Then I curled into a ball on the bed, weeping quietly, rocked by the realization that the love of my life was about to marry someone else.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Achilles
I was goingto stalk her one last time.
What could I say? Old habits die hard.
Just to make sure she’d made it to Prague safely. That should take two, three days max. Nothing that’d throw me off schedule.
I’d made it this far keeping her alive—no small feat considering the giant, red self-destruct button she insisted on punching to death on a daily basis. I didn’t need to rush. My problems in New York and Naples weren’t going anywhere.
My old man had won. Even though I didn’t kill her, Tierney was dead to the world. Out of sight, but never out of mind. I was going to marry whoever the hell this Katya woman was, and the Ferrante legacy would live to see another day.
Somehow, granting my father his precious, warrior grandbabies didn’t seem as appealing as it had been when I was a teenager. My desire to impregnant a complete stranger was low, and signing away my hypothetical children’s futures to the Camorra seemed like a terrible idea, even to my conditioned ass.
Tierney took off with the car I’d rented for her. I’d rented a small Fiat for myself, following close behind. I wore a ball cap and a dark, long-sleeved shirt. She wouldn’t notice me, because she wouldn’t be looking for me.
And this time, once I saw she was settled, Iwouldturn around and go away.
We drove into Slovenia, and when she ditched her first car at the gas station, I waited patiently for her to get on the bus before following it. I then waited across the street while she bargained with a merchant at the flea market, before joining her on her next four-and-a-half-hour drive from Slovenia to Austria.
I wasn’t worried I’d lose her, as I’d placed a tracker at the bottom of her backpack, but I’d never dropped a target before and sure as fuck wasn’t planning to lose her.
On our way from Slovenia to Austria, my father called. I put the phone on speaker and tossed it onto the passenger seat, eyes glued on the road.
“Is it done?” he demanded. No small talk. Straight to the chase.
“Yup.”
“You sure?”
“You’re asking me if I’m sure that I killed someone?” If a tone could kill, thestronzowould finally be dead.
“I’m sorry you had to do it, Son. It was a necessary evil.”
He wasn’t fucking sorry, so I ignored that statement.
He continued. “The good news is you can now return home and we can start the preparations for your marriage with Katya.”
“I’m headed to Naples to sort out the Coppola shit first.”
That wasn’t a lie. Ididintend to go to Naples and deal with Sangue Blu. Especially considering he’d been retaliating by slaughtering our soldiers, young and old, pushing them into pools of acid.
I would do it.AfterTierney was nice and settled in Prague. I was on her timeline, but she was making good progress.
“I assigned Luca to deal with Coppola.”
“Coppola is my beef. And I think we have enough leverage to push him out of our borders.”
“Considering you just shorted him a bride and six soldiers, it’d be political malpractice to send you down there.”
“Relax, I’m not going to kill the guy.” At first, anyway.
“Whatisit that you plan to do?”
“Talk.”
