Maybe I should have been concerned about the red stains on my hands as Dante filed in with their cleanup crew. I’d seen a few of them before, but they were nameless associates of our family, ones I’d probably never see again unless they proved their worth.
Had I proved my worth tonight or lost it all? And what was there to prove to a family that wasn’t mine? If Georgie was right, if he wasn’t lying, I belonged on the other side of the tracks.
My heart didn’t rush when Rome mumbled that Bastian would be furious. We stood at the elevator doors, Rome with his hat on and my hood back up for no good reason. The cleanup crew would be calling the police later tonight to have them wipe the cameras.
In this city, we were protected.
As the elevator door pinged, Rome walked in and then turned to me, black fire licking through his eyes. “Get in the elevator, Katalina.”
He’d almost told me he loved me in that car, and I’d been ready to drive off into the sunset with him. Now, could I love him knowing he’d kept it all from me?
I stepped forward, staring at my heels clicking on the marble flooring. “You called me that for how long knowing the name was Russian?”
His full lips folded into his mouth as if he held back pain. Or secrets. I wasn’t sure anymore. “It wasn’t like that. I needed to be sure.”
“Or you needed to figure out your angle. Like a kill, there always has to be a set end with you.” I threw the words out fast, ready for a reaction.
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t unleash the way I thought he would. “You’re mad. I’m tired. We just took a life. Let’s calm down and figure out how we are going to tell the family.”
“We?” I guffawed and stumbled back onto the elevator railing. “Was it we when you held the information hostage? When you didn’t tell me a damn thing?”
He sighed as if he was going to respond.
I didn’t let him. “No. This is on me. I’ll take the fall, and I’ll tell anyone who wants to know why I did what I did.”
“No, you won’t,” Rome whispered, but then he slammed his hand into the wall behind me, close to my face. “Don’t you understand?”
I searched his eyes and found the fear that snaked its way through me. It had crept in as Georgie said the words about my mother. It flowed through me and spread so fast that I almost choked on it.
I’d been protected because I was a part of the family.
But tonight, I’d officially become their enemy instead.
“Of course you understand,” he said, his deep vibrato rumbling over me in anguish. It warmed and chilled me to the bone all at once. He breathed me in, his body only centimeters apart from mine. “You’ve been my downfall for a long time, Kate-Bait. Now, you’re the whole family’s. What am I going to do with you?”
“It’s most likely your job to kill me.” I slid my hand to the back of his head and pulled him in to kiss me. I tasted the mouth that haunted my nightmares and filled my dreams. I wanted to feel his tongue over mine once more, to indulge in my favorite thing one last time. But then I let the anger take over; I pushed the fear down and away along with him. “I can’t kiss you right now.”
“Fair enough.” He sighed and pulled his phone out. After a minute, I heard Bastian’s muffled voice. He must have already heard the news from the crew. Rome stared at me as he said into the phone, “I didn’t have control of this situation. No one controls her.”
“I’m right here,” I mumbled but thought better of arguing with them when Rome stabbed the elevator button harder than necessary.
“We planned to eliminate him anyway . . . I know it’s not according to the appropriate plan, Bastian. You want to lock her up forever? It’s the only way to contain a feral animal.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I sighed and combed a hand through my hair as I stared at myself in the mirrored elevator walls. My waves had lost their luster and bounce. The splatters of blood over my collarbone looked decorative, like freckles that belonged there. Maybe I’d always had it in me to do what I’d done; maybe blood on my hands was in my biological makeup.
“If we want to have the whole damn family come, then we should drive out to Heathen’s. We don’t need eyes on all of us gathering in the city after what just happened,” Rome growled. “I’ll have Cole close down the place. It shouldn’t be that busy there. I’ll be at the bar in an hour.”
Rome motioned for me to step forward as the elevator doors opened into the underground parking structure. We wove through cars and shadows and then up a flight of stairs to the alley.
Rome stabbed the end button on his phone and then stalked in front of me as we approached his truck. I didn’t question how he surveyed the area, because I knew he’d been trained to. Didn’t he know I was capable of that too though? I’d looked out for myself for long enough to know where to step in the shadows, how to be quiet in them.
When I reached for my door, he shoved my hand out of the way and yanked it open himself. He grabbed my elbow before he let me get in. “Don’t try to take control of the situation tonight.”
“You can’t take control of the mob,” I retorted. “They infest the bones of a city, spread like a cancer, and never die. We’re uncontrollable.”
“You know what I mean,” Rome said into my hair, his eyes closed like his frustration would be gone if he could just not see me.
“I know you want me to do something I’m not capable of doing.” I ripped my arm out of his grip and slammed the door hard in his face.
Everyone wanted to tell me what to do, who to be, how to bait, how to do my job. I’d done it for them for years. I’d showed I was more than capable, and still I was told over and over again what to do.
Would it have been that way if I’d been raised with my mother?
Rome started the truck, and I gripped his muscular arm as a new thought shot through me. “I need to go home first.”
“Home?” Rome asked, an eyebrow raised.
I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to tell him his place was starting to feel like mine, that I enjoyed being cooped up with him, especially when I got a foot massage while I read him Edgar Allan Poe on the couch.
“Your home, Rome.” I rolled my eyes. “And give me your phone. I’m calling all the men over.”
“We should talk about it first.”
“Like you talked about how Georgie knew my dad?”
When he sighed in defeat, I grabbed his phone and shot out a group text to Dante, Cade, and Bastian that we were headed home, to be there in twenty. No excuses.
My heart pounded fast and loud, like it finally had something to beat for. The only other thing that stirred it like this was Rome, and when I looked at him now, I wanted to scream.
