Chapter 7

I was still paralyzed, my gaze locked on the ruin of my hand, when the door exploded inward.

Splinters of mahogany became shrapnel, showering the room.

Men in tactical gear swarmed the suite like a tide of black oil. They wore combat armor, but the crest on their chests wasn't the Moretti wolf.

It was the Vitiello lion.

"Clear!" a voice shouted.

Then he walked in.

Luca.

My brother. The Capo dei Capi.

He looked like war personified. He held an assault rifle at the low ready, his eyes scanning the room until they landed on me.

His expression didn't change, but the air in the room seemed to freeze, the temperature plummeting.

He strode to the bed. He saw the blood soaking the sheets. He saw the flayed skin of my back. He saw my hand.

He gently touched my wrist, his calloused fingers hovering over the deep cuts where the bone gleamed white.

"Who did this?" he asked. His voice was terrifyingly quiet.

"Sofia," I whispered.

"And the back?"

"Dante."

Luca closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they were voids devoid of light.

"Get the medic," he ordered his men. "Prepare her for transport."

"Mia..." I grabbed his tactical vest with my good hand, desperate. "Luca, Mia is dead. They killed her. They cut out her tongue."

Luca's jaw tightened until the muscle feathered. "We will find her."

"She's in the landfill," I choked out. "Sofia told me."

"Luca!"

Dante's voice roared from the hallway.

He appeared in the doorway, his own men behind him, guns drawn. The hallway became a powder keg. Vitiello soldiers against Moretti soldiers.

Dante looked at Luca, then at me.

He saw the blood dripping from my hand. He frowned.

"What is the meaning of this?" Dante demanded. "You do not storm my house."

"You broke the treaty," Luca said. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. "You tortured a Vitiello. You maimed her."

"I disciplined my wife," Dante snapped. "It is an internal matter."

"Look at her hand," Luca commanded, pointing the barrel of his rifle toward my injury. "Is that discipline?"

Dante looked closer. He saw the sliced fingers. The specific, cruel nature of the wounds.

"I didn't order that," Dante said, his voice faltering. He looked confused. "I ordered lashes."

"Sofia did it," I said. My voice was hollow. "She came in. She used cello strings. She told me she had Mia killed."

Dante looked at me, then back at the hallway where Sofia was cowering behind his legs.

"That isn't true," Sofia cried. "I was in the kitchen! I was making tea!"

"She is lying," Luca said. He raised his rifle, aiming it directly at Sofia's head. "She dies. Now."

"No!" Dante stepped in front of her.

He put his body between the bullet and the girl.

"Move, Dante," Luca warned. "She mutilated my sister. She executed a made guy's daughter. She dies."

"She is under my protection," Dante said. "If you shoot her, you start a war."

"Then let it be war," Luca said.

He disengaged the safety with a loud click.

"Gianna is my wife," Dante said, his voice hard. "But Sofia... Sofia is my blood. She is everything to me. You will not touch her."

I watched them.

My husband, shielding the woman who had just crippled me. Shielding the woman who murdered my best friend.

He knew. Deep down, he had to know she did it. The evidence was written in my blood.

But he didn't care.

His obsession was stronger than his honor. Stronger than the truth.

"Take me home, Luca," I said.

The silence in the room was heavy, suffocating.

"I am taking her," Luca said to Dante. "And I am killing the girl."

"You can take Gianna," Dante said. "But if you fire that gun, none of you leave this estate alive."

Luca looked at Dante with pure disgust.

"You are a fool, Moretti. You are trading a queen for a whore."

"I am trading a contract for a soul," Dante replied.

I closed my eyes.

He really believed that. He believed she was his soul.

"Pack her up," Luca ordered his men, turning his back on the man who was supposed to protect me. "We are leaving."