Page 74 of Sinner's Vows

ARIANA

Oh, God, Portia. What have you made me promise?

I’m clinging to my wineglass as if it’s the only thing preventing this ship from sinking. Dominic’s teasing, in that gentle tone, is the last thing I need.

He must have picked up on something, despite us being so careful to act normal, to just be ourselves, but he is an expert at reading people.

‘Just one night. Please, Ariana, just give me one night before we tell them everything we’ve found.’

After reading through the last journal, Portia and I went back and skimmed through the earlier ones, racing against the clock. We couldn’t spend too much time in the walk-in closet, in case the guard got suspicious.

“You understand what this means?” she whispered to me. “There are people who know where this little girl went. Capos inIl Consiglio. There’s no way Gabriella went missing without somebody knowing.”

As we swiped through the pages in a hushed rush, trying to find any information we could, the tension and anxiety in that room became so suffocating, as if we were being vacuum-sealed.

There is a massive gap: Bianca didn’t journal from the start. She only picked it up once the twins were born. As to the pact, this sick truce between Giuliano Scalera and Emilio Randazzo, there were no more details and zero information as to what happened to baby Gabriella once she was born.

We sat defeated, journals scattered all around us, when Portia gasped in such shock and horror, I reeled back.

“Oh my…oh my God,” she whispered under her breath, fresh tears brimming from her eyes as she clutched at her golden cross again. “The dates… her birth…this…thisis why he left me.”

I froze, holding a breath. “Left you? Who?”

Now the sluices of the dam opened properly. The last thing I expected today was this. Portia’s heart breaking in front of me.

“Rosalia’s dad, my husband…this…thisgodawful secretis why he left me and told me he couldn’t see us anymore. That things were getting too tough at work, and he had to move and?—”

I pulled her into my arms, and for a long while, we just sat as she sobbed and clung to me, sputtering out a fractured love story through haggard, painful breaths. A story about a man she loved once, the father of her own little girl, a man who was forced to leave them. And now it dawned on her that he left to protectthem. From Don Scalera’s dirty secret he was the sole custodian of. And her working in the Don’s household all these years, pouring all her love into those boys, not knowing their dad was the reason for her own heartbreak.

Eventually, she pulled away on a hiccup. “Cara, we must tell Dominic, but you understand that I need to…that I need to protect him, we’re not even divorced—” She broke off, gasping between breaths. “This was his way to protect me. God. If I only understood?—”

Clearly, Portia had never recovered from this loss as her voice cracked with emotion.

“Yes, yes, I get it. Completely,” I managed as I tried to soothe her. “It’s okay, we don’t need to say anything yet.”

“Ariana,” she whispered then, leaning close to my ear, as if the walls were listening in…which they might be doing from my experience with this crowd. “The Scaleras will never hurt you. They will never hurt me. But they will pull the limbs off men who know something about Gabriella. I need to go see him to warn him. Maybe he’ll talk now? It’s been twenty-two years. And with Don Scalera dead…maybe, just maybe…” She pushed me at arm’s length, and I rested back on my heels as she stared into my eyes as if the whole world hinged on me. “We cannot talk about this, not until I’ve warned him. Just one night, promise me, one night.”

“Why don’t you phone him?” I whispered back. “Right now.”

Portia’s gaze volleyed between my eyes as she shook her head, frantic. “From here, on my company phone? While I’m in Bianca’s closet?” She was quivering all over now and scrambled to gather the journals and seal them in those plastic bags again. “Are you mad? What if they trace the call and—and?—”

“It’s okay, I get it,” I said.

But now with Dominic here, I get it even more.

Dominic owns a security company, and this is why I couldn’t whack a security guard on the head and walk out of a private clinic in Boston. In the clinic, the cameras are so well-hidden, I never saw one. In Bianca’s walk-in closet, there aren’t any cameras, because if there were, Dominic would have been here hours ago, because he has aknack for techand someone might be watching our every move.

I’m trapped under so many secrets, I can hardly breathe…and Dominic is threatening to tease them out of me? I shouldn’t drink. I should keep my head clear, but he’s here, his tall, masculine frame towering next to me, his elbow brushing against my arm as he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls up his sleeves.

With every fold of the fabric, he reveals more of his muscled forearms, my gaze taking in those strong but elegant hands that touched me with such delicate reverence at the swimming pool this morning. I completely forgot this man can be brutally cruel.

In fact, I can’t weave his gentle side and cruel side together at all. I suck my lip, knowing I’m in too deep. I’m treading water, battling a tide I only want to be swept away with, straight into his arms…the last place I should be.

Portia’s parting words to me as we put back the baseboards repeats in my head, and I swallow another desperate sip of wine to pull myself together.

“You need to divert his attention,cara. I’ve seen how he looks at you, Ariana… Please. I’ve also seen how you look at him. Just one night. He already has you in his bed, and even though I know nothing happened last night, and I’ll never push you to do something you don’t want to… but Dominic never has women stay over, or in his bed for that matter, and you…you have Randazzo’s seal on your body. Please?—"

I had to stop her from talking before I lost my mind. How do I look at Dominic? How does he look at me?

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