Page 80 of Dangerous Vows

If I didn’t know better… if I didn’tknowAmara… I might think she orchestrated this entire thing.

The escape. The attack. Was she setting me up for the shooter?

Could she do that to me?

Doubt settles in my lungs like ash, quiet and suffocating.

Matteo steps forward, his eyes narrowing as if he read my mind. “Don’t go there, Pietro.” He rests his hand on my arm.

“She kept the pregnancy from me.” My voice is rough. “She ran. She?—”

“She’s not like her father,” Niccolò interrupts. “She’s everythinggoodin this world.”

My head snaps up with my vision tunneling on her.

“I saw the way she looked at our family, and how she looked at thekids, it was almost like she was letting herself believe in something, even if it was only for a moment.” He pauses briefly as if he’s searching for the right words. “She’s not against us. In fact, I think she did her father’s bidding to save you,” Matteo continues. “It tracks, I mean, I see it now. She had no way of knowing who you were before she showed up for work, you said so yourself.”

“It was fate,” Niccoló interjects.

Fate. Fate is a bitch.

I run my hand through my hair, pushing it back. My mind is tired. Does this explain the look in her eyes that I didn’t understand? Was it wishful thinking, as if she knew her time with me was what? Temporary?

Perhaps she knew her father would never let me have her.

And she left… not to protect herself.

To protectme.

I slide my hand down my face, my five o’clock shadow is more like twelve.

Matteo’s phone buzzes. His face darkens as he picks it up.

“Julia intercepted chatter,” he mutters. “She confirms there is a hit on you, Pietro.”

I don’t react.

I already knew. It would have been nice to know this an hour ago.

“We can’t expose this as it’s from an illegitimate source, and we can’t blow our app’s back door, it would tip everyone off that we have access to information we shouldn’t have.

“We have to obtain proof another way,” Matteo mutters, and I can tell he’s frustrated for me.

Who is out for me?

Miloš or Stefano are the most likely candidates, but I guess it doesn’t matter because they’re both fucking dead.

Miloš. Because he touched my woman.

Stefano, because he hurt my woman.

And one of them put an unsanctioned hit out on me.

I glance at Matteo. “We are taking both of them out.”

He nods. “We’re working on intel,” he adds.

Renalto steps forward, making his presence known. He cracks his knuckles like he’s warming up for a fight. “A shot at a Borrelli is never tolerated.”

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