Page 63 of Sin & Sapphire

Me

I’m working. I’ll call you later.

I wouldn’t.

“Fucking Italians,” Dmitri muttered, peering over my shoulder. “Family problems?”

I swiped the phone off. He didn’t need to know I had any interest in the Costa empire outside of claiming territory for my family.

The Russian enforcer led me to the last cell, where a dark-haired man hung from chains, snarling in Russian. My family had never shied away from torture, but the Yorkfield bratva didn’t even pretend civility.

Dmitri strode over to him, lifted his head by his hair, and slammed his fist into the captive’s stomach. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Working with the Italians now, you traitor?” the captive said with a heavy Russian accent.

Dmitri smiled. A lesser man would have quailed, but not our captive. He spat blood onto the ground at our feet. “You Americans are so fucking weak, so eager to make alliances, leaving your city ripe and ready for the taking.”

I flicked out my switchblade. “Let’s start easy. What’s your name, asshole?”

Our captive laughed, hoarse and rough, the sound echoing in the cement dungeon. Unlike the spotlessly clean interrogation rooms my family preferred, the bratva used the dank basement of a club, the base of the music pounding three floors above us, hiding the screams of anyone we tortured tonight.

“I don’t give a fuck what his name is,” Dmitri said, slamming his fist into the captive’s stomach so hard he lifted him off his feet. “I want to know why Tchérnov is importing Russians to Yorkfield and taking over Costa territory.”

My eyes narrowed. The Russians were burning down Costa territory, not taking it over. Or were they?

My gut clenched at the thought of Ana in that fucker’s hands. I’d long suspected Angelo used his brother’s human trafficking operation as a cover, sliding under the radar so none of the Yorkfield empires realized who was importing the designer drugs, and now they had Ana to barter off and establish a real foothold in the city, even as my family worked to dismantle their trafficking empire.

I whirled around slicing my switchblade through his cheek so swiftly blood spattered out for a meter. “The Costas have nothing left of value. Why are you burning down their property?”

The captive spit blood onto my shoe, and then sneered. “Because Costa promised the Pakhan his slut daughter and access to his trafficking network. And now the slut has cost the Pakhan millions instead of making him millions.”

I cuffed the man across the face. “We don’t talk about women that way,” I said, as my mind roiled. “What do you meanpromised the Pakhan his daughter?”

He sneered at me. “Stupid fucking Italians, think they own the city, but you don’t knowshit. The Costa bitch and the Pakhan’skid were engaged. And instead of honoring her word, she set his goddamned boat on fire.”

Ana had been promised to Tchérnov the entire time we’d been together. And she’d never said anything. Nausea settled in my stomach as I tried and failed to calm the maelstrom of emotions in my gut.

Ana had to have known when she left. I wanted to tear my hair out with fury and longing. If only she’d told me. I’d have?—

Shame swept through me. I’d have done nothing. Like I was doing nothing now while her uncle had her locked up in Nice. My gut clenched, and I regretted every moment I hadn’t spent convincing her she could trust me with the truth.

But why would she?

Our families hated each other.

Gio Costa had been instrumental in the kidnapping of my oldest sister.

My other sister’s husband killed Gio Costa four years later.

Of course Ana didn’t trust me. I was a good fuck, a place where she could let her walls down, but not someone she’d ever consent to spending the night with, to running off into the sunset and building a future together with.

I’d been a fucking moron.

“What other properties are you targeting?” Dmitri asked, shaking me out of my spiral.

When the man didn’t answer, malice roiled through my veins. Threatening the Costas was threatening Ana. I grabbed a pair of garden shears from where they hung on the wall and scissored the blades around two of the man’s fingers.

“What’s your next target?” I asked, squeezing the handles together, fighting back the irrational rage that threatened to engulf me. The man kept screaming, even after his fingers dropped to the ground.

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