Page 101 of Shadowed Loyalty

“And it shouldn’t matter to you if I waste my savings giving her another chance. The point is, I’m done with you. You call off your lap dogs, and I’ll stay out of your way.”

Tony tried unsuccessfully to step forward again. “Oh, please! He just saw you gun down Norton—”

“What he saw was me defending my daughter and future son. And, for that matter, him. Isn’t that right, O’Reilly?”

“Unfortunately.”

Tony finally lowered his Betsy to his side, though mutiny still erupted in his eyes. “He was supposed to be my—”

“Antonio. Stop. I have no shortage of enemies—you don’t need to prove yourself with this one, when it will cost you your brother. Family first.”

Tony rolled his shoulders back. Sabina hoped the spark in his eyes was relief. But it looked more like disappointment, and she knew Lorenzo would see it, too. She clung to him, knowing how it would hurt him.

He sighed but held her back, tight as could be.

Papa reached out and took Tony’s weapon. “You want a challenge? Take care of Norton. You too, Val. I don’t want any questions from the police on this.” As the brothers bent down and picked up the limp body, Papa turned back to Roman and pointed a finger at him. “You. Stay out of my way. And try not to forget that I not only spared your life, I just saved it. Got it?”

Sabina looked at Roman again, met his deep green gaze. The emotion in them wasn’t quite regret, but it was close enough to make her certain he had no problem agreeing with her father’s terms. He nodded. “Capisciu.”

Papa turned to his lieutenants. “Inside, all of you. Franco, please reassure Ava that all is well, she’ll have been frightened by the gunfire.” The men filed inside, taking all the weapons with them. Papa crooked a finger at Sabina.

She stepped forward, pulling Lorenzo along with her. As they neared, she tried to keep her eyes off the pool of blood and failed. The streetlamp’s glow streaked the otherwise black puddle with red and reflected off the bullet shells littering the ground. Evidence that Tony and Val would undoubtedly remove by morning.

If only her memory could be swept as clean. If only she could sweep her family clean with it.

Lorenzo pressed his lips to her temple. “Look at me, bedduzza.” She tore her gaze away from the blood and fastened it on his face. There she saw life, filled with love and promise. It would be enough to keep the nightmares at bay.

They stopped in front of her father, and she looked up into his hard face. His anger still burned under the surface. She refused to be intimidated. Maybe if she let him see the light in her, it would lead him toward the One who lit it. If not tonight, then tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year. The job of a candle was to shine despite the fact that the darkness could never comprehend it.

She let go of Lorenzo so she could put her arms around her father, even straining up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Grazii, Papa.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked. “You shouldn’t have been here. This is the third time I’ve seen you between my men’s guns and my enemies. I won’t see you there again.” His words were stern, but his arms closed around her and held her close. “You scared a decade off my life.”

“Papa...” She had no idea what she wanted to say. There were no words to convince him, so she just held on.

“Enzo is going to have his hands full with you. Running off to the Levee—what possessed you to do something so stupid, principessa? Don’t you realize the danger you put yourself in?”

She pulled away enough to look into his face. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that it was a danger he created, a danger he fostered every time he broke the law. She bit it back. He wouldn’t listen. “Yes, I know. But I couldn’t let you kill him, Papa, so I tried to convince him to leave. And please don’t look at me like that. You were doing this for me. I had to prove you didn’t have to. And I did. He promised to leave me alone. And with Sally’s help, he realizes you’re not guilty of Eddie’s murder.” A truth she was still thanking God for every time she thought about it.

“Sally.” Papa’s eyes narrowed. “And how, pray tell, did you meet up with her?”

Sabina drew her lip between her teeth and darted a glance at Lorenzo, who looked interested in the answer to that, too. “I, uh…took a wrong turn leaving Roman’s. Found myself in a bad part of town, and—she saved me, actually. I owe her.”

“Hm.” Papa pulled away, darting a glance over her shoulder. “I’ll see that she’s thanked. Enzo, I trust you can get my wayward daughter home safely? I have ends to tie up.”

Lorenzo accepted her gratefully back into his embrace. Worry had taken up residence in his eyes. “I’ll get her home.”

“Good. And you two?” They both looked up at him. He frowned. “I can’t have you interfering in my business. It not only weakens my position, it puts you both in danger. You don’t want to be involved, then stay out. All the way out. You’re my children, and I love you. But I had better never see either one of you in the Levee again.”

Sabina nodded. Then the blood caught her eye again, and her heart sank down into her stomach. He loved her enough to kill for her. But never enough to forgive for her.

“We can’t change any of them,” Lorenzo whispered into her ear as Papa disappeared into the building. “But we can pray for them every day. A light in the darkness.”

“A path through the night.” She hugged him tight, knowing he felt this sorrow for them as keenly as she. She looked up at the sky, where stars probably shone beyond the city’s glow—and movement caught her eye. A curtain shifting, a silhouette at a window above them. A palm pressed to a pane of glass.

Ava was watching over them—another friend, praying in the darkness. She lifted her hand from the glass, pressed it to her lips.

Sabina pressed her own to her heart, over the pendant she wore.

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