Page 118 of Sinner's Vows

“We’ll bring proof, everything we have,” I say, dumbfounded. “There’re documents. I’ll ask Stephano and Gigi to bring my mom’s journals, it explains everything. Please…just keep her safe.”

“I know the world you hail from, no need to spell it out for me, Dominic Scalera,” the Reverend Mother says, back in control over her own emotions.

How do I get more out of her? Here is something afoot I never expected. “I have questions?—”

“Of course you have, but I also understood the assignment from the start. There’s to be no answers,butI’ve been waiting for this call for as long as I can remember. Gabriella is here, and she doesn’t know it, but she’s been waiting for you, too.”

“I just need a day,” I beg, knowing we don’t even have that, not if someone else is looking forGabriellaRandazzo. “Two days max, please?—”

“Yes. I need time to prepare her mind, too, for God finally answering our prayers.”

I close my eyes as I ring off. We just bought ourselves enough time to deal with Pietro Garlini. And more, we’ve found her. We’ve found our long-lost little sister. The one we thought had died. She’s alive, and she’ll be with us as soon as possible. As soon as we’re done with this fucker in Rome.

62

ARIANA

I’m stunned. Dominic just handed the phone back to me as he stood. He’s raking his hands through his hair and breathes into his palms as he paces the little space we have.

“My mom must have had some connection with her, whether through Randazzo or not, before the birth.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t have time to work through whatever that means now, sweetheart. Fuck, I’ll have to deal with my head later.” He’s already setting up his laptop at the small table in the room. “Bottom line, someone else is hunting Gabriella down, and we have one day to deal with Garlini.”

I can’t believe it. One Mafia princess, hidden away in a convent for years, protected at all cost—another one thrown to the wolves. I’ve lost track of who the bad guys and who the good guys are. I always thought I’ve aligned myself right, with the police force, fighting against everything I’ve witnessed in my time in Antonio Mancuso’s house, with what happened with Franco, and how Randazzo treated my mother, but even that world has been toppled on its head.

I watch Dominic as he gets busy logging in on his laptop, his phone still unlocked and ready. I can call the emergency number for agents and have people come fetch me within the hour. I can even sit here, quietly, and without a sound send out an SOS message with my location. Someone will come…and his instructions might be to kill me.

Pietro Garlini butchered my team.

By some miracle, I’m the last one standing.

He will pay.

I will break their ring. I had to pass on Franco, I had to pass on Randazzo, never knowing I had an enemy closer to home. There must be a whole line of corrupt police in the DIA. I can’t be sure who else is involved or what their ultimate plan is, but if I can make one dent in their numbers, I will.

A shudder runs through me as I weigh my options. This is the moment where I choose one last time. Align myself with the traditional bad guys—the Mafia—and kill a crooked cop, or oust the man who sparked me back to life, and live with the consequences. From what I’ve seen ofIl Consiglio, I won’t live long.

I can’t hurt him. Dominic has his back to me, the ultimate position of trust. I’ll never have his physical strength, but as he sits now at the desk, it’s the best fighting chance I have. But he is showing me that he trusts me first.

I close my eyes and exhale some tension.

“You’re okay there, Ariana?” he asks, not even looking over his shoulder at me.

Trust.

I choose trust. In a man who has shown me nothing but compassion. Who had been through worse at his own father’s hand, and who has promised to protect me, whatever it takes. I’ve never had this before. I’ve never had what I had with himlast night on the plane, either, and if there is one thing I want after years of isolation, it’s more ofhim.

I choose family, the other thing I’ve never had. The thing Randazzo stole from my mother when she got pregnant, and he refused for her to go back to Finland. My mom knew what she’d gotten into by then and chose to protect her own family, by staying put and disappearing from their lives. But now I have a half-brother, a sister via that connection, women married to men like Dominic and seemingly in love and happy. Gigi even told me we were sisters now at the clinic, after everything we’ve gone through with Franco.

A real family is something I thought I’d never have. But now?—

I’ll go and reclaim what Randazzo took from me, even if it is with people who I’ve vowed for years to hunt down. My blinkers have been torn off, exposing the corrupt underbelly of the DIA which I can’t fight alone.

“I’m fine,” I say softly, pulling all my strength together, my decision made. “What can I do to help? Give me something to do.”

He turns towards me and holds out a hand. I place my hand in his, and his warm, strong fingers wrap mine in a hug that tugs me towards him. I’m not sure where this will ultimately lead, but a foundation of trust and family is a start, and I have feelings for this man that I haven’t had time to analyze or even begin to comprehend yet.

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