Page 18 of Sinner's Vows

Matteo has slowly been extracting us from Mafia business over the past ten years, trying to be above board wherever possible. By killing Randazzo, we’ve been dragged back into the dregs. Human fucking trafficking.

I won’t have it.

To prove whether she’s our sister or not is the easy part. A quick swab and a few days’ wait. It’s the aftermath that’s already trying to take shape in the back of my head. If she is our sister, then how the fuck didn’t we know about her existence?

My hand stills where it’s way too close to her sex as I stick the dressing over the oval-shaped bullet wound. It looks shallow, and I already know it’s not deep enough for a direct hit.One of our bullets struck metal, deformed in the process, and ricocheted to hit her.

I retract my hand and pull her skirt back up for what it’s worth. I might be into all kinds of deviant shit, but incest—never. To my knowledge, none of the Scalera boys likes to share. As for me, I find it so fucking demeaning, as if a woman’s body is only there to serve.

As soon as I’ve covered her, I aim to pull away, but she reaches for my hand again. A soft touch sliding across my knuckles, but then a desperate squeeze follows as she reels from fatigue or blood loss or just plain desperation. I hold on gently, but she’s quivering and gripping my fingers as if she could tap life out of me to keep going. She’s still staring at the fight, eyes barely open. From afar, she’ll look zoned out, but she’s fully aware in this moment.

When Franco finally sinks to the ground, a shattered breath escapes her lips, and she rolls her head away.

She’s crying, but without a sound. In fact, she hasn’t spoken a single word. Here I’ve been going on in English, not even considering she might not understand me. Franco is—was—fluent.

“Cara, parli inglese?” I whisper.

She looks into my eyes, and I can almost see her mind working. “Yes.”

“The axe!” Stephano shouts out, and I look up to where he has straddled Franco. “Bring me the fucking axe.”

I shudder. He’s actually going to do it. I’ve done worse, but it’s never reassuring to see the Don’s hold on you mirrored in your brothers, even if I know this is what Steph needs to sever his past and carry on with his life.

Stephano has the upper hand, and it’s time to get this woman out of here.

I brush my fingertips over her face, instructing her silently to close her eyes. This is the last thing she should see. Her breath is warm against my palm, and I caress her cheek. I shouldn’t, but I only want to reassure her she’s safe. That ever-present need always hums in me when it comes to women, and now it grows louder. I want to wrap her in safety and keep all the world’s darkness away from her. This need is born out of everything I’ve lived and seen, and now it’s just what I do, who I am. One half of me, anyway, the one I’d choose every day if I could.

Matteo walks up to Stephano, the axe we always have in the emergency kit in our SUV’s trunks hanging from his hand. The sight tears me from my thoughts. He pauses for a moment next to Stephano and Franco, in silent conversation with our brother.

“Do it,” Matteo says. “It’s like shedding old fucking skin.”

“Jesus Christ,” I huff as I guide her arm around my neck, gather her to me, and stand. This is going too far.

“Where’s Gigi?” Stephano asks.

“Benedict took her and Carla to the clinic,” Luca says. “Carla was coming to. Dominic is still with the other woman. She’s unconscious.”

But she isn’t. She wasn’t. She’s witnessed everything that’s happened here.

She’s watched us shoot down two men, and now Steph is going to hack Franco Fiore to death.

Sister or stranger, she’s witnessed these crimes.

Which means she’s trapped.

She’s just been passed from Randazzo, to Franco, to the Scaleras, as if she’s a fucking parcel and not a human at all. Yet, her body is warm in my arms, if too light. Not only has Franco been torturing her, but he’s also been starving her, too.

Now isn’t the time to ask questions, but she will answer them. Everything she knows, I’ll get it out of her.

I hasten towards the exit with her in my arms. Franco might be dead already, and there will be no scope for revenge, but whoever she is, she isn’t going back to Italy and whatever she was doing before in Randazzo’s network. Not under my watch.

“If I do this—” Stephano says, “—there’ll be no more information from him.”

“I don’t care,” Matteo replies. “If there’s any truth to his words, the woman will talk.”

And that’s going to be my problem.

“If she lives,” Stephano says.

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