Page 3 of Sin & Sapphire

As Oscuro and my father stared each other down, Nico wrenched me out of my seat by my upper arm and dragged me away from the table.

These men were going to murder my father. The devil had come to collect his due, and who were we to refuse? Papà had orchestrated unspeakable cruelty against the Russo family, and today, he’d pay the price. We all would.

“Get out of here,” Nico growled at me, heedless of the bruises his fingers would leave on my skin.

I looked to my father for permission, but his gaze was fixed on the invading men.

“Go,” Uncle Angelo ordered, his voice no less sharp for its quiet command.

A tornado of emotions—relief, shock, gratitude, confusion—whirled through me as I wrenched my arm out of Nico’s grip. Without a backward glance, I strode to the back of the restaurant and into the kitchen, abandoning my father and my uncle to the men who wanted to kill them.

The moment the kitchen doors slammed shut behind me, I took off at a dead run, shoving my way through the busy scene with a total disregard for anything but my flight.

When the sharp sound of gunshots rang out again, I kept running to the back, into the alley and toward freedom.

Freedom.Hah.

My heart ached with the impossibility of my dreams. Women who grew up in this life didn’t get freedom just because some asshole killed the man who’d kept them in line. Our toxic femininity was designed to be a perfect match to the toxic masculinity that kept the five Yorkfield mafia families humming along.

Sofia Russo, whom I’d known for decades, my best friend, didn’t get her freedom until she seized it. Violently. And now my father was dead.

Good riddance, I told myself, ignoring the grief that roiled in my gut, threatening to overwhelm me. I shoved through the back doors of the restaurant and into an alley that stank of trash and piss.

As my chest heaved and sweat poured down my face, I looked left and right, considering each avenue of escape and discarding it.

An armored SUV halted on the road in front of the alley, blocking my path. One of my father’s soldiers, Enzo Accardi, popped his door open, but before he could jump out of the vehicle to open the rear door for me, I’d yanked it open myself and threw my body into the back seat.

Enzo slammed his door shut as I did the same to my own. “Drive!”

I buckled my seatbelt and held on as the vehicle accelerated sharply, as if the driver were heedless of the pedestrians in Yorkfield.

“Your father—” Enzo began.

The edges of my vision darkened, and I didn’t hear the rest of what he said through the roaring of blood in my ears.Shit!If I didn’t get ahold of myself, I’d spiral into a full-fledged panic attack. Enzo couldn’t see that. I had to hold myself together.

“Dante Oscuro, Nico Lombardi, and Lorenzo Russo walked into that restaurant and murdered him,” I said after too long a silence, the steadiness of my voice surprising me.

A wisp of fancy, the thought of ordering Enzo to turn the car around and driving until we ran out of gas, then hitchhiking to the West Coast, and enjoying the sand between my toes, fluttered through my mind as I pulled myself together.

I held my hand to my heart, composing my face into a proper mask of sadness as I ran my fingers through my hair, blotted my face dry with tissues, and arranged my clothing.

Enzo looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Not even a tear for your father?”

My father’s favorite solider had to have known what my father did to me—the beatings, the nights locked in a closet as a girl, the starvation when I was old enough to develop curves he thought were too slutty for the image he’d cultivated.

“I’m in shock.” He knew I lied, but as long as I kept my expression demure, he couldn’t call me on it.

“I’m sure,” Enzo murmured, settling back into his seat.

“Angelo lives?”

“Unfortunately.” The sentiment surprised me, but I was raised better than to show any emotion at all. “He’ll meet us at the house—he called me to pick you up.”

I nodded sharply, then turned my face out the window to end any further attempts at conversation. Enzo didn’t hold any power while Angelo was alive. He’d been my father’s second-in-command, but given that his brother tried to kidnap my best friend, and then her daughter and mother, I didn’t trust him any further than I could throw him.

We sped through the streets of Yorkfield, sirens blaring, fast enough to kill anything foolish enough to get in our way. An armored vehicle this heavy couldn’t stop on a dime, we’d ram our way through just about any danger.

The gates to my father’s estate opened, welcoming me home. We drove up to the front door, and Enzo hopped out to open the door for me.

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