Page 4 of Ruthless Vow

They should thank me. If they weren’t getting some extra sleep, they’d also be on the hit list today.

A large motor boat floats off to one side, waiting to remove my aunt’s men the same way it brought them here. Quickly and efficiently.

One of the men, a blond, holds Leo’s sister Sabina off to one side, his gun at her temple. I regret that. Sabina’s only ever been kind to me.

Two other men have their weapons trained on Leo and his brother Damian, who stand on the far side of the platform, backs to the ocean.

Leo never mentioned his siblings would be on the yacht this weekend. Had I known, I would have—

Would have what?

The plan is a runaway train, out of my control—not that I had any control to start with. My aunt is the one with all the control, pulling my strings like I’m a puppet.

There are moments I hate her as much as I hate Leo Russo. Maybe more. Because she’s my family, my blood, and a part of me aches for her to love me, just as it ached for my father to love me, to see me as someone of value.

He never did. He always saw me as a girl who was born in place of the son he wanted, a son who would restore our family name and prominence.

I remember the slurs he used to fling at my mother, the disgust for her failure to give him a son. Guess he never got the memo that a baby’s sex is determined by the father.

I still hear his voice in my head, telling me I am worthless, a disappointment, a burden, an ugly, stupid thing.

He was blown to pieces late one night in his restaurant, thanks to a bomb left there by Leo.

Since his death, my aunt has continued that litany. But she’s too smart to rely only on intimidation, manipulation, and family loyalty. If that was all she had, I would never have agreed to work for Salvatore, never have betrayed him, never have continued to work for Leo. I would have run as far from Las Vegas as possible, changed my name, stayed away forever.

But Bianca has a trump card up her sleeve: she has a hostage, the person I love most in this world. Sofia.

And I know Bianca won’t hesitate to hurt her. She’s done it before.

I step forward and all three Russos stare at me. My heart pounds. I wish I were anywhere but here.

“Guess you found your spy, Leo,” Damian says.

“What the actual fuck…” Leo’s eyes narrow. “How long have you been working for the Ivanovs, Nicole?” His voice is soft, deadly.

“I don’t work for them. This isn’t about your war with the Ivanovs,” I say.

I don’t bother to share that it’s about another war entirely, one that’s five decades old, one that ruined my family, stole our name and standing.

Il Massacromy father called it. The Massacre.

Fifty years ago, the Russos took down the Morettis. It was a bloodbath that involved murders not only of the family and their allies, but a campaign of assassinations of politicians, judges, prosecutors, and cops in order to shift the balance of power.

After that, the Russos flourished while the Morettis never recovered.

That ate away at my family for generations, a wound that was never forgotten.

Then, three years ago, I was brought to a meeting being held at the back of Casa Bruno, my father’s restaurant. There were five people there. Three I didn’t recognize. Two I did: my father and my aunt, Bianca.

They had a plan to take down the Russos. Slowly, carefully. The Morettis were still weak. We didn’t have the connections or the piles of cash needed to mount a war. The Russos could crush what was left of us with very little effort.

So we would start by having someone working on the inside. They’d decided it would be me. That I would use my dead mother’s last name and the fact that she had grown up with Salvatore Russo as leverage to land a job in his organization. My father insisted Salvatore wouldn’t know she’d married a Moretti, and that he would hire me based on an old family friendship. He was right on both counts.

But my father never got to gloat because Leo Russo blew him to bits before I ever even met Salvatore.

“You betrayed my father,” Leo says to me, his voice low, his cold, dark eyes measuring, judging. “You worked at his side for almost two years. You celebrated holidays with my family. You were invited to my cousin’s baby’s christening. And all along you were a spy for the enemy. You repaid my father by collaborating in his murder.”

His words shouldn’t wound me. But they do. Salvatore was a bad man, a terrible man, a criminal, a killer, some would say a monster. All the Russo men are.

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