Page 62 of Forced Arrangement

“I don’t like you going to meet him alone,” Franco says with a frown.

I smile at him. “I won’t really be alone. You’ll be able to see me.” I hold up my wrist, showing him the tracking bracelet. “You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

Franco smiles for the first time. “Perfect.”

“Did you bring the drone with us?” I ask him.

He nods, gesturing toward the back of the SUV.

“Let's do a little reconnaissance before I reply to him. Maybe we can see how many people are onIl Fantasmabefore I go to the meeting point.”

“I could call some other men in if we need them,” Franco agrees before getting out of the driver’s seat and going around to the back of the car.

I continue looking through the information that Rudy sent me while Franco sets up the drone. In a way, I understand Guiseppe’s rage so clearly now.

He’s my half-brother. Even though I can’t imagine feeling any affection for someone as evil as Guiseppe, it makes me terribly sad to know that he is my brother. We could have grown up together as a family. If only my father hadn’t been such a coward. If only Sophia’s father hadn’t agreed to help him hide his mistake from my mother.

I frown. My memories of my mother are complicated. She was a loving, sweet mother, but she was not allowed to have much say over my childhood.

I was raised to be a weapon, to be the fulfillment of the destiny that my father wanted to secure for his legacy. Now that I knew that Guiseppe was actually my brother, I think maybe he drove me so hard, treated me so harshly, to try and ensure that Guiseppe couldn’t best me and take over the family.

I sigh. I can imagine many other ways I could be spending my life. I would actually have been quite happy to have Guiseppe ruling the roost. Being a second son to a powerful man would have been a much more pleasant life than being the first, and only heir to such a powerful name.

Franco is a second son and his life has been significantly less difficult than my own in many ways. His father allowed him to choose his own path and didn’t stand in his way when he chose to be my right-hand man. I would likely have had the same kind of life.

But I would not have been betrothed to Sophia, I remind myself. It occurs to me that Guiseppe likely would have been betrothed to her instead and the thought makes me feel ill. Even if my brother hadn’t turned into a monster as he aged, he still had a reputation for doing terrible things to women. Sophia’s father had to pay off many of the families of women he had abused, just to keep them quiet.

My stomach turns over as I realize that even if he isn’t interested in sleeping with Sophia, he likely doesn’t care howmuch he hurts her. She’s just a bargaining chip to him, a pawn. He doesn’t care if she lives or dies, so long as she serves her purpose.

“Ready to fly,” Franco says, breaking into my dark thoughts.

I shake my head and focus on the task at hand. I can’t let the past and my new understanding of it, cloud my judgment at the moment. Sophia and our child need me to be completely focused or they might die.

“Let’s see what we’ve got going on over there.” I turn my eyes toward the harbor and watch as the drone lifts into the air to spy for us. I smile grimly in appreciation for technology. In my father’s day, my men would have had to sneak onto the ship and hope for the best. Now, we could at least have some more information about who was on the ship and where it was located before we attempted to send them in.

“Can you kill him?” Franco asks me as he looks at the screen that shows him what the drone sees.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“Guiseppe,” Franco says as he adjusts the direction of the drone. “Can you kill him, even knowing he’s your brother?”

I frown. “I don’t have a choice,” I say firmly.

“That’s not what I said,” he replies. He glances over at me for a moment, then goes back to flying the drone and taking video. “FoundIl Fantasma,” he says with satisfaction.

I ponder his words. Before I knew who Guiseppe truly was, I would have said yes without hesitation. Now, however, knowing that he was my older brother made it a lot harder to imagine doing what needed to be done.

How long had he known that we were siblings? Could we have learned to get along if that information was out in the open? Would I have treated him any differently if I had known who he truly was?

I realize that I probably would have, and the thought was concerning, given the current situation. I harden my heart, however, as I realize that he will be unlikely to feel any hesitation about killing me if the chance offers itself. In fact, that’s probably his main goal in setting up this meeting. He is probably planning to kill me as soon as he has signed documents that indicate that he will be taking over the holdings that belonged to Sophia’s father.

I smile in a grim way as I realize that he has probably been keeping Sophia alive just so she can sign over her portion of her father’s businesses and assets.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Franco says in a flat tone of voice, distracted by his work with the drone. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

My mouth presses into a hard line. He’s not wrong. I might not be capable of pulling the trigger when it comes down to it. Maybe it’s just as well that I’m going to serve as a pawn in this game of Guiseppe’s. My men are more than capable of taking Guiseppe out as long as we get them established on the ship before Guiseppe brings me back to face the music.

“Do what you have to. All of you,” I tell Franco. “This has to end today.”

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