Page 5 of Sin & Sapphire

“Boss,” Enzo began, reluctant to leave. “Gio would have?—”

“My brother set this in motion!” Angelo roared in a shocking display of temper. “And now my brother is dead!”

“Youradoptedbrother,” Enzo spat.

My breath caught in my chest at the audacity of this asshole, to question the newdonmoments after the death of the old.

“Out,” Angelo snarled, violence written in every one of his tense muscles. “Or you’ll follow Gio into death.”

I stepped back as fear wound its way through me, remembering the stories of Angelo’s violence that Gio had told over dinner, making him sound like a mad dog barely contained by my grandfather’s leash.

“Not you.” Both Enzo and I stopped. “Ana, stay,” Angelo commanded, his voice softening slightly.

I stood, my feet rooted to the ground.

“Sit.” His eyes warmed in approval when I did so, and the answering warmth in my chest shocked me. “It’s time to discuss your engagement.”

2

ANGELO

In ten years,my obsession with the angel before me hadn’t faded. Valentin hated it—hated her for the sway she unknowingly held over me. And now? My brother was dead, and nothing stood between me and taking what I wanted.

I was a disgusting fuck, lusting after a woman fifteen years my junior, a woman who saw me as her uncle, my dead brother’s daughter, whether we were bound by blood or not.

My cock hardened as I watched her, imagined her on her knees for me, biddable and submissive, obeying my every command.

Hah. Ana had never willingly obeyed a man in her life. No reason to think she’d start now. I grinned, well aware of how terrifying my smile was.

She sat utterly still, ankles crossed demurely, waiting for me to speak. She didn’t fidget or push an errant strand of hair behind her ear. She was too well trained in her role as a perfect mafia princess to react to my smile.

My eyes fell to the bruises on her left bicep, and rage flowed through my veins, turning the heat of my lust to fury. Her gaze followed mine, and the left side of her mouth twitched up in an enigmatic quirk I couldn’t read.

“Does this mean war?” she asked again. Her voice wavered, and my gaze snapped back to hers, shocked by the vulnerability in her tone. For a second, sadness softened her face, before she snapped back to icy calm as she waited for my answer.

Did she mourn him? Had she loved him? Did she hate me for taking his place? All questions that would have to wait.

I shrugged out of my jacket and threw it over the back of Gio’s favorite armchair. “No,” I said. “Your father?—”

“Is dead,” she cut me off, revealing nothing of her emotional state.

“I’m sorry,” I offered, wondering if she could hear how insincere my words were.

“I’m not,” she answered, satisfying my curiosity about how she felt, but not what Gio had done to her when I wasn’t looking.

I hadn’t missed the other bruises—the one fading on her cheek, hidden by makeup, or the deep bruise on her thigh that she thought her dress hid, or even that Nico wasn’t the first man to manhandle her and leave bruises on her arms.

It didn’t matter. Gio Costa was dead, and he would never hurt my angel again.

Relief swept through me that I hadn’t had to put him down myself. Our father refused to believe what an asshole he was, but I knew. I’d always known. My brother had tormented me as a child, and now he was dead.

My father had sent me over to see what the fuck was going on—Gio had kidnapped the daughter of another Yorkfielddon, apparently the one thing our father couldn’t countenance. Not the trafficking, not beating his wife and daughter, but the kidnapping of another man’s child.

And now he was dead. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

Ana waited, one eyebrow raised slightly.

“No war,” I said firmly.

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