Page 76 of Vow of Silence

I nod, moving deeper into his sanctuary to take the seat he vacated. The book he read lies on the cushion. A story about war and loss.Fitting.

“You don’t look like you’ve mentally checked out, so I assume Nastasya is okay.”

I chuckle at his observation.

“Which means that either you arrived, and they were all dead; somebody beat you to it. Or you found out something else you didn’t want to know.” He smirks, popping a pod into the coffee maker. “I can’t imagine it was the first, so what did they say?”

I rise from his seat and head for the ornate desk at the side of the open-plan living space. A pen lies on the polished surface, but I fail to find any blank paper.

“Try the second drawer.”

I’m fucking done with my phone for today.

Sure enough, an untouched yellow jotter sits beneath a stack of envelopes. I pull it out and turn to rest my ass against the edge of the desk, the jotter braced in one hand while I write what I know.

The aroma of rich black coffee drifts from where Dion works, strengthening when he walks by with the steaming cups to set them down beside his seat on the lounger. Silence ensues, only the sound of the pen nib scratching the paper while I upend the truth.

He takes the sheet from me once I’m done, leaning back to read what I chose to recount. He didn’t need to know it all.

I pick when he reaches Naz’s name by the vicious tug of his brow toward his hardened eyes. With the warm coffee clutched in one hand, I stand beside the enormous windows and watch as he blinks twice, then drops the sheet to his lap. He doesn’t speak, though. Picking the page up once more to re-read the words I set down.

I shift my attention to the tall conifers in the front gardens, my focus zeroing in on a slight wave to the perfect cone the gardeners shape them to be.

“Are you sure?”

Dion watches me with what appears to be hope. Hope that our family isn’t this fucked. It’s no secret Ignazio didn’t takeit well when our grandfather named Papa the don. But this is some next-level bullshit. When loyalty to family and blood runs as deep as ours, willingly sabotaging the business on this level shows an intense loss of respect.

By turning against those who will always accept him, no matter his failings, our uncle has effectively set a torch to any connection he and my father share.

Brothers don’t do this to one another. Family is family, no matter what happens. You don’t have to love them, but veneration goes without saying. I hate the man who stole my voice, but deep down, I still care about him. He’s blood. My relative. Family.

He should feel the same toward us.

“What now?” Dion rises from his chair and crosses the room to the desk.

I wait until he gives me his attention again to shrug my shoulders. How do I proceed? I need more evidence, something solid. But where the fuck do I get that from other than the man himself?

Dion returns to the window, cracking a panel open a fraction before lifting the lighter he retrieved to the corner of the paper. The edges curl, the words fading as the flames take hold. We both watch the evidence of what I know—whathenow knows—shrink until the flames singe his fingertips.

The ash hits the wet rooftop outside and sizzles to a few black spots.

“I don’t understand why.” My brother echoes my sentiments as he drops onto the cushions. “If he wanted her gone, why stand by why she becomes your wife? And if he wanted a war, he had the perfect opportunity to start it the night Arseni brought Nastasya here.”

I tip my lips up on one side and nod.I know.

“There’s got to be a reason for this.”

I shift the half-drunk coffee to my left hand and form the shape of a gun with my right, tapping the ‘barrel’ against my chest.

“You think there’s a reason why he wanted it pinned on us?”

Another nod. There were no other key elements to the fucked-up plan. The issue is that Nastasya survived. If she’d died, then the retribution would have been swift. Irrational and impulsive.

The revenge would have hit straight at the top. At our father.

I shake my head, set the coffee on the side table, and then stride across to retrieve the discarded jotter. My urgent words bleed outside the guidelines, words large and angry. Dion accepts the offered sheet, dropping his gaze to read the simple sentence.

This has always been about what he thinks he deserves.

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