Page 54 of Poisoned Promise
Her lips press into a thin line, then she lifts her hand and cups my cheek. “I want to trust you, Felix. But I feel you drawing away from me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“We rely on one another, remember that. And if you do this for me?” She smiles suddenly. “There may be a promotion on the table for you.”
My heart stalls faintly in my chest. “A promotion?”
“Yes. You’ve been my right-hand man for so long and my current Underboss is seeking to return to Italy in order to care for his sick mother. I can’t have my underboss leading from across the world, which means there’s an open position. Who else to fill it but you?”
A few years ago, such a position would have been a dream.
But over these past couple of years, a growing urge to break off and start my own real path has risen inside me.
Reese is right every time he points out that it’s my tactics, my charm, and my ideas that bring about half the deals Caterina takes credit for.
Can I really commit the rest of my life under her?
“It would be an honor.” There’s no other response I can give, not while I’m in the middle of her Estate.
“I know.” She sighs softly and finally drops her hands away, stepping past me with a brush of her shoulder. “So fix this.”
“It’s really that important to you?” I turn on the spot, following her with my eyes as she begins to walk back to the Manor.
“Of course it is. No one takes anyone away from me, civilian or not. And Felix?” She pauses and turns back, her eyes glinting sharply in the moonlight. “It goes without saying but if you fail this again? There will be consequences. Your life only grantsyou one forgiveness for betrayal. Do it again and I’ll mount your head right next to Nico.”
15
DOVE
Everything still hurts.
Consciousness trickles back to me in waves.
The sensation of softness beneath me.
Something is propping my head up. Tightness pulls along my temple when I screw up my eyes, and the back of my throat burns.
I’m exhausted.
Utterly, bone-deep exhausted.
But something isn’t right. I was on my way somewhere. I had to do something, didn’t I?
What was it?
My thoughts escape my focus, like wisps of smoke drifting through a net, and in the comforting warmth I find myself sleeping in, it’s really difficult to focus on anything other than that comfort.
But there’s a pinprick in the back of my mind.
An alert I can’t place.
Building anxiety because everything was going to shit and I was supposed to?—
A creak to my left halts all of my thoughts, and one single name bursts into my mind with the heat of a glaring sun on a hot summer’s day.
Alex.
My eyes snap open, and I’m face-to-face with an alarmed man whose blond brows raise dramatically as we lock eyes.
