Page 63 of Bloody Vows
I'm caught.
For a moment, I just sit there, shaking, my hands gripping the steering wheel as I try to figure out what to do. I could run, but where? The alley is a dead end, and I'm not exactly dressed for scaling walls. I could try to ram my way past the other car, but I doubt that would work.
I hear the sound of a door opening from the other car, and I whip around, looking to see who it is. It’s not Tristan, or Konstantin, or Vitto, or Damien. Not any of the men I feared coming after me. Instead, it’s a man I never thought I’d see again. A man who disappeared like a ghost after my father’s death. A fucking coward.
He’s dressed in a dark suit that makes him blend into the shadows as he walks down the alleyway toward me. His face catches the dim light again, and I’m sure of what I’m seeing, my blood turning to ice as I stare at him from the other side of the car window.
Sal Envio.
My father’s former second-in-command. The man who did his bidding, who served him loyally, and who I always hated. Now, knowing what my father did, what kind of man he truly was, it all makes sense. But back then, I could never understand how he had a man like Sal working for him.
Sal is cruel. Misogynistic in a way that’s extreme even for our world. All my life, I remember seeing his eyes slide over me when no one else was looking, a covetous, lustful gleam in his eyes that for a long time I was too young to understand. When I was finally old enough to see it for what it was, it disgusted me.Hehas always disgusted me.
A few times over the years, I caught glimpses of him with the female members of the staff in the hallways. I saw their fear, saw the pleasure he took in hurting them, before I always ran away. I tried to tell my father once, but he didn’t believe me. It was my first lesson in a fundamental fact of our world… a woman will never be believed if a man has a different story.
I always tried to stay as far away from him as possible. But here he is, approaching me in a dark alley, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve made a terrible mistake runningfrom the only man who—despite how much I hate him—would protect me.
I have no doubt that Sal feels that Tristan stole something from him. That all of his years of service to my father meant that he was owedsomething, if not everything… and he was left with nothing.
I remember seeing him look at Enzo, when Enzo came to dinner just before our potential engagement was meant to be announced. Before everything went to hell. I remember the look in Sal’s eyes—jealous and angry. How, in that moment, I wondered if he wanted to be in Enzo’s place, and I was grateful that, at the very least, my father never considered giving me to his second-in-command.
Sal taps on my window with one knuckle, the sound sharp in the silence of the alley. After a moment's hesitation, I roll it down a few inches, my heart still pounding so hard in my chest that I think I can hear it.
"Hello, Simone," he says, his voice exactly as I remember—smooth, cultured, with just a hint of an accent. "We need to talk."
I swallow hard. "I have nothing to say to you, Sal." My voice is tight, firm. “I have somewhere to be, and you need to get out of my way.”
I put every bit of authority I’ve ever had into my voice—as my father’s daughter, as Tristan O’Malley’s wife—but Sal is entirely unaffected by it. He chuckles, leaning against the side of the car as he looks down at me through the crack in the window with narrowed eyes.
"I think you do. I think you have quite a lot to say, actually. About your new husband, about the arrangements that have been made, about the future of your father's legacy."
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. "What do you want?" I snap. “I don’t have time for this.”
Sal remains unmoved. "I want to help you. This situation—your marriage—it's not what your father would have wanted. It's not what any of us wanted."
“Us?” I sneer at him. I’m aware he’s a dangerous man, but something about my close proximity to Tristan since the wedding has dulled the edges of what makes Sal so terrifying. Next to Tristan, I realize, Sal seems like a shadow of a man like him—an imitation of something dangerous.
That doesn’t mean that he still isn’t a threat.
“You abandoned my father,” I snap. “Konstantin told me you weren’t there with him when they took my father down at the safe house. He said they looked for you but couldn’t find you. You’re a coward. His right hand, but you didn’t even stay with him when it mattered.”
Sal’s eyes glitter dangerously in the dim light of the alleyway. “Your father made too many mistakes. He was a dead man walking. I made a choice—to die with him or to survive and try to preserve what he built. Now that Russian piece of shit has handed it—and you—over to the Irish.” He spits on the ground. “I can help you, Simone. I don’t want to see your father’s legacy managed by his murderer or handed over to an outsider. I’ll see Tristan dead and your father’s legacy handed over to someone who should have it.”
I snort. “I suppose that someone is you?”
Sal chuckles. “No, of course not. I was meant to serve, not rule, Simone. But Ichoosewho I serve. And the man that I think should have what your father built is the man that he always intended to have it.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “Enzo?”
Sal nods. “I told him to contact you. To talk with you, to see if you were open to… changing your circumstances. He informed me that you were.” Sal looks down at me, his dark gaze searching mine. “Has that changed?”
I swallow hard, my mind reeling. “You and Enzo are working together? That meeting at Sol’s… that was you?”
Sal nods. “Enzo is not an opportunistic man, nor a man who takes initiative. He needs guidance.Strongguidance. I saw that he could step in and fix what’s gone wrong. And you, Simone…” He smiles at me, but I don’t think it’s genuine. I’m not sure that I can trust anything that comes out of his mouth. “You’re a strong woman. You can guide Enzo as well. With him at the head, you and I can turn it however we please. You’ll have more power than Tristan O’Malley or Konstantin would ever give you.”
I suck in a breath. I don’t trust Sal. I’ve never, in all my life, felt that he was a man who could be trusted. But I know he’s a man like any other in this world—that he wants power. He’s been robbed of it, and now he wants to put himself back where he believes that he belongs.
He wants to replace Tristan with Enzo. Enzo’s plan washisplan. And it’s not a terrible one.
