Page 95 of Savage Saint
The faces flash before my eyes again. The diplomat in Vienna. The businessman in Prague. The politician's wife in Madrid. Clean kills. Perfect executions. No witnesses. No mistakes.
"You don't understand," I continue, my voice breaking. "I was sent to destroy Angelo. To make him trust me, make him... care for me. And then kill him and everyone he loves."
Alessa's face pales in the dim light of the car. "Including me?"
I nod, unable to speak. The weight of what I was sent to do crushes down on me. How could I ever have agreed to this? How could I have been so cold, so empty?
But I know the answer. Years of Jerzy's training, his conditioning. Being broken down and rebuilt as a weapon. Never questioning, never feeling. Just obeying.
"So what now?" Alessa asks, her voice small but steady. "Are you going to complete your mission?"
The question hangs in the air between us, heavy with implication. Am I? Could I? After everything that's happened, after everything Angelo has done for me, could I still be the monster Jerzy created?
"I don't know," I whisper honestly. "I don't know who I am anymore."
Alessa takes a deep breath, then does the last thing I expect. She reaches out and takes my bloodstained hand in hers.
"I do," she says firmly. "You're Kasia. You're brave and fierce and protective. You've been through hell, but you're still standing. And whatever you were before, whatever you were sent here to do, that's not who you are now."
I stare at her, speechless. How can she say that? How can she look at me, knowing what I've done, what I was meant to do, and still see something worth saving?
"You're wrong," I say, pulling my hand away. "I am the Red Widow. I always will be. It's what I was made for."
Alessa's eyes harden with determination. "Bullshit. You're what you choose to be. And I've seen how you look at Angelo. That's not an act."
The mention of his name sends a fresh wave of pain through me. Angelo. The man who saved me. The man who held me through nightmares. The man who showed me I could be more than just a weapon.
The man I was sent to destroy.
"It doesn't matter," I say, turning to look out the window at the fog-shrouded streets. "When he finds out the truth, he'll kill me himself."
"You don't know that," Alessa argues, but there's doubt in her voice. We both know what Angelo is capable of. What he does to those who betray him.
"I do," I whisper. "And he'd be right to."
30
ANGELO
Smoke claws its way down my throat as I scan the wreckage of the port. What was once a hub of our operations now looks like a war zone. Twisted metal beams are reaching toward the sky like skeletal fingers, containers are split open like gutted fish, their contents scattered across the blackened concrete.
"Get those fires under control!" I shout to a group of men standing uselessly near a smouldering pile. "And you, start cataloguing everything salvageable. I want a full inventory by morning."
Next to me, Dante stands rigid, his face a mask of cold fury. Luca paces behind us, already on the phone with our insurance contacts, working damage control. The explosion hit us hard, but the Santoro family doesn't stay down. We rebuild. We retaliate.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Arrow's name flashes on the screen.
"You're on speaker," I say, holding the phone so my brothers can hear.
"Tell me you have something," Dante growls, his voice like gravel, sharp with barely contained rage.
"I got into the security footage from the east entrance," Arrow says, the sound of rapid typing in the background. "One of Nico's guys, that skinny fucker with the neck tattoo, was on camera seventeen minutes before the explosion. He carried in what looked like maintenance equipment."
"Good," I say. "That should keep the Feds busy with Nicolosi for now."
Arrow hesitates, their voice dropping. "There's more. One of the containers had girls inside. Sex trafficking victims."
The words hit me like a fist to the gut. "How bad?"
