Page 36 of The Sicilian Brotherhood I

She didn’t like the idea of a guy coming over too much and she promised that she’d be fine. I got on my bike and left to find Pietro. That bastard. If he was the one who’d done this, he’d messed up big time. Where would he have found someone to impersonate Dahlia… Maybe Elena after she’d had a deep tan. She was a Sicilian woman after all, with Moorish blood, as most of us had.

That theory didn’t sit right with my gut, but if Dahlia were right and there truly was a traitor in my ranks, this was worth exploring.

When I left for Connecticut, I traveled Northwest.

Dahlia had no plans of disobeying me, but what I didn’t know was that she’d leave the safety of Long Island to go visit that friend of hers, Skye Hudson.

As I drove across the border, Dahlia had flipped her hoodie up and she’d walked all the way to the nearest bus station that would take her to Brooklyn. She must have pinched the money from my wallet, but she’d done it quietly. And when I arrived at the Connecticut warehouse, I had no clue what kind of shit storm I’d be heading back into once I turned tail and returned south.

Not a fuckin’ clue.

Dahlia

I arrived at Skye’s with a lump in my throat and a knot in my chest that threatened to rip me apart. I didn’t want to take Giacomo’s suspicions seriously but the more I thought about how easily we’d been discovered and how someone who looked like me had been to Italy too, the more suspicious I became.

But Skye wasn’t a gangster. She had a daughter. She had a life. She’d never expressed interest in either the Sardinians or the Sicilians. She’d never shown signs of wavering in her loyalty to me, not even once. Not until now.

But I had to go see her. If she’d betrayed me, it was better for me to get to her first, before Giacomo. I’d seen how he dealt with disloyalty first hand.

I knocked on her door, but there was no answer. I heard footsteps pattering across the wood. I heard whispering and then I knocked again. Skye came to the door, her hair wrapped tightly beneath a black satin bonnet. With no makeup on, her hair tied and with her nightgown hugging her body, she looked even more beautiful than usual.

“Dahlia? Is that you?”

She seemed surprised to see me. I suppose that made sense no matter what since the last time she’d seen me, I was on the back of Giacomo’s motorcycle heading towards an unknown fate.

Given the reputation of the Sicilians, she had probably assumed death. But then, what about the people who had come looking for me? How did she fend them off? There were too many questions that I needed answers to.

“Yes,” I replied, “Skye I need you to let me in, we need to talk.”

“Does the Sicilian know where you are?”

“No,” I replied, “Giacomo isn’t here.”

“So you’re alone?”

“Yes.”

She moved aside and I followed her in.

“What’s going on Skye? Where’s Millie?”

“Millie? She’s playing downstairs.”

“Okay.”

That set me at ease. With her daughter in the house, Skye wouldn't do anything crazy. We'd get a chance to talk before Giacomo made crazy assumptions about her and hurt my best friend.

“What are you doing here at this hour?”

“We need to talk about what happened last time I was here.”

“Yeah,” Skye replied, “Rico came looking for you.”

“With Franco?”

She nodded, “Yeah. With Franco.”

“How is he?”

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