Page 61 of Devil's Vows
GABI
Ivan’s hold on me seems to become more tender but firmer at the same time, as if he wants to hug me closer but is scared I will shatter.
I’ve shattered. A thousand times since that night, but never like this—never with a man. A man likehim. Caring, protective, somewhat possessive in the way he holds me now, as if I’m really, truly precious.
Ivan is nothing like those men. He’s been so tender with me, every touch a caress promising only safety and protection, his arms an unexpected sanctuary I’m not ready to leave.
“Who? Who killed who in front of you?” he asks softly, but there’s a tremor in his voice I’ve never heard before.
His heart beats faster, where my palm rests against his warm skin, the scent of him intoxicating, drugging me. It’s the thin layer of a day’s living on his skin and the hint of his aftershave’s spice that reminds me of the moment when he came out of the shower and I walked in on him.
“Gabriella,” he murmurs, his voice raw and urgent. “Tell me.”
The sounds, the visuals, the reality of those moments ofpure horror have been buried so deep inside me for decades, but now… Maybe it’s the fact that I’m in this bullet-riddled house, in this man’s arms with my fingertips on his gunshot scars, that has made me close the circle. Here is someone who would understand.
“My parents. You know? My adoptive parents? They took me to Italy when I was seven, moving back home after they spent ten years in America.” I bite down hard on my bottom lip to stop it from quivering and force back my tears. I never speak of them, so why am I now, with him, of all people? Then it hits me: here, in his arms, it’s really the first time I’ve ever felt safe enough to open up about it. To heal. But what if I don’t stop there? I can’t tell him everything. “We went back, supposedly to visit my cousins, except they weren’t my cousins.”
A cold flush passes through me at the memory, and goosebumps ride down my arms as I curl even tighter into Ivan’s tender hold. “We got dragged down into a cellar, and that’s when I realized things were going wrong. My parents were fighting the men, screaming, but it was futile. I clung to my mom for dear life, but a man came and tore me from her as she screamed. I was barely separated from them when they were shot. Just like that, as if it’s something that happens every day.”
Even now, I can hear the two shots being fired, one after the other, the thumps of bodies collapsing like an afterthought, making me flinch. My mind was so slow to register what was happening, having never been around such violence before.
A shudder runs through him as he squeezes my thigh. “You were only seven? And this was Mafia business?”
“Yes. Randazzo’s men. You know about Randazzo? He is dead now?—”
“Yes, I know about him, but clearly not enough. What happened then? Where were you? Do you know?”
I drag in a deep breath to continue. That part of my life is over, I remind myself. Those Italian men, Randazzo’s henchmen,his clients—that fuckingpriest—can’t come for me here…but that Russian might.
One thing at a time. You only need to tell him one thing at a time.
“I’ve since figured it out, with Dominic’s help,” I murmur, focusing on what triggered my panic attack.
We did, after all, have time in Lake Como to talk about everything that happened and where I’ve been in my life. What I never told Dominic was that Potenza had been my first and last convent, but there were several others in between, Mother Lucia and I always on the run. My brothers think I spent fifteen years in the same place.
“It was Antonio Mancuso’s house in Calabria.” With the pig farm, and all those pigs always squealing and squealing, disguising any screams that could come from the cellar. “Mancuso is dead now, but who knows what’s happening with the operations he used to run. He only used to be the receiver. The first pitstop.”
Ivan cups my cheek and brushes my lips in that gesture that makes me melt. His warmth is chasing away the cold, a liquid fire coursing through my veins to ward off the chills these memories bring back.
“A pitstop for what? Receiving what?”
His voice has somehow gone dark, deep, and threatening, his eyes icy blue and holding a budding need for…murder? And suddenly I see it, how this man could becruel, ruthless, and calculatedwhen it matters. When he protects what is his. When he fights for what and who he loves.
Does this matter? I don’t matter. Not in the bigger scheme of things. His girls are the most important people in his life, and by telling him this about me, he’ll put some of my puzzle pieces together, and he won’t like what he sees.
I shouldn’t care. I’m leaving, as soon as he’s married again, if not earlier. By the look in his eyes, he won’t let me go until he’s dragged all the truth out of me, wanting to understand mypanic attack. I do work with his daughters, after all, and for all he knows, I’ll have a panic attack while they’re with me. No, he won’t let go until I’ve told him some of the truth, if not all of it.
Never all of it.
“Gabriella,” Ivan prompts again. “Tell me so I can understand.”
“Trafficking,” I breathe, my throat constricting. “Trafficking of girls.” I close my eyes. “That’s why I panicked when I didn’t see Irisha and Katya in their bed. I didn’t even think to look in yours, and with the gate open, and all the security, and?—”
I crack out a soul-tearing sob because my fear in that moment, when I was looking for the girls, it was so real, I was back in that cellar, cold and petrified…and not alone.
There were others being held. We didn’t talk, but we huddled. We didn’t fight, because how do you fight grown-ass men as a seven-year-old? We were terrified and easy to manipulate. And then—and then?—
I cling to him, pushing into his shoulder to smother my sobs, but this pain is a weed with roots so deep, it always grows back, no matter how many times I’ve ‘dealt’ with it, how many times I mowed it to the ground or dug down trying to find the last stubborn bit of horrid root burrowed so deep into me, it would kill me to rip it from my body. This is trauma: a dormant parasite that flared up and strangled me into a mute when I was still a girl. Now, it just circles my throat, willowy fingers tightening until I can’t breathe.
