Page 148 of Sin & Sapphire

“Without Angelo?”

My eyes narrowed. “He’s meeting Nikolai Berezin right now about his kidnapped father. Do you want me to interrupt that just so I can make plans for mass tomorrow?”

“You can’t call?”

I shook my head. Not with them tracking my SIM. “Let me do my job,” I murmured. “Let me support them like I was raised to do.”

He bought it and made the call. I slipped back into the apartment to wait, just as much to ease Johnny’s suspicions as because I needed a moment to say goodbye, even if only in my heart.

A quiet knock sounded at the door. I palmed the door open, and Enzo waited for me there.

When I slipped out, he raised an eyebrow. I pushed my shoulders back, grateful for the wardrobe Angelo had bought me, utterly aware that I didn’t even own my fucking phone—Luca paid that fucking bill.

“What do you want, princess?”

His casual use of Valentin’s nickname cut me to the quick. “You may call me Miss Costa,” I corrected. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Miss Costa?” Johnny asked, worry in his gaze as he fingered his gun, out of nerves, not threateningly.

I smiled brightly. “My men know where I am. No need to keep secrets.” The GPS tracker in my neck gave truth to my words.

Enzo made a call in rapid Italian as we entered the elevator. Bodyguards would meet us downstairs.

Before I climbed into his SUV, I yanked his face down to mine by the collar. “I know you collaborated with our enemies. If you fuck this up, I’ll kill you myself.”

He straightened, then nodded.

“You’re going to help me fix this.”

Enzo raised an eyebrow. “And how the fuck do you intend to do that?”

I explained my plan.

“And after, what?”

I lifted my chin. “Boris will be dead. And I’ll be free.”

His teeth flashed in a blinding smile. “If free means dead, sure.”

“Are you going to help me, or do you want me to explain to Angelo and Valentin that you’ve been collaborating with Tchérnov this whole time?”

Enzo’s annoyance turned to grudging respect. “You’re a Costa to your goddamned bones, aren’t you? Manipulative bitch.”

He meant it as a compliment, and he wasn’t wrong, so I didn’t correct him.

“Yeah, I’ll help,” he continued. “Especially if it’ll keep the family out of the hands of a scumbag like Tchérnov.”

I didn’t remind him that he’d been working with Tchérnov.

Enzo hopped into the front seat, my personal bodyguard now that I’d been welcomed back into the Costa fold. I never should have left. These people, their blood, their tears, their businesses, the money they paid us for protection, that gave me every privilege I’d grown up with, every piano lesson, every piece of jewelry I’d pawned for a tattoo.

For the first time, the responsibility weighed on me. I couldn’t pretend that I was fighting against it anymore, that my father’s cruelty meant I didn’t owe anyone a damn thing. I owed them everything.

And I would fix this if it killed me.

I suspected it would.

We rodethe elevator in silence, while I seized upon every moment of my training as a child to keep my face calm and pleasant. I was a fucking princess. Tchérnov wanted both a wife and revenge, and that meant he needed to keep me alive.

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