Page 35 of Sinners Atone
It flutters through me too because my brother rarely makes threats. Usually, he skips straight to the good part in a blind fit of rage, then calls me to sort the cleanup.
Angelo Visconti was born to lead. He was born to look good in a suit too, which is why he got away with cosplaying as a law-abiding citizen for so long. After our parents died, he stepped on a plane to London instead of into our father’s shoes and tried to shake the made man out of his bones.
I always knew he’d come back to theCosa Nostralong before his eyes locked onto our uncle’s fiancée.
You can’t run from what you were born to do.
He shuts the door with a swift kick, then sinks into the chair behind his desk.
Rafe brings him a whiskey, letting out a low whistle. “Looking suave, brother. Nervous?”
“No. Paranoid,” he grits back, smoothing down the front of his tux.
“Of Rory not turning up?”
He huffs out a dry laugh, his eyes drifting to the photo of her smiling beside his laptop. “I’d drag her down the aisle by her curls if I had to.”
“How romantic.”
“Mm.” Angelo sinks his drink in two gulps, slams it down, and jerks his chin at me. “We set?”
I nod.
“Good. Now tell me why the fuck you’re digging up my front lawn on my wedding day.”
“It’s a secret, apparently,” Rafe says with a smirk, sliding onto the edge of the desk.
My gaze drifts down to Emile smoothing over concrete with the back of a shovel.
Secrets. The Villain’s most powerful weapon.
Our father needn’t have wasted his breath speaking rule eight into existence. He’d led by example.
When he and his two brothers arrived on the coast from Sicily, they’d decided to divide and conquer. Uncle Alberto built Devil’s Cove up into the sky, Uncle Alfredo buried his riches beneath the cobbled streets of Devil’s Hollow, but our father saw the state of Devil’s Dip and thought it best to build outward into the Pacific.
He knocked up a port in its raging waters. Bought the church looming on the cliffs above it and established himself as it’s God-fearing Deacon.
The worst thing the locals ever did was trust him to pass on their confessions onto the big man upstairs.
Another laugh rings out by the gates and chafes my skin.
And the worst thing She did was nearly tell me hers.
Behind me, Rafe grinds out an Italian curse. “I don’t have my fucking watch. What’s the time? We need to leave soon, right?”
He’s spinning his poker chip a mile a minute, wearing out the carpet as he paces from the bookshelf to the door and back again.
I suspect his sudden change in demeanor has something to do with red hair and a smart mouth.
Sliding my hand into my pocket, I pull out a fistful of cold metal and dangle it between us.
He stops dead and stares at it. “Is that my Omega Seamaster?”
I toss it at him in response.
“Where the fuck did you get this?” he mutters, turning it over in disbelief.
“Where do you think?”
