A big smile appears on her face.
“Wait, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“I don’t have much time; succession was sanctioned under the premise that I hit the set quarterly targets.”
My lips part because I cannot believe my ears.
“How did you do it?” I asks.
“Well,” she says, “By bringing my background in use, reading the room, catching and killing a traitor and Kat’s resourcefulness in saving the day with the vessel.”
Kat grins.
“Who was there?” I ask.
“I can’t tell you right now. Sunday, 11 p.m. Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola, use the right side entrance,” she says and hangs up.
Kat and I stare at each other in a moment of silence, and she draws up her eyebrows while grinning.
“I have to say, I underestimated her,” I say. A sentence that does not come easily over my lips. But Sophie—Antonella—has earned my respect for what she has done. Convincing the commission was what I thought was impossible, and I was wrong; I have to acknowledge that.
It also means I cannot touch her, and I won’t, as long as she keeps up her end of the bargain, and that is working with us.
Sunday comes,and night falls over the city of Palermo. We decided to arrive earlier as a precaution, assuming her men would be watching all entrances. When the church bell chimes eleven times, we wait in the church, guns ready, behind an arch, one of us on each side.
The main door opens and closes.
Someone enters in heels, a single person. The sound of heels reverberates through the church's arches as the confident footsteps come closer.
I step out from behind my arch, gun pointing at her. There is only dim light in the church, just enough to recognise her. Sophie—Antonella, the girl who is no girl at all anymore. Her hair is pulled back in a straight, high ponytail, and her intense eyes are framed by dark lashes with mascara…she radiates confidence over me. Her lips are slightly parted. She wears high-rise soft-fabric trousers with stiletto heels. A loose, black blouse, tucked into the trousers. Belt. Golden bracelets and earrings. Gun.
“Hello to you, too,” she says. “You can put that down.”
“You don’t order me around,” I say.
“Well, you came. Apparently, I do,” she says smugly. Kat snorts as she walks up to us.
“Sophie,” Kat says.
“It is Antonella,” she says in a rather cold tone, and I see where the change in optics came from. She had to become someone else to survive. Just like I had when I was sixteen, after I promised myself to kill everyone after giving birth.
Only she has done something I was never given the chance to. She has taken over. And if I were completely honest, I would acknowledge that one small part of me is envious of the girl, the woman, who managed to accomplish all of it. It is a part I detest. And therefore have to detest her.
Have to,a voice in me tells me, while my body has other plans. I look at her, watch her, see who she has become, and I cannot help but feel a sensation stirring in me. One of desire. Those slightly parted, red lips.
“I have a list for you,” she says very efficiently. “It is what I couldgather so far. I will have to keep up the money flow; therefore, drug routes and money must be untouched. Now, the human trafficking. We need to find a way to get people to a safe place. I got all the shipments for this month,” she says and hands me manifestos for several vessels.
I take them, and our hands touch for the smallest moment. I have to catch my breath from the sensation it causes in me, and my eyes snap into hers. She stares at me for the briefest of seconds before she twitches her head and turns to Kat.
“Kat, can you use your system to—” Antonella begins, but I don’t listen. I am simply standing there, staring at her back. Staring at the woman I hate from the bottom of my heart, as something in my core tingles—a desire. A desire to grab her, choke her until she kneels half unconscious, and then suffocate her with my pussy.
My lips part.
My chest heaves up and down.
This should not be happening.
Not with her.
