Page 125 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

“B-because,” I whispered.

I had been asking myself the same question over and over and over again tonight. Why did I leave Sage before finding her something else to eat? Why did I let Bethany dump her food into the trash? Deep down, I had known that Bethany would do it. I’d fucking known it, and I’d let it happen.

“Because you’re not a good friend yourself,” Constantino said.

“S-stop,” I cried. “Please, stop.”

“It’s the fucking truth, Laila.”

My chest tightened, and I wrapped my arms around my body. “Please, Constantino.”

All I wanted was for him to hold me, to tell me that everything would be okay, that I wasn’t a bad friend. I had dedicated the last few years to being the best person and friend I could to the girls. Years!

Constantino’s phone buzzed in his hand. He growled and gazed down at the screen, scowling. “I have to go clean something up,” he said, walking through the closet to find a suit. “Think about what you’ve done tonight.”

And when he stormed out of the closet and shut the door, I collapsed to my knees and curled into a ball on the cold floor. Tears raced down my cheeks, and I sobbed into my hands.

Why am I so stupid? I had hurt her so badly.

The sadness on her face when Bethany had dumped her food … I couldn’t erase it from my head.

This was my fault, and I didn’t know how to fix it. Someone was bound to get hurt.

And that someone would be me.

When I walked back into the bedroom, desperately wanting to hold Sage again, the bed was completely empty.

27

constantino

I sped through the relatively quiet streets of New York City, racing toward our external warehouse, where a shipment of drugs was supposed to land tomorrow night. When I spotted a police cruiser lurking at a street corner, I slowed and gripped the steering wheel, unable to stop thinking about what Laila had said tonight.

She was right.

According to our agreement, we used Sage as a toy. Nothing more. We could come and go as we pleased and could request her service at any time. What Laila had done didn’t break the agreement in the slightest.

Sage was our plaything—more specifically, Laila’s plaything—the girl I had bought in case something went wrong with the FBI and Laila was left alone without a baby and with Bethany the Bitch. We didn’t have to be Sage’s friend, and she had to deal with it.

So, why the fuck had I felt like shit when I found her crying? I was the fucking boss of this family, had killed and tortured more men than I could count. Why did a sex toy’s tears anger me? We were to use her and be done with it.

I growled underneath my breath and shook my head to clear my mind. I didn’t know what the fuck I was even going on about anymore. I shouldn’t have brought her out to dinner, shouldn’t have held her hand. All I should’ve done was bend her over the living room couch and fucked her tears away.

Deciding on taking the long way through the city—so the police didn’t track me—I finally drove down a deserted road to the warehouse that was based on the river. Pietro’s car was parked out front, the engine still on, as if he had jumped out of the car in a hurry.

Once I cut the engine, I yanked the key out of the ignition and hurried to the open door, spotting blood on the concrete just outside. Inside, corpses littered the room with bullet holes decorating their bodies. I walked through the men I hadn’t seen before and massaged my forehead.

“The hell happened here?” I asked Pietro, who stood with a couple of other men from our family.

Antonio and Diego.

“Trying to disrupt the shipment,” Pietro said, nodding to the men. “They have been lurking for a few days. I saw a boat dock a bit down the river and loaded some goods into our warehouse earlier this evening. Not the shipment of drugs, but some fake shit, like you had suggested, to lure these fuckers in. Turns out that someone in the family tipped them off.”

I glanced at Diego. “Take care of this place.” My gaze shifted to Antonio. “And find who it was.”

Pietro pulled his gaze back up to me and clenched his jaw. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”

Fuck.

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