Page 20 of Vows in Violence

“It’s not like I can do anything here. This room is just as secure as the one upstairs. I can’t leave the house without someone seeing me on camera.” I make my voice soft and pleading. “Please, I just want a moment.”

Nikolai’s eyes dart to Angel and then back to me. He shrugs. “Fine. If you do anything, he will be the one who pays for it.” Nikolai leaves, closing the doors behind him.

Angel immediately begins laughing, shaking his head. His hair has gotten longer. The way that it falls into his eyes almost makes him seem boyish. He reminds me of the Angel I knew when we were younger, before we had to deal with the repercussions of our father’s sins.

“Married life suits you, little one. You command them like the mafia wife you are.”

I brush his words aside with an irritated gesture. “I need you to tell me everything.”

“Whatever do you mean? Don’t they give you access to the Internet? I’m sure that it knows more than I do.”

“You know what I mean,diavolino.”

Angel draws the pad of his pointer finger across his lower lip, his eyes thoughtful. “Diavolino. Little Devil. Madre’s little nickname for me.”

“She called you that because you always did have a mouth on you. I don’t have much time, Angel. Stop with the games.”

Angel sighs. “Trust me. I am done with my games.”

There’s something in his voice, in the way he looks away from me rather than at me… “You mean…you don’t have a plan?”

Angel looks up at me. I don’t know how he hasn’t lost his mind. His face is misshapen from the amount of punches, kicks, and who knows what else has been inflicted upon him. Pain, sharp and shocking in its intensity, erupts in my chest when I see it.

“My plan is to stay alive until Ivan’s own plans fold in on him.”

My head shakes of its own accord. “That isn’t going to happen, Angel. I have spent a lot of time with this man. He is detail-oriented to a fault. His men are loyal to him. Nothing is going to catch him off-guard.”

“Until Azrael decides it is better to have a dead Don than a captured Don. I’m running out of time,sorellina. I’ve accepted the eventuality of my death, but I want to make sure that I am smiling as Ivan is taken down with me.”

“Don’t talk like that!”

I turn away from him and his cage, tears forming in my eyes. The room swims before me until I realize I’ve turned to the very spot where Brodie died. I take a few steps away, trying to gather myself.

When our grandfather decided to build up our family’s empire, did he ever imagine that it would lead to this? A world where daughters would be forced into marriages, children would kill their parents, and cages would separate brothers and sisters? There is tremendous wealth and power when one rules this world, but everything and everyone is at risk.

And once you are born into it, there is no escaping it. Many have tried, but revenge and greed have a way of crossing oceans and continents and finding those with even the remotest connection to this world. The only true escape is the one Angel has resigned himself to: death.

I turn back to him.

“Why, Angel? Why did you do it? All of this?”

Angel doesn’t respond. I close the distance between us and kneel on my side of the cage. Reaching through the bars, I touch the hand resting on his knee. “Please. I have to know.”

Angel takes a deep breath and meets my gaze. “Marcus Papparado—”

“Damon’s brother?”Our sister’s husband.

Angel nods and continues as if I hadn’t interrupted. “…had a plan to take out his brother. This isn’t normally something we would concern ourselves with, but my man told me that the intention was for our family to take the blame for the hit.”

I sit back, my lips rounding in an O of acknowledgment.

“I went to our father with this information. He was fresh from making a deal with the Scarpettas and Marzanos, promising both of them Lulu’s hand. ‘By the time the marriage comes, the money will be gone,’ he told me. He wasn’t concerned about what Lulu would have to endure from such an arrangement; he only cared about the money. As for the Papparado plot, our father said that the Papparados wouldn’t dare. It was a rumor—a false lead. No one would dare invoke the wrath of Valachi. Then, he tells me he was going to offer you to Maxim Romanov’s monster of a son. The Romanovs would pay a lot of money for a Valachi bride. They wanted to be further legitimized in our world. Marrying you, a Valachi, was a way to do that.”

“I don’t…”

“I’m not done. As long as our father was alive, I was powerless, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I faked my death, went into the streets, and joined a gang that worked under the Papparados. I learned a lot about the state of our family by roaming those streets. We were losing our power, bit by bit, and I needed to do whatever I could to make sure that didn’t happen. The moment I decided to do this was when Padre made the deal with Maxim Romanov. Do you have any idea of what he did with that money,sorellina?”

I shake my head, tears stinging my eyes. “No.”

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