Page 86 of Sinner's Vows

I march Ariana up the stairs and down the dark corridors of the Don’s mansion, to what she calledyour mom’s sanctuary.

Once she’s led the way to Mom’s walk-in closet and tells me to help stack all the crates with her things to one side, my heart sinks. I’ve been through here. Yes, I did a rushed and shitty job, but it was just old clothes. Some of them sparked memories that had me break down, alone in this room.

Ariana is working the baseboard, and now that she’s at it, I can see exactly how I missed it. I’m on my knees next to her to help, and then she peels the carpet away, revealing the loose floorboards and the secret hiding place.

When I finally have a stack of ten journals in my hands, I’m so overwhelmed, my whole body starts to shake. Holding these seems sacred, a saint’s relic. A last connection to Mom, and it’s as if her graceful fingers are reaching up to me through the pages as I flip through them to brush my cheek. Her beautiful handwriting, her calm acceptance flowing out of pen onto paper.

“The Don never knew about these. It’s the one thing she managed to keep hidden from all of us.”

Ariana nods. “She made Portia promise to never show these to anybody. They were sealed with ribbon and wax, too. Your mom probably only meant your dad, because why else would she mention the six brothers who would look for Gabriella once she’s older?”

“Where? Show me.”

“Here.” She takes the stack from me, extracts one journal, and opens it to the salient pages. “Read here.”

She points to the last lines in the journal.

‘Until death us all part. And then she’ll have six brothers to find her. Finally I can rest in peace.’

My hands are trembling, my eyes wet as I scan the page, but mine won’t be the first tears to fall to these pages. It’s all here. It’s all been here for years, and us boys were totally fucking ignorant of the whole sick business.

I read and read and go back and forth, my gaze jumping over her words, finding them hard to stomach. ‘The last thing I ever wanted was to bring a girl into this world, to fulfill the final term and condition of the sick pact they made.’

“She knew it was a girl.” Everybody knew, except us. The plan had always been for Gabriella to go to Italy, the ultimate blood exchange—a life for a life. This has to do with the origins of the war between Randazzo and Scalera. Matteo will know more, buta son for a son, a daughter for a daughter, one for onesays it all.

I stall as these words finally sink in: ‘given that both his and Emilio’s sons are in this house, born from my womb.’

What the fuck? What the actual?—

Who?

Feeling totally drained, I lean back against the wall. Those DNA tests are suddenly taking on a whole new level of significance. What if this was the real reason why Don Scalera got rid of Alex, and not Alex’s quietly planned mutiny? Alexwas Randazzo’sson? Fuck it all. Who else knows we’re not the descendants of only Giuliano Scalera, but some of us are Emilio Randazzo’s sons?

Even worse—did the Don approve of this? Another man fucking his wife with the intention of getting her pregnant with his child? Don Randazzo fucking his own daughter?

Revulsion shivers through me as I recall Bianca Randazzo wasn’t his real daughter. Just a little girl he bought, or stole, or kidnapped.

I’m going to be sick. Ariana was once such a little girl. So was Gabriella. All for the taking.

As I meet her gaze, she’s weeping, quietly, as she does.

“Come here, sweetheart,” I say, holding out a hand for her. If it weren’t for her arrival here, none of this would have come to light. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

Her hand is in mine, small, warm, dainty, and everything that should be wrong in my world. But I clutch it tight, as tight as I can without breaking her delicate bones, and I pull her to my lap so she can straddle my legs.

“It seems we don’t have a skeleton in the closet,” I say, her hands quivering where she settles them on my chest. “We have catacombs full of them.”

“That’s a Mafia thing,” she says with a weak smile. “I just realized this is how Franco knew about your sister. He was there when Gabi stayed.”

Fuck.To think that madman could have had his hands on our little Gabriella. “Tell me she didn’t get hurt.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Tears rush down her cheeks, and I want to kiss them away. “Only she will.”

I hug her close, her body molding against mine. The perfect fit. All feminine warmth against my muscled male form, soft where I’m rough and calloused, fragile where I’m unbreakable, her smooth cheek supple against my coarse stubble.

Heat pulses to where I’ve gone hard against her sex, her body’s pressure just a tease. This T-shirt does nothing to disguise her allure or quench my need for her. It’s because I’m falling for her, for the way she sees me, for how she soothes me. For how she touches me.

Fuck. I need distance between myself and this woman. Permanent distance. Whatever is happening here can never be. I’m fucked up, and I know better than to bring a woman into my world. And this one…this one is poised to plummet into an inner crevice I can never extract her from.

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