Page 124 of Sinner's Vows

“You’re a fucking psycho,” he hisses as he leans into his face and shoves the gag back into his mouth. “Allowing vermin around other people’s kids while you have your own safe at home, playing both sides for the money. You’re a rat, and you will die like one. Your daughters will be better off never knowing who their father really was…unless—” Dominic shoots me a glance. “Unless Ariana here decides to tell.”

At the mention of his own daughters, something snaps in me. Here I am watching Dominic basically being a ruthless, brutal killing machine, draining a man’s life from him, but in my mind’s eye, a string of girls of various ages that stayed at Mancuso’s house in the time I was there walks past.

Now here is this man, supposedly working to protect women, to stop human trafficking, but he played both sides to enslave innocent women for his own financial gain. He killed my team and had instructed Franco Fiore to end me.

I walk over to the small kitchen where I reach for a serrated knife. Pietro Garlini doesn’t deserve a clean cut. As I take the few steps to where Dominic has tied Pietro up in the middle of my small sitting room, I have every intension to hand him the knife.

Dominic is holding out his hand, ready to do what needs to be done. A broken man who has killed so many times, I bet he’s lost count. A broken man, who fits my broken pieces perfectly, making us whole again.

There is only one way to show my commitment to him, to our future, and to lock my fate with his.

Instead of handing over the knife, I nod at him, indicating with my chin that he should expose Pietro’s throat. Dominic doesn’t hesitate and holds Pietro’s head back, giving me access. Pietro protests as much as his position allows him to, and I might have never killed before, have never been tested like this, but there’s a demon in me, too, one I never knew existed until I saw the truth.

With a few decisive saws, I slice him open, blood fountaining from his neck at such speed, his body goes limp in seconds.

I stare at my handiwork, numb.

No. Alive.

Dominic drops Pietro’s head and reaches for me.

“Brave, so very brave.” He leans in and kisses me deeply, love so incongruous with the scene right in front of us. “Welcome to the family, sweetheart.”

There’s no turning back. I’ve crossed sides back to where I’ve always belonged.

Nothing has ever felt this right before.

I lean into him, seeking his strength to hold me together. Dominic hugs me close, and it’s a gift, a promise, and a future all in one.

65

DOMINIC

Three hours later, we’re on our way to Potenza. Ariana is sitting next to me, out of her disguise, her hand relaxed in mine as she glances out to the passing landscape. She’s the most at peace I’ve ever seen her, as if she’s finally come to terms with everything she’s been through, but I know better. It’s going to take some time for her to work through this morning’s build-up and Pietro Garlini’s demise.

What she did to Garlini didn’t surprise me. Every human has that dark side in them, but not everybody gets tested to see where their tipping point is. I vow she’ll never get to this point again with someone—the point where this beautiful woman has the urge to kill.

I bet she’s still digesting, and when she drops her head to my shoulder, I brush a soft kiss over her hair.

“We need to have a call with the family, sweetheart,” I murmur softly. Matteo needs to know the results of the DNA tests.

“Yes.” She turns her face up to me, and I press a kiss to her lips.

Bar getting the hell out of her apartment, leaving her whole old life intact and taking only the handful of small mementos she wanted to keep, we haven’t spoken much. We left the apartment building separately in the way we came, and united again once on the outskirts of the city. I spent most of the drive to the meeting point wiping away the makeup she’d applied and scrubbing off the fake tattoos she’d painted on me, leaving Franco Fiore finally in the past. Still, I itch for a shower.

“Get us a hotel somewhere close to Potenza, Gus, to freshen up and have lunch,” I say to my bodyguard. I don’t feel like making this call in the car.

“Yes, boss.”

So far, the security team keeping an eye on the convent hasn’t raised any red flags about another team stalking around, looking to kidnap ‘Randazzo’s’ daughter. I bet the Reverend Mother has an exit strategy in place, what with all the knowledge she seems to have of us, and how sheunderstood the assignment from the start.

Jesus Christ. I hope she’ll tell us some of everything that happened and how she knew my nickname was Nicky, because that came out of left field.

For now, I only have scanned pages of Mom’s journals on hand and a few other salient documents Luca emailed me. If the Reverend Mother is going to want more, she’ll have to wait for Stephano with the originals.

Gus directs the driver to a boutique hotel on the outskirts of Potenza, and once we’ve gone through our security procedures and find ourselves alone in our room, I cup Ariana’s face in my hands.

“I know it’s been a rough day, sweetheart. You’re ready to do this?”

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