With that dreadful parting comment, I slip into the backseat beside Anastasia, who’s taken the middle seat this time. Lev barely spares me a glance.
After Vanessa and Zeno say a final goodbye, Nero drives us to the Bratva jet. I’m more than ready to return since Italy is now tainted withhim.
Vanessa goes to speak with the pilot while Nero pulls me into a hug. “See you in a month when you’re back for the wedding of the century.” He smirks before his own amusement flattens. “Say the word, and I’ll hunt his ass.”
“I already offered.” Anastasia comes up beside us, pouting. “I’ve done more than enough mercenary work to make it look like an accident. Zeno’s insisting the Commission will blame him.”
Nero drags his gaze up the length of her, stopping on her face. “Mercenary, hm? That all?”
Her arms cross, hip cocked. “Say what’s on your mind, Amato, and be careful how you word it.”
Taking that as my cue, I duck from under Nero’s arm and into plane, where Lev is waiting by the base of the stairs. “I’m excited to get out of here.”
Jaw tight, he stares out across the airfield. “Me too, Fina. Me fucking too.”
“I want to pretend the next month isn’t happening.”
“It won't be that easy.” His eyes dart to my left hand and away before he abruptly heads up the stairs.
Vanessa, finished with the pilot, arrives to hear the ending. Her hand rests on my shoulder as she leans into me for an embrace. “He’ll come around. Let him get his anger out.”
“Thing is, I can’t even blame him.”
“My father is still the villain, and he’s long dead. If I couldn’t hate him even more…” She angles me up the steps. “Ready to go home?”
“Ready to hide, that’s for certain.”
PART 3
3 WEEKS LATER
49
LEV
“Like this.”
Grasping Serafina’s wrist, I swing it up into an arc, jabbing it just shy of my stomach so the blade doesn’t actually slice. Her arm is pliant, hesitant, and not nearly good enough. She won’t survive fighting like this.
“Unless you can stab him in the heart, your second-best shot would be the stomach. It’ll render him down long enough to push him off you and charge again. Go—do that, like we practiced yesterday.”
With a grunt, she brings her leg between us—much slower than required but with decent form—and jabs her knee into my stomach beside the imaginary injury. With a potential knife wound there, the additional pressure might do it, depending how much he fights back. My hands dart for her wrists, but she rolls away and wisely shuffles into a crouch, knife in her hand between us.
“Good.” I rise onto my knees, clutching my fake injury. “Now, attack again.”
She lunges, only pausing when the knife hovers over my heart, her pants slowing alongside the lowering blade. A slowclap fills the area, curtesy of my sister observing from a nearby bench.
“Not bad, but he’ll fight. Even stabbed through the stomach, he’ll be vicious. It won’t keep him down long enough.”
“Ugh!” Serafina drops the knife and plunges to her knees, rolling onto her back. “What made me believe I could do this?”
“You can.” Ana approaches, stopping beside Serafina’s spread limbs. “We need to account for every scenario.”
My head starts calculating percentages and chances—none of them look good. While statistics typically ease me, this time, they’re useless. There is no number that makes Serafina fighting Vitale feel alright.
We’re two weeks into training her how to properly wield a knife, and while it’s second nature to me, my body has felt so on edge, so tense, so tightly wound, likeI’mthe one who’s about to fight with a trained leader.
In the days following our return from Rome, avoiding Serafina and everything happening was the natural option. But there was one thing worse than facing my own emotions—and that was losing her. My anger, myfeelingstowards the situation, don’t matter when it’s her life on the line.
