Page 146 of Sin & Sapphire

The moment the apartment cleared, Valentin dropped onto the couch. “Tchérnov took my mother. He’s offered her back in exchange for Ana’s hand in marriage.”

Angelo’s phone rang. His face blanched as he, too, received horrifying news. “They took my father from his home.”

No. Nonononononono. Not Nonno too!

“You have to go to them,” I said, steeling my heart and my soul. I stiffened my spine, hating every word I was about to say. “I can consolidate power here.”

“Can you?” Valentin asked. “You’re fucking brilliant, but you’ve never even held a job?—”

“That’s not true. I was a TA—” I stopped, scoffing at myself. He was right. I’d never held a real job. Never had to lead anything. Never been in charge of anything except looking pretty for my father’s contacts and helping him seal business deals. What the fuck could I do?

“You need protection, an alliance,” Luca said to Angelo, staring straight ahead. An alliance. He meant marriage. “As long as you’re on the chessboard, you’re in danger. And so are the people who care about you.”

Luca wouldn’t look at me. Why wouldn’t he look at me? Why wouldn’t he say it out loud?

“No,” I said. “I can do this.” I could. I’d just handed the keys to the empire over to Angelo, and I could use the social capital I had left to hold it together until he returned. As much as I might shy away from it, this is what I was born for, what I’d trained for my entire life. This is what mafia wives did for their husbands, even if I’d rather be doing anything else.

“You shouldn’t have to,” Luca murmured. “Let us keep you safe. If you marry me?—”

“You’ll lose everything,” I snapped. “Your father will never forgive you, and everything you’ve worked for your entire life will disappear.”

“My father will forgive a lot, if it means doubling his territory and getting free access to the Costa logistics network,” he said.

I calmed my expression to stillness. At the end of the day, I was still a piece on a chessboard. Marrying me would merge the Costa and Russo families, taking me off the board so that Angelo and Valentin could return to Europe and run their empires there.

“On your knees, pet,” Angelo growled.

As annoyed as his command made me, relief swept through me too. When I was their toy, I didn’t have to think, I didn’t have to perform, I didn’t have to do anything but accept whatever they wanted.

Luca set a pillow in front of Angelo, and I dropped to my knees as ordered, my hands behind my back, my knees slightly spread, the black skirt of my dress draping over my thighs.

“Who do you belong to, angel?” Angelo asked.

A tear dripped down my face. I never stopped crying these days. Crying from the pain of Valentin’s sadism. Crying with sympathy for the men who’d died because my father and Angelo thought they owned me. Crying as these men broke my heart.

“I belong to you,” I whispered. Angelo waited. “I belong to you,sir,” I corrected myself.

“I’d do anything to protect you, angel. Look at me,” Angelo rasped. “This is the only way, my love.”

Lies. Tony Russo would never accept me—he’d take my empire from me through his son, then find a way to discard me. They said this was for my protection, but somehow, protecting me always meant giving my power away to men. For my own good.

“Okay,” I whispered, biting my lips hard enough to draw blood so they wouldn’t see them wobble, wouldn’t see my broken heart lying in pieces on the floor, wouldn’t see anything but the calm, confident mafia princess they needed me to be.

Luca’s fingers flew over his phone. “Nikolai Berezin wants to meet. He’d hoped to stay neutral, but?—”

“But with the history of kidnapping family members in Yorkfield, he’ll look like he’s supporting Tchérnov if he doesn’t stand with us,” I interrupted. “Fuck.”

Marriage to Luca wasn’t the answer. His father would never stand with us, not after what the Costa organization had done to his sisters. Not after generations of Costas had built our empire on trafficking.

“When does he want to meet?” Valentin asked, scrubbing his face. Yeah, it’d been a long fucking day already.

“Now,” Luca said.

Angelo disappeared to change his bloody clothes. Valentin checked the clip in his gun, sighing. “A lifetime of building my business on the straight and narrow, and all it took was one blonde bombshell to drag me back into violence.”

He’d said it so quietly, I didn’t think he meant for me to hear. But he was right. Everything I touched turned to ash. The Costa empire was falling apart. Valentin’s business was neglected. And now, both of their parents—my grandfather!—were in the clutches of the man I’d spent the summer trying to escape.

My mind whirled feverishly.

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