Page 68 of My Dark Ever After
Renzo scoffed, but I held her cold eyes and offered my own wolfish grin. “As thanks if youdodiscover something of value, I will set you up with the Montucci family in Ravenna.”
It was Dren’s turn to scoff. “They hate Albanians. They will not work with us.”
“Carlo Montucci is an old friend,” I said, without divulging that I had saved him from bankruptcy last spring and he would be in my debt for life. “I am sure we could figure something out. I know you’ve been eager for more east-coast entry points.”
Drita’s mouth pursed unhappily, but there was a sparkle in her eye she did not try to hide. “I can agree to those terms.Besa,” she said, an Albanian oath.
“Besa,” I mimicked, taking her proffered hand.
“Excellent. Now that we have negotiated terms, I do believe I can help,” she offered, snapping her fingers so that a man waiting against the wall behind her stepped forward with a covered tablet he opened and presented to her. After taking it without looking, Drita slid it across the slick wood tabletop to me. “We should start with this.”
The screen depicted an image of a blond-haired woman with tanned skin and vibrant blue eyes smiling into the camera with her arms wrapped around a squat older man and woman, a field of vines curving up behind them. Though I had never seen her before, there was something familiar about her features. The large eyes topped bydelicately arched eyebrows that made her look young and especially vulnerable.
I knew before Drita said anything whose name would pass her lips.
“Gemma Stone. The sister of the woman you’ve been sleeping with since the summer.”
Her hand was suddenly at the top of the screen, swiping to the next photo in the gallery, one taken of Guinevere and me in Firenze before she’d gone back to Michigan. She was in a short red dress, raised up on the toes of her sandals to meet my kiss, my hand cupping her ass under the fabric, my entire body bent to curve over hers like a shield.
My reaction was so immediate, it could not have had time to filter through my brain. It was just gut instinct. An animal response to the sudden threat of knowing someone had been shadowing us.
I gripped Drita’s outreached hand by the wrist and tugged so forcefully she was upended over the table and dragged before me in an instant. Before she could recover, the knife I kept sheathed at my hip was in my hand and pressed to the junction of her jaw and throat, the flat of the blade digging deeply enough to make her breath stutter hard through her throat.
Around me, I was distantly aware of Renzo, Carmine, and Martina standing off against Dren and the other two Albanians.
I curved over Drita’s prone body, not like a shield as I had with Guinevere but like a weapon homed in on a target.
The words I spoke were deceptively soft, but as sinister as the wrath barely leashed within me. “You have one chance to tell me why I should not gut you like a fish for following us.”
Drita stared up at me, miraculously unperturbed, given her position. She looked almost ... curious. “So she is not just a bit of fun for you, capo.”
A growl ripped up my throat in answer.
She smiled thinly. “I did not take the photo, nor did any of my people. It was delivered to one of my men by a fellow who called himself the Venetian.”
My heart hammered so hard it reverberated in my bones. It was hard to hear her over the cacophony of my internal stress.
“Why the fuck would the Venetian give you that photo?”
“Because,” she said calmly, “I knew Gemma Stone.”
I blinked down at her as the world tilted just slightly. “Excuse me?”
“Perhaps you can lower your weapon and I can take a seat to explain things?”
Reluctantly, I took the blade from her neck, neatly sheathing it even though I did not retake my seat until everyone else had slowly reclaimed theirs.
“Gemma was seeing Dren for a time,” Drita explained, gesturing to her grim-faced brother. “They met at a club in Durrës, and he was quite smitten. So much so that he started to bring her around.”
There was a grimace on Dren’s face that did not speak of a happy ending.
“He even introduced her to members of Clan Greco when they were visiting to renegotiate terms for our smuggling deal. The day after, she broke up with Dren and, presumably, started to see one of the Italians.”
“Who?”
It was Dren who grunted, “If I had any clue, he would be dead.”
Ah, so he had been very smitten, then.
