Page 111 of Dangerous Vows

And I vow, on every scar, every loss, and every brother I’ve bled with, that I won’t let anyone take this dream from me.

AMARA

BOUGHT AND KEPT

“Iwant you to entertain yourself.”

Amara looks at me with a perplexed look on her face.

I lay a black American Express card on the table.

I’ve never seen one, but I know it doesn’t have a limit.

This means he trusts me.

“Entertain yourself. See how much you can spend on yourself. Order anything you want.”

Then, he bends and kisses me. It’s a long kiss filled with promise. His hand slides down my body. His touch was filled with purpose. A promise to protect what’s his.

“I want a world where this little person will be safe,” he says softly but with so much love in his voice, my eyes mist. “I have to go,” his voice is but a whisper.

He grabs his gun off the counter, and he disappears.

He’s gone because I rebelled against my father. I will never forgive myself if something were to happen to him. I sacrificed myself to protect him, yet we’re right back in the thick of things.

I clean off the table, then wash dishes by hand. It gives me purpose.

I wish I knew how to end this war.It’s foreign to me; to make matters worse, the men tell us nothing.

But we’re all involved. My father made sure of that.

PIETRO

THE COST OF HOLDING GROUND

Another brick in the wall.

The tension in the room is electric. War rooms always feel like this—the deadly silence before the bomb explodes.

Matteo’s at the head of the table, Renalto and Niccoló flanking him, both with matching grim expressions and black coffee in hand.

I lean back in my chair, arms crossed, eyes on the report laid out in front of us: surveillance photos, arrest records, timestamps. The takedown was clean. Effective.

“The Serbian heroin den in Staten Island got hit this morning,” Matteo says, voice clipped. “Twelve dealers arrested, including one of Miloš’s key distributors.”

“Luka Draganov?” Renalto asks, lifting a brow.

Matteo nods. “Yep. Caught with product, weapons, and enough cash to start a casino. He’s not talking yet, but it won’t take much pressure.”

Niccoló smirks. “Feds do our dirty work, and we get the street cleaned. That’s a win.”

“Careful,” Matteo warns. “It’s afragilewin. We start celebrating too hard, and too fast, they’ll retaliate fast and sloppy. All it takes is one misstep, and we’re scrambling to hold the line.”

He’s right.

I glance down at the photos again. Bloody fingerprints on a scale. A scuffed-up stash hidden in the false bottom of a van. They’d been getting sloppy. That’s how we got in.

“We’ve got momentum,” I say, nodding slowly. “But it’s thin. If they catch their breath, it’s over.”

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