Page 4 of The Mafia's Broken Vows

My gaze flicks between the bodies and Dante. His expression is bland, almost bored—disappointment etched in the slight downturn of his mouth, as if the confrontation ended too soon for his liking.

I close my eyes and pinch myself hard, telling myself it can’t be real. It’s a grotesque replay of my childhood nightmare.

The ringing in my ears,

The acrid smell of gunpowder and blood—too much blood,

The musty scent of old books mingling with the stench of violence,

The dark figure looming behind the smoking gun,

My mother’s screams . . .

When I open my eyes, nothing has changed. It’s not a dream. This is reality. And the tall, broad-shouldered figure standing over the bodies, his dark hair falling around his hauntingly beautiful face is Dante.

My playful, intensely passionate boyfriend—is gone, replaced by this barely controlled, graceful predator.

The man I thought I knew for the past three months was an illusion. This is the real Dante Vitelli, the one I’ve caught glimpses of. A man capable of taking a life without batting an eye. He’s a cold-blooded killer, and from the looks of it, he’s very good at it.

I shove a fist in my mouth to stifle the sob threatening to escape, wishing desperately that I’d never agreed to come to Chicago.

Is this what he wanted to show me? Who he really is?

It must be my karma. When I’d promised my Dad I’d never leave Boston without telling him, I fully intended to keep the promise at the time.

But then Dante happened to me, and I found myself weaving an intricate web of lies: telling my Dad about a non-existent birthday party at school, and spinning Kira, my best friend, a tale about a special father-daughter getaway.

Guilt gnaws at me as I recall how I gleefully left my two favorite people in the world, cocooned in deception, while I boarded Dante’s jet for what I thought would be a weekend of passion.

Wish they could see me now.

Outside, the muffled sounds of traffic and rhythmic flashes of headlights through the windows mock the mayhem within. The world beyond these walls remains oblivious to the fact that a significant part of my life is screeching to a halt.

This is so far from how I envisioned my twenty-first birthday dinner going.

“Baby?” Dante’s unnervingly calm voice cuts through my panicked thoughts, freezing me in place. I shrink back into my hiding place, terrified of him.

“Addy,” he calls, softer now. The moment he spots me under the table, he squats down to his haunches. A smile spreads across his face, those once-beloved grooves deepening in his cheeks. “There you are!”

I gape in disbelief. The man is smiling! After everything he just did!

“It’s over, Addy,” he says, as if soothing a frightened child.

Oh, he’s right about one thing—it damn well is over. I just need to get the hell out of Chicago and never lay eyes on him again.

His gaze locks on something far away and suddenly he tenses up again. It’s the same unnatural stillness that came over him just before he shot those men.

What now?

I follow his line of vision to a movement in the corner. It’s one of the waiters, holding a wall phone to his ear. If I thought I was in a nightmare before, what happens next shatters any remaining illusion.

Dante tut-tuts, the sound incongruously casual. He straightens to his full height then raises his arm, and another shot cracks through the air.

The waiter’s head snaps back comically as a flash of red blossoms from his ear. The phone receiver flies from his hand, shattering into pieces, its coiled wire swinging uselessly from the wall.

The man crumples to the ground, his agonized screams filling the room. He clutches his ear, blood seeping between his fingers. My disbelieving gaze swings back to Dante. Not only did he shoot a phone out of someone’s hand from clear across the room, but his response is a nonchalant shrug.

My stomach lurches, bile rising in my throat. This can’t be happening. But the metallic scent of blood tells me it’s all too real.

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