Chapter 6

Emilio POV

The Commission does not ask nicely.

They do not send emails, and they certainly do not make phone calls.

Instead, they send a single, dead canary in a box to my office.

It was a message, brutal and unambiguous: Sing, or die.

Elana's "suicide" was drawing too much heat. The police were asking questions. The press was digging. My enemies were smelling blood in the water.

I needed to close the loop.

I sat behind my mahogany desk, the wood cool under my fingertips, grounding me.

Hayden sat across from me.

She was nursing my scotch. She had her feet up on the chair where Elana used to sit, claiming the space with an arrogance that made my skin crawl.

She looked comfortable.

Too comfortable.

"The police are calling it a tragedy," she said, swirling the amber liquid against the crystal. "They say she was unstable. Post-partum depression, maybe? Even though there was no baby."

She giggled.

The sound grated on my nerves like sandpaper on bone.

"Ayla tells me you were busy the day Elana died," I said. My voice was low, devoid of inflection.

Hayden froze. The glass stopped halfway to her lips.

"I was shopping," she said. "For Leo."

"Ayla says you withdrew fifty thousand dollars in cash."

"So? I like to spend money. Your money."

"She also says you met with two men near the docks. Freelancers. The kind who don't ask questions."

Hayden set the glass down. It made a sharp clink on the wood.

She stood up and walked around the desk, her hips swaying with assumed victory. She put her hands on my shoulders.

"Emilio," she purred. "Does it matter? She's gone. We won."

"Did you kill her?" I asked.

I didn't feel anger. Not yet. I just felt a cold, clinical need for the truth.

Hayden sighed. She looked at me with wide, innocent eyes.

"I did it for us," she said.

The air seemed to vanish from the room.

"I did it for Leo," she continued, her voice gaining confidence. "She was a threat. She was going to leave you. She was going to take half your empire. I just... gave her a push. Literally."

She smiled. She actually smiled.

"I saved you, baby. I cleaned up your mess."

My stomach turned over.

It wasn't love. It wasn't loyalty.

It was a power play.

She hadn't killed Elana to protect me. She had killed Elana to replace her.

And in that moment, I saw the truth I had been ignoring for years.

I looked at Hayden's face, distorted by greed and ambition, and I saw my own reflection.

I had created this monster.

I had fed it with diamonds and lies.

"You broke the code," I said. "You touched a Made Man's wife."

Hayden laughed. "She wasn't a wife. She was a decoration. And now she's fish food."

I stood up.

I didn't yell. I didn't throw things.

I just reached under the lip of the desk and peeled free the suppressed pistol I kept taped against the wood.

Hayden's smile vanished.

"Emilio?"

"You're right," I said. "I need to clean up my mess."

"Emilio, wait! I love you! I gave you a son!"

"You gave me a headache," I said.

I didn't hesitate.

I pulled the trigger.

One shot. Clean. Center of the forehead.

She dropped to the floor like a marionette with cut strings. The expensive Persian rug soaked up the blood instantly.

I looked down at her.

I felt nothing for her.

But for Elana?

A sharp, jagged shard of pain ripped through my chest.

Hayden pushed her off the cliff.

But I was the one who drove her to the edge.

I sat back down.

I pressed the intercom button.

"Send the cleaners," I said. "And get rid of everything she ever touched."