“And her?” I grit my teeth as her body slumped against one of the Russians. He was petting her hair, and I was seconds away from cutting every single one of his fingers off. “What about her choice?”
“Who do you think she would prefer, that piece of shit, or someone she sometimes tolerates?”
I snorted and felt my entire body go rigid. “I don’t know how to do this, Andrei, I can’t separate the man I am, and the man you need me to become to make this choice.”
“I never said you had to pick one or the other—you’ve always been both.”
“It’s heavy, that moment when you realize your life isn’t ever going to be the same,” Ash continued. “When you realize your love created a life you’ll never get the chance to see.” A hush fell over the room. “She was pregnant. And we were still trying to figure out how to navigate this world, we were shaken with the brutal truth that bringing up kids in this atmosphere is anything but easy, anything but innocent, and we were broken with the absolutely horrifying idea that we would fail, but she reminded me, in a time when I desperately needed it, that our parents succeeded. They raised up a generation of warriors, of mafia royalty that would forever protect their blood until their last breath. She reminded me who I was.”
My heart hammered against my chest; could they see? Could they tell? Could they smell my blood in the air? All of the mafia royalty around me with their perfect bloodlines? Resentment started to ooze into every pore of my body. Resentment for who they were, who she was, and who I was.
I didn’t belong in this seat.
I didn’t belong in this world.
I was meant to rule another.
And yet, there I sat.
With the Italian family I loved.
And another family I swore to die for.
I lowered my head as cold fury pulsed through my veins, because tonight I wouldn’t be able to help myself, would I?
And eventually, they would all know my sins.
I’d have no choice but to confess them and do what my namesake said… Break her.
Break them all.
I was the snake in the garden.
I should have never dangled the apple.
Because now the one responsible was as equally damned.
“Blood in. No out… except death,” Ash said.
It reverberated in my soul as my very short life flashed before my eyes, and then I saw Violet turn around and look at me as I whispered back with the congregation. “Blood in.” I licked my lips and watched her eyes fill with tears. “No out.”
One spilled over Violet’s cheek.
I gripped the pew in front of me to keep myself from jumping over all the rows between us and pulling her into my arms—a liar’s arms.
But a rustle of whispers interrupted what would be my own suicide as I frowned and looked around.
Andrei gripped me by the wrist like he knew I would come to Junior’s defense as he very slowly moved toward Serena and rather than sit with his own family—something that even the most rebellious of us never even attempted—nodded his chin down at Nixon in pure defiance, moved down the pew grabbed Serena’s hand, kissed it, and sat down.
He’d boldly just chosen the Abandonato heir in front of the Five Families, in front of our enemies, the De Langes.
But most importantly, she’d chosen him.
And they had done it on holy ground.
In front of the priest.
In front of God.
Junior, one of my best friends, had singlehandedly signed his own death sentence, and I’d never seen him look so relieved.
I was sick with jealousy over his boldness.
King tensed on the other side of me and whispered under his breath, “We have to do something.”
“Shh!” Dad snapped from his other side. “He’s made his choice. Now, he deals with the consequences.”
I let out a snort. “Yes, God forbid we actually have hearts that can’t help but beat for each other—even in death, his choice was still his.” I stood and walked past Andrei and was glad when I saw Ash get up and do the same thing until all the kids exited the church, together, united.
A family within a Family.
“I’m gonna take Serena home,” Junior said once we were all on the church steps staring at him like he was already dead like we were already planning his funeral after finishing this one.
He might as well have been a ghost.
A walking corpse.
And Serena along with him.
“We can fix this,” was my answer as my brain tried to conjure up every different scenario that led back to the house, back to the reckoning both Junior and Serena would face for breaking the one rule we had sworn in blood we would never break. Hooking up with each other. No messing around within the Five Families; it caused too much drama, too much jealousy, too much distraction. “Right? We can do something.”