My heart pounds hard and fast. I should be tired after being up overnight, traveling as we did through the dark and early hours. But in fact, I’m wired, my mind racing a mile a minute. Ari sits in the back seat of a glossy black SUV, rifle across her knees. She has the cool, resigned demeanor of a soldier. But do soldiers, going to battle, smile like that? Like they feel no fear at all?
She was kind enough to let me get dressed, though my lip is swollen, and my mouth still tastes like blood after the blow she delivered to me in my bedroom at the villa. She hasn’t said a word to me since we left, and her silence is far more chafing than her dialogue. I itch to know what her plan is. Where is Pyotr? Isn’t that who she’s working for? Is he in Rome still, hiding away? Did he escape?
Was it her plan all alone to take his men, his arms, and use them in his name though he’s not here to see it, not here to take the glory for himself? I study her profile, her dark eyes, and her wild hair. She has a regal, lethal aspect I can’t help but find beautiful. When I first learned she was in Luca Romano’s employ, I thought they were sleeping together. Maybe they were. Maybe they are.
Oh, my God—am I really going to let something like that make me jealous? Now, here? Of all times? Jesus Christ.
Ari says something in curt Russian to the driver, a hulked-out young Russian with knives lining his belt. He says something back, and Ariana smiles, sitting back in the seat, looking strangely satisfied. As if sensing my curiosity, she speaks the first words she has to me in hours:
“We’re close.”
I know. Of course, I know. Although I’ve never lived there (my father would never allow it, as it is too dangerous), I’ve been to the rural compound a hundred times. It’s one of his newest facilities, and it’s certainly his most secure. Built like a prison and hidden in the hills, most people wouldn’t ever know it existed. That’s the point, clearly. But somehow, he was found out. My ailing father, trapped in his own fortress.
My own father, likely to die today.
Tears sting the backs of my eyes. When Ariana looks at me, I resist the urge to look away and hide my emotion. Whatever. Let her see. I’ve been strong enough. If she’s here to kill him, I don’t care. If she sees that, it breaks my heart.
“You could never have saved him,” she says with surprising sincerity. “He made his own bed, Kate, long before you or I was born. Just as Luca’s father did, and mine. Old men and their old blood and their old wars. It all catches up to them in the end.”
Her eyes gleam, and before I can reply, the unmistakable sound of gunfire fills the air. I jerk, startled. Up around the bend, the first of our caravan of cars has reached the guarded gate to my father’s compound. We’re not even going to get inside, I think, with horror. They’re going to shoot the whole caravan up and kill me, too, not realizing I’m here.
“Don’t worry,” says Ari, ducking to look through the windshield. “All of the arrangements have been made.”
I look at her, bewildered. “Arrangements? They’re killing each other up there.”
She waves a dismissive hand. “A formality. You know how this kind of business goes.”
I’m horrified, my heartbeat in my mouth. I clutch my stomach with one hand as though my flesh could stop bullets. As though I alone can save the little suggestion of life just blooming inside of me. But as I watch, I realize—Ariana is somehow true to her word. The gunfire has subsided. One SUV has pulled off onto the shoulder, windshield shattered. It’s the only car that was hit, and now the gates are opening, and the posted guards are waving the caravan in.
What the hell? What’s happening? Slowly, we begin to roll forward. What kind of deal did Ari manage to make, and with who? My father? Has she somehow been in contact with him? Spoken to him? Dad…My heart clenches like a fist. It’s only been a little over a month since I was kidnapped, since I last saw him. But when I left, his health was so terrible and degrading so quickly. It was one of the things that made the decision to reach out to Luca so easy. It was the main thing.
And look where it got me—he’s cleaning up my mess now when I was trying in vain to clean up his. Shame lights my cheeks. We’re near the gate now and pass the shot-up SUV. I realize the nose has hit an embankment, and steam or smoke is gushing out from beneath the hood. Two bodies are slumped inside. I twist around as we drive by, straining to get a look.
I stifle a gasp. The driver is just another one of Ari’s black-clad Russian guards. But the dead passenger is unmistakable—Pyotr Petrov.
I look sharply at Ari. She’s smiling, looking dead ahead. “All according to plan, hm?”
“How did you…but he was…”
“An old bastard that no one liked anyway. I told your father I’d bring him a gift of good faith. You know, to open the gates.” She gestures with a dismissive hand. “There is his gift. I hope he likes it.”
Holy shit. She’s really thought this through. A new thought enters my mind: if Ari is bringing me to my father—why kill him?
