Page 74 of Brutal Vows

“Tell her the truth, mother,” I growl, my patience thinning. “She isn’t really running things, not in the shadows. Maybe she appears to be in charge, but you’ve had your influence in the underworld for a very long time, haven’t you?”

“No,” Antonia insists, her voice steady yet strained. “She’s right. I’ve been ruling since I turned eighteen. Mother has had nothing to do with the business.”

I scoff, turning to face my sister, my gaze piercing. “So you’re telling me that the sex trafficking is your doing, little sister?”

Antonia’s face drains of color, the truth hitting her like a cold wave.

With pursed lips, I shift my focus back to our mother. “That’s what I thought.”

“Why…” Antonia’s eyes well up with heartbreak as she stares at our mother, her voice trembling with sorrow. “Sex trafficking? How could you do something so horrific?” Each word is laced with disgust, dripping from her lips like venom. “I would never have condoned something like that.”

“It’s what needed to be done, Antonia,” our mother chastises darkly, her voice full of determination. Her eyes, hard as flint, bore into mine even as she talks to my sister. “Do you honestly believe that drugs and guns are enough?”She lets out a derisive laugh. “The skin trade is what brought us back from the brink of ruin.”

“Ruin you caused,” I snarl, my voice trembling with barely contained fury. I take a step forward, fists clenched at my sides. “You thought it would be so simple, didn’t you? Not realizing that Father kept so many other mafia families at bay with just a whisper of his name. Not just out of fear, but out of respect. Your war with them is what bankrupted you. Your sickening need for revenge.”

“They killed my family!” she roars, her hand diving behind her back with a swift, practiced motion. The metallic click of a pistol being drawn echoes, and she aims it at me, her eyes gleaming with dark intent. Antonia’s guards tense, their hands moving to their holsters, ready to follow our mother’s orders. Antonia’s eyes widen, fear and bewilderment flashing across her face when one of them points his gun at her head.

“Your grandfather murdered my parents and uncles. Aurelio murdered my brothers. They were only thirteen years old,” she continues, her voice cracking with raw emotion.

“And how many children have you murdered, mother?” Antonia spits, her voice a venomous hiss. “How many children have you ripped from their families to be sold off to perverts who would rape and abuse them?”

“Isn’t that what Fino’s plan for Gia was?” I interject, my voice cold and accusing. “Fino wasn’t selling her to be Salvatore’s pet. He was selling her to pay his debt because you knew how high a price you would have gotten for her virginity.”

Another cold laugh emanates from the woman who once filled my life with warmth. Her eyes glint with a chilling satisfaction.

“Hersale would have paid off his debt and then some,” she sneers, her voice sharp as broken glass. She shifts the gun’s aim from my chest to my wife’s, the barrel now trained on Gia’s heart.

“Your father knew your mother would never support Salvatore or me as leaders,” she continues, each word dripping with malice. “So he trapped her in that room with the bomb strapped to her body.”

Gia flinches at the revelation, her face ashen, open-mouthed, eyes glistening as tears threaten to spill down her cheeks. She is like a fragile porcelain doll on the verge of shattering.

My mother’s lips curl into a self-satisfied smirk, making my stomach churn. “She didn’t want to, of course,” she adds with a cruel laugh, “until he threatened you.”

Her cold eyes flick back to mine, the satisfaction etched deeper into her features, like an artist admiring their masterpiece.

“Let’s see if my son is as willing to sacrifice himself for you as she was,” she taunts in a low, venomous whisper.

The room holds its breath as the gun’s trigger clicks and the deafening crack of the shot slices through the air.

All I hear is Gia’s deafening cry and the shattering of my heart as my entire world crumbles around me.

Thirty-Nine

It all happens at once.

I scream as the shot fires and someone’s body crashes into mine, sending me crashing to the floor with a sharp burst of pain. The room erupts in chaos, and I’m frozen in place as I watch Vitali’s eyes widen in horror when his sister’s body hits the ground with a deafening thud. Wincing, I get to my feet, watching as Matthias, who had been buried in the crowd of onlookers, rushes forward and starts barking orders.

Hadn’t he been down in the cellar with us at one point? How did he get free? My gaze scans the crowd, searching for the others, but I can’t find them. Instead, my eyes land on Sevia, who is using the disruption of her own daughter’s injury to sneak toward the exit. Opening my mouth, I go to scream when a rough, calloused hand clamps over my mouth, muffling the terror ripping through my throat. I thrash on instinct, my nails clawing at the iron grip around my waist, but it is useless. The person is too strong, too determined.

Tears escape when I hear Antonia’s strangled gasp cutthrough the madness, the sickening sound of Vitali’s roar of pain sending waves of ice through my veins. I can’t see them anymore through the blur of bodies moving in panic, but I know.

Antonia isn’t going to make it.

She died for me.

Twisting harder, I kick wildly, trying to wrench free, to run to Vitali, but the man holding me yanks me back against his chest. A low grunt of effort rumbles against my spine as he hauls me toward the doorway with no one the wiser. I dig my heels into the marble floor, my breath coming in ragged, desperate bursts against his suffocating palm.

“Keep struggling, and I’ll break something,” he growls in my ear. My body tenses, the weight of his threat pressing against the terror already seizing through me but if I stop, who knows where he will take me.

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