Page 152 of Forsaking All Others

“But with Lando in charge again, you would be king and queen over a thriving empire?” I guessed.

But there was some shifting light in Alessia’s eyes that gave me the sense I had it all wrong.

I thought of the Russians who kidnapped Fia years ago and knew no self-respecting Bratva soldier, however greedy, would work with our father, not after the war he’d launched against them early in his reign.

I thought of the Irish, who my father hated more than the Russians. Scum, he called them. Would they work together well?

I didn’t think so.

Lando was brilliant in his own way, but like me, he wasn’t a people person.

Dario had gotten that from our mother, who was beloved by everyone in Chicago. Lawful and criminal factions alike.

My heart iced over in my rib cage.

“She caught you, didn’t she?” I asked mechanically as my mind raced overtime to connect the dots.

Alessia stilled, even her breath froze in her lungs.

This was the reaction I habitually searched for. The guilty were always like prey freezing beneath the sight of a predator.

I was onto something.

Behind me, I heard Dario shift.

“Lando was always careless,” I said, remembering the days when I still lived at home as a boy and I’d walk past his office where shouts and moans of ecstasy could be heard before rounding the corner to the living room, where my mother would sit placid as a church mouse. “Did he fuck you in his home office and Carla walked in? I wonder if that was the last straw,” I mused. “Did she threaten to have you killed if you didn’t work with her?”

Alessia’s shoulders shook, and I first mistook it for tears, but then laughter erupted from her bloody mouth, and she tipped her head back with the force of it.

“Threaten me?” she gasped, literally crying with her laughter. “Carla didn’t have to threaten me, you idiot. This is why she’s so close to taking it all from you, because men are fucking idiots. She sat there and schemed for years without any of you noticing. Lando thought he was so fucking powerful on his throne, but it was Carla who had her hand up his ass playing him like a puppet. She thought she could do the same with you, but you two . . .” She clicked her tongue in disappointment. “First Dario insisted on taking over and not listening to a thing she said, and then even Luca, her precious backup, started paying more attention to the little head inside his pants, panting after Fia, rather than listening to her orders.

“It was time,” Alessia said with a shrug. “To take the power for us. The women of the Outfit.”

“And what, you were going to be her right-hand woman?” Dario snarled behind me, stepping forward into my sight line with a cleaver in one hand.

I watched without judgment as he moved to Alessia’s splayed hand, and, when she didn’t answer, he brought the steel down on her pinky, severing it in one clean movement.

She screamed.

“An eye for a fucking eye,” he snarled into her face. “Do you want to lose the second one to match mine?”

“What was your plan for Fia?” I asked over her cries.

“What do you think?” she sneered at me, trails of snot, blood, and tears sheening her face grotesquely. “She had to die. She would never turn against you, either of you. She was standing in our way.”

“Was?” I asked, every molecule in my body arresting.

Alessia’s smile was wide and triumphant, limned in blood. “Was,” she confirmed. “She went willingly into the enemy’s camp. If Carla hasn’t killed her by now, it’ll be soon. Before you assholes can get to her. I didn’t want her to die, but Carla’s right, sometimes the best way to hamstring the king is to kill his queen, and taking out Fia hurts you both.”

Behind me, I heard Booker on the phone and knew he was calling in the troops. I had never been more fucking thankful that Fiammetta was the Oracle, with her own people to protect her. It seemed the very family I was honor, duty, and loyalty bound to protect had turned against me.

Fuck, I came by my psychopathy honestly, and it wasn’t from my father.

“We’ll get to her,” I told Alessia coldly. “Thank you for the heads-up.”

“You won’t,” she singsonged. Above us, the doorbell rang. “Because you’ll be dead too.”

Booker cursed, stepping up beside me to show me the cameras on his phone.