Frank tilts his head to the side. “Good question. First, this.”
He moves too fast for me to stop him.
Pulls a gun from his pants…
Puts it to Igor’s head…
And pulls the trigger.
“No!” I roar out, but it’s too late. Igor slumps to the ground, dead.
I look down at his eyes as the last flickers of life are extinguished. He was a bad man, yes, but you don’t just kill the head of the Bratva.
And fuck, all he wanted was his daughter back.
Frank re-holsters the gun and meets my eyes again. “I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time. Nasty business, all this. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”
I’m shaking with fury now. “Don’t fucking move.”
He just laughs. “What are you going to do?”
I raise my fist over my head to signal to my men to slaughter this dog where he stands. “I’ll put a thousand bullet holes in you.”
Frank cackles. “I think you have much bigger problems than me, Marcello.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap at him.
He raises one hand high in the air and snaps. All at once, red lights shine on my chest.
The roofs around us are riddled with snipers.
“Go ahead and kill me then,” I dare Frank. “Finish what you started.”
He shakes his head. “I want much more than you dead, Marcello. I want you to suffer. And I know the best way to do that.”
He points off to the side.
My heart momentarily stops beating.
Harper.
She’s standing at the rim of the shadow cast by the van I drove here.
On her face is a horrified expression. Her jaw is hanging open, her face deathly pale. She’s seen far too much.
Harper
When I try to breathe, the air is knocked from my lungs again and again. I clutch my neck and gasp for air as my brain struggles to cope with the reality of the situation.
My father is alive.
No, this doesn’t make sense. This can’t be.
But it’s his voice—it’s definitely him—the sound bringing tears to my eyes.
All these years, I thought he was dead. Gone. Taken from me.
I have to see him. I have to know if it’s true.
Because if he survived, maybe my mom did too.
I swallow hard and shove my nerves aside to stumble out from behind the crates and out of the van. The gunfire has ceased, and all that’s left is the smoke filling the air … and dead bodies scattered all across the floor.
My stomach almost flips over and empties its contents, but I swallow it back down and force myself to look away. All those people, slaughtered like their lives meant nothing even though they probably all had families of their own waiting for them to get back home.
All that’s left is dust and bones.
Blood is splattered all across the concrete ground leaving a trail of misery as I try to step between the puddles. I don’t dare to look, don’t dare to ask who did this and why.
Because if it was all Marcello’s doing, I don’t know if I can forgive him.
I knew he was a don, but seeing the killing firsthand isn’t something I can just forget easily. This moment will be etched into my mind forever.
My heart is racing, and my legs are practically shaking as I walk to the front of the car and hide behind the open door. I don’t know if it’s safe to come out yet. What if there’s an enemy waiting to strike? What if they spot me and use me as leverage, or worse … kill me?
I shiver in place and try to gather the courage to take a peek of the battlefield on the other side of the glass. My dad’s voice is still there in the background, although I can barely make out what he’s saying. Something a dinner and family … Some guy named Igor … and Marcello sounds completely distraught when he says something.
I have to know what’s going on.
So I lift my head and peer through the driver’s seat window, too curious to stop myself, even though it’s dangerous as hell.
Dangerous.
Just like my father … who’s holding a gun.
My eyes widen in shock. Of all the thoughts that swirled through my head, all the reasons I made up for him being here in the first place, as though he could’ve been kidnapped by the mob, this was the last thing I expected.
My father … is a mobster?
My jaw drops at the sight of the three of them together. Marcello grandstanding at a distance, Frank, my father, with his head raised high on the other end of the warehouse, and an old, whimpering man cowering next to him whom I can only describe as revolting.
Still, I can’t help but look at him because the look in his eyes is familiar to me. It’s that same sparkle that I always see when I look in the mirror.