since, I’ve wondered about that brief conversation. What did Cristiano see in himself that made him worry he was turning into Dad?
Here, outside Dashamir Dervishi’s compound, I know I failed Cristiano that day. My brother came to me for help, and I turned away because I was too scared to see what our family really was. I lost Cristiano because I was a coward.
I won’t lose Vincenzo the same way.
“Adora?” Matteo’s voice pulls me back. “You okay?”
I take a breath.
I’m not going to be the girl who freezes because the man she cares about confesses he’s falling for her. I won’t turn away from hard truths and hope that everything will work out on its own. That girl has spent her whole life being her father’s victim.
I’m done being her.
“I’m okay,” I tell Matteo, and my voice comes out surprisingly strong. “Wait here. I’ll be back with Vincenzo.”
“If you’re not out in an hour, I’m coming in.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“Then don’t take longer than an hour.”
