Page 117 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

“She’ll hateusforever,” Lorenzo added. “If she wants to walk, she walks.”

Dante looked up to meet my eyes. “You’re about to leave behind your last dreams of escaping the violence of the mob for her.” He turned to Lorenzo. “You’ve given up the only family you ever had for her. And I’m going to pay whatever the governor fucking wants for her. She’ll owe us.”

“No,” Lorenzo snapped. “She won’t owe us a goddamned thing.”

Dante pulled away. Shit. He wasn’t going to accept our terms. He was going to destroy our fledgling family before we even got started.

“She’ll owe us everything,” he snarled.

“Don’t you dare make this transactional, you asshole,” I snapped back. “We’re getting her out because it’s the right thing to do, not so she’ll feel obligated to fuck us out of our misery.”

Dante blinked, then stared at us in silence. “I need her,” he rasped. “I can’t?—”

“You must,” Lorenzo said. “And if you can’t, turn the fuck around and leave. Nick and I will figure this out without you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said, a sneer turning his face cruel.

“Walk away, Dante,” I said, moving further away from him, my arm still wrapped around Lorenzo, as if our physical touch could create a shield between Dante and Sofia.

“No.” He breathed deeply through his nose, then scrubbed his face with tattooed hands. “She deserves a choice. And we’ll give her one.” He rolled his eyes at my smile. “Don’t look at me like that, you stupid fucking cinnamon roll.”

“Let’s go fuck up Gio Costa,” Lorenzo said, gesturing to the soldiers who waited nearby.

The restaurant was empty, a stark reminder of the control Costa still exerted in his own neighborhoods.

Ana sat beside her father, along with two well-built men who watched the scene with interest. Business partners? Relatives? Didn’t matter. Gio had to have known we’d come for him eventually. His bodyguards stood, but Dante was faster, shooting them in the head before Ana could even gasp.

“Get out of here,” I snarled at Ana, yanking her out of the chair as Dante closed in on Gio.

Ana looked up at me with big eyes that were surprisingly calm, given the tension in the room, then wrenched her arm away, striding away without a backward glance.

“What is this?” the other man asked, his voice heavily accented.

“This asshole traffics in girls, and that offends my future wife,” Dante snarled in Italian.

“Gio?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Is this true?”

Gio Costa sneered. “Don’t pretend you don’t know where the money I send home comes from, you asshole.”

“Kill him,” the man said, waving his hand at us.

“Brother! No!” Gio cried as Dante yanked him out of his seat.

“This ends here, Gio,” Dante said, switching to English for the benefit of our horrified audience.

I stepped forward, staring down at the man sniveling on the ground.

“You financed the kidnapping and rape of my future wife. You financed the kidnapping of my soon to be adopted child. You’ve trafficked hundreds of girls. You’re fucking done.”

I pulled my gun, cocked it, and held my gun to his head. “Never again.”

He fell to the ground, but it was a pyrrhic victory without Sofia here to see it.

“Bene. We’re finally done here,” Dante said.

48

LORENZO

---