Page 129 of Forsaking All Others

And I refused to give him the satisfaction of the reaction I knew he was looking for.

He might have found me as the Oracle, but he still thought I was that young girl fresh off the boat from Italy, inexperienced and weak.

So, even as that new spring shoot of something like love withered in my chest, I pinned Niccolo with a cool look and asked, “Even if this was new information, what would you expect me to do about it?”

“Do about it?” he echoed, eyebrows nearly in his hairline. “Well, I’d imagine you’d want revenge just as much as I do.”

“Your dad is the one who took hold of the Cosa Nostra after Papà died,” I reminded him. “Other than being hurt in the shooting, has the Ferretti treachery really ruined your life?”

As it had irrevocably changed mine?

Niccolo’s face was a mask of incredulous fury, much more terrifying than the plastic Grim Reaper one he’d worn at the beginning of the meeting.

“Felipe is an old fool,” he spat. “Just like Lando and Dario Ferretti. They turn their nose up at new opportunities and business dealings with organizations outside the Family. It’s time for new blood.”

“You’re two years younger than Dario,” I said mildly. “Hardly new blood.”

He peered at me then with those brown eyes I used to love, and I watched as he forced himself to soften, to remember that he was here with me for an express purpose, and I doubted it was to antagonize me.

He needed something from me.

I just had to find out what that was.

With one hand still curled around my gun, I used the other to stroke Cerberus’s head, drawing Niccolo’s attention to my beautiful beast. His face paled, and I remembered with some happiness that he had been afraid of dogs since an incident with one as a child.

“Why are you really here, Niccolo?” I asked plainly. “No more bullshit about still loving me. It’s been six years, and I was just a naive girl. I doubt you even ever really loved me.”

I doubt I was ever the reason you remembered to breathe.

He sighed as if I was being particularly difficult and then pulled a folded folio from his breast pocket, slapping it down on the desk between us.

“Felipe is keeping Dario in a church in Palermo. I don’t know who the hell you have playing capo with you, but he’s some impersonator. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes last night in the park when I saw you two. Only knowing Felipe has him convinced me Dario wasn’t the one with you in his arms.” His smirk was sly. “It’s known there is no love lost between you and your husband, Fiammetta. I did care about you, and I still do. If you want my help, I would be happy to steal you away back to Italy when this is all said and done. I know it’s not the same for you after what happened, but you still have your aunts and cousins there. I’ve never married. Can’t you imagine why?”

I couldn’t think why. There was too much in my head to hold the trivial weight of Niccolo’s lasting affections.

I focused on what was important.

Like the fact that Niccolo and the Sicilians knew that Luca wasn’t Dario. It seemed like they were still unaware he was Lo Spettro, but it meant Luca’s authority was compromised in any dealings with the Cosa Nostra.

“Felipe has Dario,” I confirmed. “How?”

Niccolo shrugged. “They were set to meet, but it was a setup. Our men took Dario down before he could say boo.”

It was such a specific English idiom that it drew my attention to his fluency in the language even with a stilted accent. Six years ago, Niccolo had barely spoken a word of it. How had he learned and why?

“My father wanted to make a statement by holding the man where the Outfit can’t find him. By killing him slowly to show both sides of the pond who should really be in charge.”

I dragged the folio he’d tossed on my desk closer to me with the tip of a black-painted nail and opened the file, moving the photos aside one by one.

Dario tied to a chair, both eyes swollen shut, his lower lip torn nearly in half by the beating that had done close to irrevocable damage to his once-handsome face. He was mottled like a fruit in purples, blacks, blues, and faint yellows. Like something that was giving way to rot. The next set of photos showed him pressed with the side of his face against a table, a knife at his ear, and the next with blood spouting from the wound where the appendage used to sit.

In the last ones, he was in a tiny room with a single long, narrow stained-glass window done in purples and reds that washed Dario’s brutalized, naked body in a macabre light. A close-up of his left hand with a flathead screwdriver hovering over his wedding ring finger and another of it severed clean off. The next, his pinky.

Finally, a photo of Dario slumped, passed out against the wall with his other hand cradled to his chest.

The nails had been pulled out. All five.

I wondered if they were en route to us now, and what designer box they would show up in.