Page 84 of The Secrets We Keep

“Anyone planning on coming to join this little party?” Alexei wondered. “Or do I get to kill this asshole myself?”

“We’re coming.” Luca reached for Sienna’s hand and brought her knuckles to his lips. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

They made their way through the open south gate and up the driveway. Around the side of the house was the door Luca’s team had breached, and they stepped inside.

Everything felt familiar and foreign all at once. This part of the house, her uncle’s domain, smelled of wood polish and tobacco. She hadn’t spent much time here; most of her exposure to the villa was through her aunt’s north wing, padding across the mosaic tile in flip-flops and sheer coverups thrown on over bikinis.

She’d spent hours lying around her uncle’s huge in-ground pool. Laughing, drinking, tanning. Almost daily in the summertime, they’d come over before the sun was too high in the sky and swim until the staff called them in for lunch.

Her favorite memory was watching her nieces and nephews take running jumps off the diving board into the water, bobbing to the surface in their life vests, giggling and paddling back to the ladder.

Her uncle was seated at his desk when she rounded the corner into his office. He didn’t recognize her when she walked in, his brows drawing together in confusion, followed by a sardonic laugh.

“Seriously, Bianchi?” Gallo said to Dom. “You brought a woman in to finish the job? Not man enough to do it yourself, I take it.”

Sienna felt Luca’s fingertips graze her back, and the gentle touch warmed her. Their mystery man’s escape aside, everything she wanted was so close she could taste it. She was ready to be done with this. There was so much life left to live with Luca. It was time to put this behind her.

“Hello, Uncle.”

Nero’s eyes narrowed on her face. “Who are you?”

“Don’t you recognize me? A real blast from the fucking past, I guess. Since I’m supposed to be six feet underground.” She cocked her head. “Did it really have to be my birthday, Zio?”

“Sienna,” Gallo spat. “You’re the one who’s been helping the Bianchis? How?”

“You really should take greater care about who you hire at Gallo Industries. You never know what people are capable of.”

“I’d ask how you managed it, but I don’t actually care all that much.”

Sienna’s smile was sharp. “Of course you do. Because it means you lost.”

“I haven’t lost anything. You won’t get away with this. You think people will believe I killed myself over a little business hiccup?”

“Maybe not. But they might believe you killed your entire family and yourself when your only surviving niece confronts you with the evidence of how you murdered hers.”

Nero’s lip curled back in a sneer even as his face paled. “You have no proof.”

“See? Wrong again. You really should have listened to my father when he told you not to store all that incriminating evidence on company servers. No one is unhackable, Zio. Especially not you.”

Sienna held up the thumb drive from her keychain. “On this drive is everything I need to bury you. The payouts to politicians and the chief of police to cover up my family’s massacre, the lists of names and dates.

“Every bit of information is scheduled to be emailed to Valentina Di Salvo in a few hours. You know how much she loves to break big stories. She was the face of my family’s murders for months.”

Lunging forward in his seat, Nero was shoved back by Alexei. “You never did know when to shut the fuck up. I regret I didn’t personally pull the trigger on all of you myself.”

“I bet you do,” Sienna murmured. “But tonight we’ll both get what we deserve. And the world will know the truth about you.”

She stepped forward and took the gun Alexei held out to her, moving into the position he indicated. To his credit, Nero didn’t resist when Alexei held him in place.

“Don’t you want to know the truth?”

Her finger stilled on the trigger. “I already know the truth about you.”

“Not about me. About your father. About why I had to kill him.”

She wet her lips. He was offering her the answer she’d craved for so long.

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