He leaves fast after that.
I keep the photo. I don’t know why. Maybe to punish myself. Maybe to study every line of her face until I can figure out what she’s thinking. Maybe because some sick part of me needs proofthat this is real—that Elizabeth is here, alive, breathing, preparing to become Dante Russo’s wife while I stand on the sidelines like a man already dead.
The last photo comes on the eve of the wedding.
By then I haven’t slept properly in days. I’ve memorized routes in and out of Bari. I know the church, the guest list, the floor plan of the reception hall, the names of the men on Russo’s security detail. I know where the snipers will likely be posted if he’s smart.
He is smart.
But not smart enough.
When my man walks in with the final envelope, I know by his face I’m not going to like what’s inside.
I take it anyway.
And there they are.
Standing in the entry hall of Russo’s house.
Elizabeth is in a pale dress, something soft and elegant. She looks like the eve of a wedding should look on her—beautiful, luminous, almost unreal. Dante Russo is standing in front of her, his arms around her waist like he has every right in the world. His head is bent toward her, his mouth near her temple, and though the photo is silent, intimacy pours off it like blood from a wound.
Elizabeth’s hands are resting over his shoulders. Not pushing him away. Not clawing at him. Resting there. Like she lets him touch her.
Everything in me goes still. Then the glass in my hand explodes and whiskey and blood hit the floor together. I don’t feel the shards cutting into my palm. I barely feel the warm trickle of blood sliding down my wrist. All I can see is Russo’s hand on her skin. Russo’s mouth near her ear. Russo holding what belongs to me as if he’s already won.
As if tomorrow is a formality.
My voice comes out so low it doesn’t sound human. “Leave.”
My men don’t wait to be told twice. The suite empties. The door shuts. Silence crashes down around me, thick and unbearable.
I stare at the photo again.
He’s touching her like he knows her. Like he’s earned softness from her.
Baking with his aunt.
Shopping for his wedding.
Standing in his house on the night before he puts a ring on her hand in front of God and every bastard who matters.
A laugh rips out of me, raw and joyless. Russo is going to pay for this. Not just for hiding her. Not just for touching her. Not just for daring to put his hands on my woman. But for every single second he made her believe she could belong to him.
I drop the broken glass and pick up the photograph with my uninjured hand, studying it one last time.
“Enjoy tonight,” I say to the empty room, to Russo’s face, to the man who has no idea what tomorrow is bringing. “Because it’s the last peaceful night you’ll ever have.”
Then I set the photo down, wipe my blood across the front of my shirt, and reach for my gun.
Tomorrow, Dante Russo learns exactly what it costs to steal from Lorenzo Conti.
9
Birdie
“What do you think Sienna would say if she were here?”
I glance up from my tea at Dante, warmth from the porcelain cup bleeding into my palms. Over the last few weeks, we’ve fallen into an easy rhythm I never expected. We talk in the evenings, sometimes over dinner, sometimes like this—quietly, with the windows open and the sea air drifting in. And somewhere in all of that, I learned he knew Sienna far better than I ever realized. Better, maybe, than anyone but me.
