Page 103 of Sinner's Vows

Fuck. I can’t let her walk free ever again. We all know she knows too much aboutIl Consiglio, but now her insider knowledge’s value has multiplied thousand-fold. She could hang us all. She could also be immensely useful. She’ll have insights into how some things work in Europe and knowledge is power.

I glance down at her, a delicate, fragile woman who doesn’t give off the robust, gun-wielding, no-bullshit type usually associated with women in the police force. It works. I bet if it weren’t for her beauty, she’d almost go unnoticed. What the fuck was she doing, undercover, to such an extent Franco knew where she was?

And then my stomach turns. ‘Franco always knew where she was.’Vincenzo said so in his own words.

I just breathe for a minute, all the ramifications of Vincenzo’s words sinking in, and then she stirs, rolling over onto her back and blinking into the night. I switch on the lights by the side of the bed, and she moans in protest, but this party is fucking over. She needs to talk,now.

Our gazes meet, and she sits up straight in a daze. “Dominic, what’s wrong?”

“A fucking cop, Ariana?”I hiss. “You’re a fuckingsbirroand fuck knows I should have seen it, but—” I break off, waving at her in general. “Freaking distraction.”

“God, I’m not,” she says, clawing the bedding to her chest to cover up.

My lips pull into a thin line, and I get that look on my face—the one that hints of the devil in me. “Don’t you fucking dare?—”

“I’m still waking up, Dom?—”

“Wake up faster, sweetheart.”

Several beats of silence pass as we just stare at each other. Her mind’s racing. She’s doing the math and can come to onlyone conclusion: she’s fucked and at my mercy. Who are we kidding here? She’s been at my mercy from the moment I saw her crumbling to the floor in that warehouse. At any point, I could’ve crushed her. Except, I didn’t.

She doesn’t cower away from my death stare, though, and I’ve had grown men crumble, so I’ll give her this.

When she closes her eyes, I have to restrain myself from reaching out to her because whatever else she is, she is also the woman I made love to earlier. The woman who found the only bridge to my soul and bravely crossed it—to be withmeand meet me where I’m at, despite everything she went through.

“How do you know?”

“You’re not denying it, then?”

“Clearly, there’s no point in denying it. How do you know?”

“It doesn’t matter how I know.”

I push my closed laptop to the side and get off the bed, needing to distance myself from her. I’m a fucking wreck. I pace the room as I find my clothes scattered all over and toss hers to the bed in passing. Fuck. If only I can rewind the clock and be on an infinite flight with her, in this room, just as we were hours ago, but we can never go back there.

“We’re landing in two hours. That’s the amount of time you have to tell me exactly how the fuck you ended up in the DIA, then with Franco, and then—” And then in my fucking arms. “Go shower and get dressed.”

She reaches for her T-shirt where it droops over the edge of the bed, and for a blessed second, I have a last visual of this perfect woman I’ve crashed into love with. Already, my every resolve when it comes to her has started to oscillate between dragging her back to the US and locking her up where she’ll be safe forever, forgoing this hunt for Gabriella, and doing what my trained instincts instruct me to do: kill her. The dead can’t identify my brothers in a line-up.

The DIA already thinks she’s dead.

There are many reasons we Scalera boys don’t get to love. Women make us weak. Ariana is a walking, breathing personification of my weakness, and I’ll be damned if a woman drags me—us— down.

But then I look at her, and I know I’d never be able to hurt her, never mind kill her. It’s the cop in her, the part that’s deceived me, that I want to cut out like rot, but I can’t do it, not without killing the whole.

Bottom line: Ariana is my Achille’s Heel.

56

ARIANA

Dominic’s gaze burns holes straight to my heart. How is it I’m always just that one step behind? I have no clue how he figured out I’m with the DIA, but just like Franco, his timing is impeccable.

I was stupid to think he wouldn’t keep on digging until he’d figured me out. Dominic is after all the type that leaves no stone unturned and nothing up to chance.

He won’t let me out of his sight now. I won’t be surprised if he handcuffs me to him just to get off this jet, if I get to leave this jet at all. The obvious end for me, as it’s always been, is death. You get to know too many Mafia secrets, and they figure out you’re an undercover cop? That I’m still alive is a miracle.

I’m a threat to him, but more importantly, to his brothers. As I step into the shower, I recall in a haze that Matteo Scalera is my brother, too, if only a half-brother. Maybe I’m not so dispensable anymore. Matteo, if I understood correctly from what I’ve seen, is also the head ofIl Consiglio.I’ve always been someone’s property, or beholden to someone. I’m a parcel that once again switched hands.

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