The words taste like ash. Lucy isn’t my sister. She’s never been my sister. She’s the woman I love, but I just swore to Dad we’d stay family.
Dad paces up and down in silence, and I keep my lips sealed, hoping against hope that what I’ve said gets through to him.
Finally, he pushes his hand through his hair, straightens his cuffs, and seems to come to a decision. Turning to me, he says, “This is what’s going to happen. Lucy is going to take a job overseas with one of my associates. You will not know where or with whom, and you will cease to have all contact with her. You will never speak to her again, and you will focus on protecting your mother and Ariana. I will not hear one word of argument from you about this. I am this close to beating that girl senseless and throwing her into the gutter. You are both lucky that I have not killed her.”
My vision blurs at the edges as Dad threatens Lucy.
Suddenly I’m not in Dad’s office anymore. I see it with terrifying clarity. Lucy screaming as fire engulfs her. Her skin blistering. Her hair ablaze. Her beautiful brown eyes wide with terror and pain as the flames consume her flesh. She’s reaching for me, begging me to save her, but I’m not there. I’m powerless, while she burns alive.
My fault. All my fault.
Cold sweat breaks over me. The smell of smoke fills my nostrils even though there’s no fire here. Just the memory of it. And the screaming.
Always the screaming.
A shout bursts from my lips. “No! You won’t touch her, and you won’t send her away.”
“Damiano, I am warning you,” Dad growls. “Not one more word.”
I breathe hard and fast. He means it. He’ll kill her. But if Lucy is sent away to an unknown place, she’ll have no one to protect her and I’ll never see her again. The thought is a knife in my heart.
“Dad, listen to me,” I say urgently. “Lucy must remain in Malus. I need her. I love her.”
“You should have thought of that before you took her to that meeting. If she’s captured by Sokolis, at least she won’t be able to reveal much.”
I leap on his words and lie through my teeth. “Lucy knows everything. I told her all about the family business. Every single one of our secrets.”
Dad looks at me like I’m an insect he dearly wants to crush under his shoe. “How could you be so stupid, Damiano? Or was this your plan all along, to feed your sister secrets and tie my hands?” He rubs a hand over his face, shakes his head, and moves around behind his desk. Planting his hands on the wood, he addresses me. “I’m not having her in this house. If Lucy can’t leave Malus, then she will get married. She needs a man who can keep her under his heel as I have failed to do. A man who will keep her away from my son.”
My mouth goes dry. Lucy marry someone else? Watch another man take the woman I love away from me? That night outside the diner, I promised her we’d be together. I held her in my arms at the burning warehouse. I took her to the auction. To the restaurant. I put her in danger again and again because I couldn’t stay away from her. Because I love her.
But I’m not don. Dad still holds all the power.
For now.
As though he can read my mind, Dad reaches into a drawer and pulls out a gun, and the weapon glints menacingly in his hand.
He aims the gun directly at my chest. “Or you can keep arguing with me, and she’ll get a bullet.”
I stare at the gun as blood pounds in my ears. At my father’s cold, merciless eyes. The very first moment I laid eyes on Mom and Dad in the group foster home, I should have known what they were offering me was too good, too perfect, toodangerous. But I was blinded by hope. All I could see was a wonderful newlife for Lucy, not knowing that it would one day lead to our destruction.
“I’ll find someone suitable,” Dad continues. “Someone who can control her. Someone loyal to me. And you will smile at the wedding, Damiano. You will congratulate the groom. You will kiss your sister on the cheek and wish her well.”
I see it. Lucy in a white dress. Another man’s ring on her finger. Another man’s hands on her body. Another man taking what’s mine. The image makes bile rise in my throat.
“And you will never touch her again. If I ever catch you with Lucy again, I will kill her. She’ll disappear, and you’ll never know where I buried the body.”
Every word is a knife in my heart. I want to grab that gun and shove it down his throat. I want to tell him that Lucy ismineand no one else will ever touch her. But the gun is pointed at her heart, not mine. I know my father. He’d do it. He’d kill her to prove a point. To maintain control.
“And, Damiano? If you ever try to kill me, or if by some small chance you succeed, my men will kill Lucy. I’m going to give them the order right now, so you had better not think about doing anything stupid.”
The perfect plan for us to be free, for me to become don and marry Lucy, dies before my eyes.
“If you murder Lucy’s groom, my men will kill Lucy. Are we clear?”
Doors slam shut in my face, one after another. Chains wrap around my body, holding me cruelly in place. Rage burns in my heart, and I feel like I can’t breathe.
I did this.
