Page 77 of Vow of Silence

“To be the don.” He jolts to the window, burning the page as though he can’t wait to get rid of the poisoned words. “He wouldn’t hurt our father like that.”

I snort. If it were Dion and I, we wouldn’t hurt each other like that because we respect each other. But Ignazio… I set my hand on Dion’s forearm and nod.I think he would.

“No fucking way.” He shakes the last scrap of paper on the roof and then backs away from my touch. “He’s never done a thing to hurt this family. Sure, he’s angry that he was skipped for the role—and nobody knows why Grandfather did that—but he wouldn’t do anything like this.”

I should tell him, but it raises more questions if I do. Ones like those I’ve yet to answer for Nastasya. Seems I might need to borrow that jotter for later.

“They were lying,” Dion deduces with a shake of his hand, eyes glazed. “They had to be lying, knowing it would divert our attention from who’s responsible.”

I want to yell. I ache to throw my hands in the air and shout, “Who else would it fucking be?” But I can’t. I fucking can’t, and all because of the man my brother currently defends.

So, I take to the paper.

What do you remember from the night I lost my tongue?

I shove the paper at him, jaw hard, while waiting for him to read the goddamn words. He was young, but not so young his memories would be foggy. If he were a child, sure, but Dion was a teenager, the same as I was when our capo carried me in the door close to death.

“Where are you going with this?” He rubs his brow, paper slung between his legs as he leans elbows to knees at his seat on the lounge.

He’s as reluctant as I am to relive that horror. But it is who I am, and I can’t change that. No matter how much I resent what happened or what it did to me, it doesn’t change who I am now. The sooner we get comfortable talking about the horrors of our past, the sooner they lose their power over us.

I snap my fingers near his face.Come on. Talk.

“Fuck you.” He drags both hands over his face, paper fluttering to the floor. “What do you want to know?”

I tap the goddamn discarded question with the toe of my boot.

Dion sighs, gaze fixed on the scrawled words. “There was fucking blood everywhere, Benito.” He hesitates, fingers flexing. “Vinny had it on his neck from where your head had rolled against him when he lifted you from the car. But it was the smellthat got to me most. He walked you past me, rushing you into the parlor while Papa called the medics, and, fuck brother, it just stank.” He curls his lip, wrinkling his nose. “Coppery death. That’s all I can describe it as. Fuck the trail you left on the floor; it was thesmellof you dying that got to me most.” He lifts his head, watery eyes finding mine.

I drop to my haunches before him to level our gazes and put one hand on his knee.It’s okay. I’m here now. I’m okay.

“Papa tried to find out who phoned the driver, but when he went out to the car, he found the guy’s throat had been cut. Deep enough for him to bleed out, but not so deep it would be instant.”

I drop to my ass, eyes wide.

“You never knew that, huh?”

I shake my head. I remember fuck all of how I got home. I remember nothing of how I survived. I only remember how it happened.

In stark fucking detail.

“Whoever sent you home in that car knew how long it’d take to get there and gambled with how long that soldier would live.”

I nod slowly. Of course, Papa would then think our enemies did it. Who else would want our man silenced? He probably figured I called the car myself, and the driver was ambushed. Although, that wouldn’t make sense. The evidence would have been on my phone if I had done it myself.The phone that vanished.Shit.

“It took twenty-seven minutes for the paramedics to arrive,” Dion continues. “It could have been quicker, except Papa needed someone on our payroll. So, they took as long as they did. Vinny had to restart your heart while they pulled into the driveway. The first thing they did was give you a shot of adrenalin while the other one hooked up blood.” He sighs out his nose, hanging his head between heavy shoulders. “You still bled while they did it,this fucking pool that seemed to circle your head like you were a goddamn saint.”

I lift a shaky hand to the pen and scrawl another note.

Forget about what was happening to me. I want you to recall what you know about how it happened.

He reads the words, expressionless, as he stares down at the ironically bright and jovial yellow paper. “You’d gone out for some reason. You were mad at Papa. That’s all I can remember. I don’t know where you went.”

My shoulders rise with my sigh. It was the fucking secrecy that did me in. If I’d just been honest about what I was doing and who I was with, the ability for Ignazio to blackmail me into silence would have been redundant because I wouldn’t have had to say a fucking thing for my parents to know who else was with me.

Where I was.

Dion lifts his head, pinning me with a hard stare. “Ignazio was out of town when it happened.”

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