Page 71 of Savage Proposal

The priest shook his head. “Never,” he said, croaking out a promise. “I’ll leave the country, I swear.”

“Go on then.”

We all backed off and gave him space. Father David pulled in a couple of labored breaths, and for a second, I worried the man would stroke out. But then, “My partner and I were given a list of names of people who owed debts to the Volkovs.”

Fuck. Damian and I had talked about this as a possibility—I’d told Isabella as much—but a theory wasn’t confirmation. “Was Santino Rossi on that list?” I asked.

“Yes,” Father David said.

“Did you approach him first?” I asked.

“Yes. He gave us his daughter’s name and said that she was younger and healthier and could live without her kidney much better than he could.”

I heard Isabella gag behind me. She needed to leave. “Who was your partner?”

“Some low-level thug working for Volkov. He was there to make sure that I didn’t disappear.”

I wanted to rip his molars out. “Hisname, Father.”

The priest looked lost for a moment. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t get to decide what matters.”

Father David shook his head. “The man is dead. I did his funeral rites a few years ago.”

Having one less person to go after should have made me happy, but it didn’t. However that man died wasn’t nearly painful enough. “Is that it?”

“When I got my assignment, I heard Volkov’s men complaining that they were being forced to tail Cosa Nostra families,” Father David continued. His voice was stronger now that he was feeling confident that he would get to leave.

“Which ones?”

He was quiet for a moment. “The Greco family,” he said, “and the Fiores. I was rushed off after that and told not to come back until we had something worth bringing in.”

The Greco and Fiore families didn’t exist anymore. They had moved against me, and with the Gallos, I had wiped them out. Only their most distant relatives were left in New York state. I glanced at Damian, who had been the one to put a bullet in Don Greco’s skull, and we shared the same thought: what if the Volkovs were involved somehow?

“What did you do?” Isabella asked. I hadn’t noticed that she had pushed away from the wall and was standing beside me now. “When you didn’t take my kidney, what did you do?” She groundher teeth together. “You’re obviously still alive, so did you just go after the next person on your list?”

Father David looked at her for a long time, and then his head dipped into a nod. “Yes,” he confessed. “When we screwed up the harvesting, and I knew it wouldn’t work, I called an ambulance for you; I prayed over you. And then we went to the next person on our list, and we took his kidney instead.”

“Did he die?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know if you had survived; I never checked on you.”

Isabella was crying, but I didn’t think she realized it. “Did you ever think of me?” she asked. “Did you ever even wonder?”

Father David started to sob. “I prayed for you every day,” he swore. “Every Mass, every quiet moment, I prayed that you were in a better place. Whatever that might mean.”

I put my arm around Isabella and pulled her against my side. “Is that all?” I asked again.

The priest nodded. “That’s it.”

“Good.” I looked at the wall where Elio and Damian had set up an array of medical instruments. It looked like something out of aSawmovie, and usually, it was only meant to terrify. “Find me something worth selling, yeah?” I asked my cousin. “Try not to butcher him too much.”

Elio grinned, delighted, and I heard Isabella gasp. This was a version of Elio that she had never met; I doubted that Amalia had ever seen her husband at his most base and primal. My cousin hid his violent delights well. “I can’t make any promises,”he said, practically slobbering. “I have no idea what I’m looking at in there.”

“I’ll keep an eye on things,” Damian offered.

“Grazie,” I said. It took a few moments for Father David to catch on to what we were saying, but when he did, the screaming started again. “Shut him up, will you?”

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