Page 3 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

“I’m sorry to hear about your clinic and Sofia.”

She tried to pull me in for a hug, but I resisted.

Four days. It’d taken her four days to acknowledge Sofia’s kidnapping. I loved my parents, but I wasn’t going to stick around for this fight, not when I couldn’t think of anything but getting her back.

“Thanks,” I said, returning her hug and allowing her to draw me into the warmth of my family home.

“Nico,” my father’s gravelly voice greeted me. He shook my hand. “How are you?”

How the fuck was I supposed to answer that question? “Thanks for inviting me to dinner,” I offered instead.

“Your mother’s worried about you,” he said. A smile cracked through my misery, knowing he’d never admit to worrying about me too, that this was his way of checking on me.

“I’ll be fine.”

He ushered me into his study, a bastion of masculinity, all dark woods and voluminous books. When he handed me a glass of bourbon, I downed it in one go.

“You won’t be fine,” he said. “Worse, neither will we. The Costas are threatening to interfere with my campaign.”

My eyes met my father’s, the same mossy green I stared at in the mirror each morning. His blond hair held strands of grey, dignified at his temples, but he was no less handsome for it.

“Unless…?”

“They’re going to fuck up my run for mayor unless you break with the Russos.”

The air whooshed out of me, and I poured myself another bourbon. My father’s political ambitions had ruledus for as long as I could remember. Yorkfield was a big city, and being mayor would put him second only to the governor in terms of political power in the state.

He settled his hip on the edge of his desk, a power move I’d seen from the Russos. I sank into a plush chair and raised my glass to my lips, waiting for him to speak.

“I want to clean up this city,” my father said. “But I can’t do that if I can’t win elections.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve been winning elections for a decade. You’re on the city council. You’ve been a state senator.”

“The election for mayor is more visible, more sensitive to bad news.” He set his glass down. “More importantly, I’m worried about your sisters. If Costa can kidnap a Russo, with all the Russo resources, what’s stopping him from going after a Lombardi when threatening to derail my campaign doesn’t stop the Russos from burning his territory to the ground?”

“Sergio Accardi kidnapped Sofia because he wants her to marry him. I don’t think my sisters have quite the same cachet,” I answered dryly, as if keeping my emotions out of this conversation would change the outcome.

“I want you to distance yourself from the Russos.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

My father’s eyebrows flew to his hairline.

I shoved out of the chair. “Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Maybe inquire about the health of my girlfriend, currently held captive by a fucking psychopath? Ask about my plans now that Accardi burned my fucking clinic down?”

To his credit, my father’s cheeks flushed. “Son?—”

“Don’t fucking ‘son’ me!” I exploded. “He is raping her! He sends goddamned videos of her so that we can see whathe’s doing! The Russos have torn his city apart and they still can’t find her. She’s supposed to graduate in less than three weeks! And I can do nothing. Nothing!”

My father’s eyes widened, surprised at my outburst. “Nico?—”

“No. I’m done.”

“Stop.” My father’s voice cracked through his study, a harsh tone I hadn’t heard since my childhood. Internally, I cringed, as if waiting for the beating that would come next, even though he hadn’t laid a hand on me in decades.

“You’re going to drag this family back into the life, back into everything you wanted to escape when you walked away as a teenager,” he said.

I closed my eyes. “I know, dad. But I won’t let her go.”

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