Page 15 of Devil's Vows
I can’t stomach it anymore, either. Some days, I wish I had it in me to help him along, but I don’t. I can’t risk it. With Darya’s suicide, we had too much unwanted attention on my house already. Feds are constantly scurrying around us like rats, ferreting for the tidbit that will finally be the one to convict us. Papa will have to go the natural way, just like Don Scalera did.
“Get me a Scalera family tree and find out everything about this girl. I want to do a deep dive into everything Scalera. Let it leak that we knowIl Consigliohas killed my beloved cousin. That he is sorely missed. ThatIl Consigliohas broken the treaty, and retribution is in order.”
I take a deep breath. It’s a huge fucking age gap, but it’s an open back door I didn’t see. A way to connect the Petrov Bratva through marriage with the biggest Mafia ring on the East Coast. I’d be an idiot not to push for it.
And I’d happily enter this business arrangement to keep Milana out of the equation and safe from an arranged marriage that could only send her into deeper depression.
“Tell them I want to meet the girl, but don’t call it negotiations.”
I need eyes on her first and a test run with the girls. I’m not risking them just to forge a new alliance.
“Let’s see if they can read between the lines.” Yuri nods, and as he stands, he stretches tall, his sinewy lank frame belying the strength he wields with his fists or his agility with a switchblade. “Poor Borys. Thought he escaped the Ukraine for a better life only to die atIl Consiglio’shand.”
“I can’t help if he came over only to get himself the Darwin Award.”
Yuri chuckles as he pulls his own weapon from his jacket pocket, flicks out the blade, and tests the edge. “Sharp enough to get Sergei talking.”
I take my phone and switchblade and pocket both.
It’s time.
As we make our way out of the house and into the dark, crossing the stretch of lawn to the forest and beyond, we’re quiet. Sergei will talk within the next couple of weeks, days even, if we work him right. Maybe even tonight. In the meantime, we’ve gone from Boryslav creating a massive problem…to Boryslav creating an opportunity.
It could be that the tide is finally turning for me and the Petrov Bratva.
Attaboy, cuz. Thanks for coming over and being a fucking idiot. You served me well.
8
GABI
Ever since the day Mother Lucia announced that my brothers were coming for me, my world has been transformed as if by the simple sweep of a fairy’s wand.
Brothers. From America.Six princes to come fight the dragon guarding me and set me free. But there are only five left: Alessandro—Alex—is with our parents, someplace where the Mafia gather in the afterlife.
We’re finally on home soil, as Dominic calls it, and I breathe easy for the first time in fifteen years. I just hope being back in America won’t trigger any of my old memories.
I’ve always suppressed thinking of my short childhood in the States, as even small snatches of that time always unleashed nightmares of how I was ripped away from that life. Nightmares so vivid, they’d chill me to the bone, startling me awake in a cold sweat, barely able to breathe. For weeks, I’d stop talking, with Mother Lucia patiently reading me stories of bravery, courage and sacrifice, until I’d call out, ‘Be careful, Little Red Riding Hood, he is a bad bad man.’Of course it was the story of a girl hunted by a wolf that triggered me into talking.
“You okay, Gabi?” Dominic asks as he holds the elevator door for me, jerking me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“Yes. I’m just glad we’re finally here.”
I still can’t get used to my old American nickname or to him and his hovering bulk, always so protective. It’s weird that I don’t find him menacing or dangerous, and with Stephano, it was the same. From the moment I met both of them, I felt for the first time what it was like to be under male protection and not male threat: really, trulysafe.
But if I’m honest, I’m a mess. Deep down I feel like Cinderella, with the clock ticking to midnight, and I dread the moment everything is going to turn back to what it was before: me on the run, a wolf on my scent, watching for glimpses of my red cloak as I chase through the forest. I guess that’s what trauma does to you—you can never let your guard down.
If only I could be the woodsman and hack the wolf to pieces. Or be the dragon and not the princess.
Ever since we left the convent, and after Mother Lucia’s hints about keeping my whereabouts secret, Dominic dictated that nobody could know who I was, or where I was from. I’m now Gabriella Scalera, someone who never really existed on paper in the first place. I’m not sure how they managed to create me out of thin air, but I have a passport, a birth certificate, and everything else needed to wipe Gabriella Murano—my adopted name—and every other name I’ve had over the past fifteen years off the face of the Earth.
I glance at Ariana as we ride up, reading in her eyes that she hasn’t been to Matteo’s place before, either. In the three weeks as a new-found Scalera, I’ve learned a lot from her, but I haven’t opened up to anybody yet. I observe and mostly say nothing. They think I’m shy, and I am, but Ariana is the only one who seems to get the level of overwhelm I’m suffocating in.
For someone who has only lived in modest convents across Italy, the grandeur and splendor of the house on Lake Comowas a shock to my system. At least that was still in Italy, and the Trapanis’ house, with its many secret places and beautiful gardens to hide away in, was the perfect sanctuary for someone cautious of company. Someone who doesn’t understand her place or role yet.
Now this elevator’s marbled walls scream money on a whole different level, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow used to it. I mean, we flew to Boston on the family’sprivate jet. Every experience is so new. Everything is strange, and the only thing I can do is try to not gape like an idiot.
And wait for the other shoe to drop.