They’d all hid more than enough from me over the years. Mario had let me sit in on some meetings but never all the important ones.
I’d been a tool, not a member.
I’d been just a woman to them, and I was suddenly very aware that I didn’t want to be that anymore.
Fitting in with them wasn’t my future. They hadn’t allowed it, and now I saw how stupid my dream to be one of them had always been.
Rome parked the car under his apartment, and we took the elevator up to his floor. “What do you need from me, Katalina? You want me to back you when we walk in there?”
“Do what you’ve always done.” My voice came out foreign to me, cool and distant. “Be a part of the family.”
He grabbed my arm to stop me from walking to his door. “I’ve never been a part of the family. I’m their killer. I’m the cousin, not the brother. I have a purpose like everyone else. Without that purpose, you die.”
“What’s mi famiglia, then, huh?” Shoving at his chest, I glared at him, tears springing to my eyes. “Where do we belong without it? One foot in with the family means we got no feet in. We either are or aren’t.”
“We belong with the people we end up loving. You make your own family. You fit in there.”
“Well, it’ll be interesting to find out if my own family, the ones that made me, let me belong there, then.”
I shoved him back, but he didn’t let me go. His hand on my arm didn’t budge, and my adrenaline spiked so fast, my hand flew to the blade under my arm and held it to his throat. He’d seen the knife coming and already tilted his head. He probably could have pulled it from my grasp before it made it to his neck.
I lifted a brow and whispered, “You’re coddling me? Letting me put a knife to your neck? You think that’s going to make me think twice about my actions tonight?”
“I’m giving you a right to express your emotions. You deserve that.”
I shoved the edge into him, and he winced as blood dripped from the cut. His tattoo would be cut because of me, scarred by my anger. “I have a right whether you or anyone else gives me one, Rome.” I shoved away and took my knife with me.
When I turned the doorknob to his place, it gave way. Bastian and the boys were there already.
Walking in, I knew I looked a mess. Cade’s mouth dropped along with his phone, and Dante swore, immediately getting up to come to my side. He slid the knife from my hands and wrapped me in his arms.
I didn’t return the hug. I stared at the Armanelli family’s king.
Bastian’s gaze was as unwavering as mine. “Katalina.”
“Bastian,” I replied in the same tone.
Two leaders, enemies, captains of an army, studied each other before they fought. Some could sit down and enjoy a meal together, talk over their options and even decide on a fair fight.
Bastian scrutinized me like I was a new formidable opponent. Before, he’d hugged me hello, held me on his arm, and let me into his home. He’d cooked me dinner, left me unattended with his trust, poked a finger into the holes of my socks.
Now, his attention never strayed from me. I wasn’t a beautiful, useful tool to him anymore but a threat. For the first time, I witnessed a respect and fear that my bloodline must have inspired in him.
Very few had ever looked past my beauty. It was what I flaunted, what I knew how to exaggerate. Tonight, every single one of them would witness my mind instead, would realize I’d been a part of their mafia as more than just bait.
Dante whispered in my ear, “We practiced for this. Remember?”
Every time he’d beaten me to the ground on those practice mats at the gym, he’d held out his hand. “Each of these losses prepare you for the one thing you have to learn. Every fall makes you stronger than the one who’s never fallen before. Get back up, face them again, and beat them.”
As Dante stepped around me toward the sink to wash my knife, I took a breath and pointed at Bastian. “Your father used to ask me questions every now and then. He’d whisper them to me at a meeting he’d let me attend, ask me over the phone with Jimmy. Do you think Mario kept me around just to tempt other men, find information on them for the family?”
“No one kept you around for that, Katie,” Bastian replied, folding his hands together over his lap. That gold ring shined on his finger, mocking me with what it represented. Only a few of the top family members wore one. All the men in the room had them on.
Not me.
“Let’s all sit down and talk.” Bastian motioned toward Rome’s couch where Cade sat, looking completely out of his element. He’d put away the technology that was normally an extension of his arm and gave us his full attention. Dante stood by me, like he’d be on my side no matter what.
I felt Rome’s hand on the small of my back, maybe for support or maybe to keep me close enough to know my next move.
Bastian pointed to the chair across from him, a lone one with metal arms but leather upholstery. The metal wouldn’t scrape against any cement if I pulled it toward me before I sat. The leather wouldn’t feel as uncomfortable as a folding chair. The interrogation probably wouldn’t be as intense either.
Still, I wouldn’t be in the hot seat tonight.
I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I’m not sitting down.” I brushed away Rome’s hand from my back. “You all take a seat, huh? You answer the questions tonight, not me.”
Delivering the command and telling them exactly what was on my mind liberated me. Freedom is powered by purpose and a relentless drive to overcome your captor. I’d been captive to the family’s idea of me for too long; I’d given in to the idea that I was less than I was. Buried deep down inside me, the quiet rumble of injustice turned loud and threatening. Why had no man put me on the pedestal I deserved? Why had each one taken advantage of the person who had no one after her father died?
I started to believe in myself and in my revenge in those moments. Suddenly, my life demanded I respect myself first, respect what I’d been through, and make everyone else respect me too. I realized I’d missed that part for so long. If I couldn’t respect myself, then I wouldn’t gain the respect of others.
The surge of anger, of anguish, of desperation I should have felt all these years in so many bad situations pulsed through me. For so long, I’d shrugged it off, I’d kept moving, I’d walked on.
I’d closed myself off to feeling a damn thing.
I smiled at my newfound emotions. They were demonic, demanding, and cruel. Respect could be earned, but it could be taken too. I’d do whatever needed to be done.
The world had made me this way.
I was ready to show it exactly the woman it created.
