Page 155 of The Mafia's Broken Vows

She pulls up a stool and sits, leaning against the dresser. “For ten years, Orlando and your mother were extremely discreet. They never met up in Chicago. Instead, he whisked his favorite family away on exotic vacations once a month.”

Her voice drops so low I have to strain to hear her. “One day, after Orlando returned from one of his monthly ‘assignments’ abroad, I found something hidden among his weapons: A list made by a little girl called Valentina about all the things she wanted from her daddy for her fifth birthday. Alina had just turned five and she wasn’t even asked to make one.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say but she waves off my apology with an impatient hand, as if she doesn’t want to be interrupted.

“Anyway I had him followed closely. It turned out Bianca Rinaldi, heiress of the great Rinaldi family of New York, was to find myself as second best to a man not even fit to lick my father’s boots. Upstaged by some Plain Jane and her spoiled brat.” Her lips curl into a sneer. “Of course, she turned out to be a Mob princess but that’s neither here nor there.

I shut my lids, trying and failing to imagine how much it must have hurt Bianca. It’s hard to hear her talk about my parents and me in that way. But I can’t help but feel her pain. What such a proud woman had to put up with.

“Anyway. Here we go.” Bianca pours the champagne and pushes mine toward me. The scent of the bubbly beverage reaches me, crisp and inviting. But I dare not. Even if I tried it, the champagne would come back up messily in minutes. She pushes mine toward me and raises her glass in a toast. I clink hers with mine but keep cradling the flute, waiting for her to leave so I can get rid of it.

She drinks deeply from hers and cocks her head at me. “Go on, cara.”

I force a smile. “I think I’ll pass on the champagne. My stomach is a bit unsettled. Nerves, you see.”

“Nonsense,” she insists, her voice honey-sweet. “A sip is exactly what you need to settle your nerves. It’s tradition, after all.”

She picks up my flute and presses it into my hand, the crystal cool against my palm. I stare at the golden liquid, watching the bubbles rise in a steady stream.

“I really can’t,” I take a breath and tell her. “You see, I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” she repeats, her tone suddenly icy. “Interesting.” The change in her voice makes me look up, and that’s when I see it. The shift in her demeanor is so abrupt, so complete, that for a moment I wonder if I’m imagining things. The warmth in her eyes has been replaced by a cold, hard glint. Her smile, once motherly, now seems more like a predator baring its teeth.

She calmly moves to the door and turns the lock with a soft click.

Chapter Fifty

Adele

The click echoes in the silent room, chilling me to the bone. The champagne flute in my hand suddenly feels like a dead weight.

“I’m afraid I have to insist,” she turns back to me, and the look on her face makes my blood run cold. Gone is any pretense of warmth or maternal affection. In its place is a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred.

“Bianca?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on, my dear Valentina,” she says, her voice dripping with venom, “is that I’m finishing what the Novaks spectacularly failed at.”

My heart thuds so hard I can feel it in my throat. I put the champagne glass down and brace myself against the edge of the dresser.

“I don’t understand,” I say, but I do. In fact, my mind is reeling from how much I understand. The champagne is poisoned. Or my flute. Whichever it is, if I drink a drop of this accursed champagne, it’ll be the last thing I do.

Bianca laughs, a harsh, mirthless sound that sends a chill down my spine. “Of course you do. You Irish sluts never change. You just waltz in and take what isn’t yours, not ever considering who gets hurt in the process.”

As she speaks, her hand disappears into her purse. When it reemerges, my breath catches in my throat. The light glints off the barrel of a small pistol, now pointed directly at me.

“Now,” Bianca says, her voice eerily calm, “I’ll give you one last choice. Drink the champagne, or we do this the messy way. Either way, you won’t be walking down that aisle today.”

I pick up the champagne flute, watching as it trembles in my hand, the golden liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. My mind desperately searches for a way out of this nightmare. But as I look into Bianca’s cold, determined eyes, one thought echoes loudly in my head:

I’m trapped.

“Why?” I manage to croak out, my throat dry. “Why are you doing this?”

Bianca shakes her head in disappointment. “Why? You home-wrecking little gutter slut. When you apologized just now, I thought you understood why neither of you deserved to live. I thought you were ready to pay true penance.”

Her grip tightens on the gun, knuckles whitening. “I thought you both died. The stupid fucks fought over that fact for the next ten years. And watching how the grief tortured Orlando was the sweetest form of revenge.”

She’s sick. Bianca is fucking deranged.

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