Page 79 of Veiled Vows

Not that it matters now. I just need to keep this up long enough for Jasmine to be safe.

“Well, poisoning the family from the inside was slow going, as you can imagine. I had to put up with such bullshit,” Altomutters. “But you see, I have one thing you don’t, which is kind of hilarious.”

“Which is?”

“The Yakuza. You see, after our last meeting where that bitch tried to freeze me out, I got in contact with a few of the other generals on our payroll. Once I painted the gorgeous picture of how easily they could take over the drug market from the Falzones by taking out Jasmine, they were more than happy to do the dirty work for me. Until you got in the way.”

Anger surges through me so forcefully that I can’t trust myself to speak.

“But with Enzo gone and the wedding off, we can be much more active in helping them. They take the fall for Enzo when it goes public that he was murdered, because it always goes public and they will earn a shit ton of street cred. Maybe some extra heat, but the money from the Falzone drug trade will keep them cozy.”

“Don’t you see?” Santino smiles briefly. “While your plan was peaceful, Roman, you should know that alliances never work in this world. All it takes is one wrong word and someone is trying to stab you in the back.”

“And once I force Jasmine to sign the rest of their shit over to me, we’ll hand her over too. The gun running on the East Coast will be ours,” Alto continues. “I’m sure they’ll make a pretty little bitch out of her for a while. And then we will be on top. It’s a win-win for all of us.”

I shouldn’t react. He’s taunting me with a terrible fate for Jasmine, and I can’t rise to it because keeping close to Santino so I can end his life is more important.

But one second, I’m staring at Alto’s creepy smirk, the next, I’m diving over the table and I’m on top of him, repeatedly punching his smarmy face into a bloody pulp. Rage pulsesthrough me like molten iron. I can barely breathe around the anger.

How dare he talk about her like that? How dare he think there’s any world where I would let him send her off to be meat for the Yakzua? I hate him. I’m sick of him. I’m sick of this fucking family.

I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him?—

Then, in between the punches, I see his smirk. Cocky. Proud.

No … what am I doing?

Strong hands grab my flailing arms and several guards haul me off of Alto’s beaten face. I yell and fight, scrambling to get back at him and slam my fists around his scrawny throat, but I’m overpowered and unable to make it more than a few feet before I’m dragged back.

“I didn’t want to believe it.” My father’s cold voice cuts through the heat of my face like a knife. “Alto’s claims that you were in love with the enemy, that your loyalty was with her sounded so ridiculous after everything you have done for me over the years. How could a girl like that turn you in just a few months?”

Straining against the guards, I’m firmly held back as my father walks in front of me and blocks Alto’s bloody, smirking face from view.

“But it is true, isn’t it?”

In an instant, the revenge and future I’ve spent decades clawing toward crumbles right before my eyes. All because my love for Jasmine made it impossible for me to stand listening to Alto say those things.

And he knew it.

He fucking set me up.

My desire to protect her overrules every other feeling in my heart, and the gravity of my mistakes dawns on me as my father’s face turns into a look of cold disdain.

“I never should have trusted the son of a whore,” he spits. “You’re not my blood. You’re a filthy half-breed and I should have put you down the second you turned up on my doorstep.”

It’s my one chance.

My only chance.

Rage surges like the roar of a lion and I throw myself forward with every ounce of furious strength I possess. The surge is so sudden the guards let me slip through their grasp and I tackle my father down onto the table with my fists around his throat.

I have to kill him.

I have to!

For my mother.

For Jasmine.

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