Or is that not the play at all? “You want him to raise you up,” I say. “Make you your own kind of kingpin at the head of your own empire. Don’t you? You’re not here to kill him at all. But Pyotr was. You convinced him, somehow. That he could do it. And you turned his men against him.”
“It wasn’t hard,” she confesses as the compound rolls into view. It’s a vast complex of connected buildings, more military than residential, and certainly nothing beautiful. In the rain, under the circumstance, it looks haunted. “But it did take some time. Years, actually. Because Luca was watching me so closely.”
“You always planned to betray him.” I’m not sure why I’m surprised or disappointed. I really need to stop thinking the best of people. All it ever does is get me into trouble. “Didn’t you?’
“No,” she says, her eyes going hard. “Not always. At first, I thought he would be the first to truly accept me. But I was wrong. As the years passed by, I saw that he did not trust me. Not fully, not ever. He wanted to, I think. But I am a black mark. I have yet to find any man prepared to overlook my birth and my parents’ history. Perhaps it will be Liam McNamara…what do you think, Kate?”
I look at her sideways, considering. Perhaps foolishly, I choose honesty again. “I think that my father will do anything to get me back, Ariana. Ask high.”
Her eyes glint. “In another life, Kate,” she says, and I’m not sure what she means by it, only that her expression goes soft again.
She says nothing more as we pull up among the fleet of Pytor—or, I guess, Ariana’s—men. A pair of them open my door and help me out. Ari follows. I stop, looking up at my father’s compound, my heart pounding hard and fast. There’s relief in me and hope. I can’t wait to see him, to speak with him and hear his voice and tell him that I’m OK, that I’ve been OK, that I’ve kept myself safe and that I’m sorry for going rogue, for going off on my own to pay his debts when I know it’s the one thing he’s ever asked me not to do.
But…part of me is terrified. I’m married to Luca Romano. I’m pregnant with his child. What will he think of that? Of me?
Of Luca?
I don’t have any time to think about it further because a set of my father’s men is coming out the front door, armed and looking wildly pissed off. They drink me in: assessing me for damage. One of them, a woman, clenches her jaw and shoots Ariana a vicious look as soon as she sees my swollen lip.
Before anyone can say a word, I do. “I’m OK,” I volunteer, raising my palms. I’m glad Ari let me get dressed and presentable before we left the villa last night. If I’d shown up in my nightgown, I think these guards might have fired on sight. To kill. They’re as protective of me as they are of my father. “How is my dad?”
“Ah, ah,” scolds Ari, wagging a finger. She catches me by the elbow—I didn’t even realize I had started to walk toward my father’s guards—and gives me a firm tug back to her side. “Not so fast, there. I’ve brought my end of the deal. I want Liam’s.”
The guards look at her darkly, but the woman only nods and turns, jerking her chin and indicating for us to follow. It’s a long, chillingly silent walk up the stairs and into the compound. This part of the structure is cold, bare, and sterile, like a hospital or an office. The hallways are labyrinthine. I don’t miss the way Ari’s brow furrows, the way her eyes dart to take it in and map it out, the way her grip on my arm tightens the deeper we get inside.
But I know this place like the back of my hand. And with every step, my confidence blossoms. It’s the first hint of control I’ve had since the night I was dragged out of Dublin. Home. I am home.
But the feeling is barbed, and it takes me only half a heartbeat to realize why. He’s not here. I touch my stomach, wishing suddenly and intensely that I could tell him: I’m safe. I’m OK. Luca—I’m pregnant. I wish for him harder than I should and realize that with Ari here, selling me like a prize, he is, astonishingly—my ally. My protector. Even before he was my husband, even before I knew he was protecting me, Luca was.
And it breaks my heart as much as it warms it. Because we’re impossible. Aren’t we?
We step into a large meeting room, one I’ve been inside plenty of times. I expect a whole council of men to be surrounding my father. Instead, he’s alone at the head of the table, only a handful of guards arranged around him.
“Dad,” I whisper, moving toward him without thinking.
“Easy,” snaps Ari, catching me roughly by the back of the neck and yanking me back. My heart is thunder in my ribs as she swings her rifle around and shoves it hard against my ribs. “Don’t forget that this is a negotiation, Kate. Step back.”
I do, but it takes everything in me not to break free and run headlong to my father. Oh, Dad…it’s only been a month. And he looks horrible. Pale and exhausted and had aged ten years since I saw him last. No, no, no…did I do this? Is it worry for me that did this to you? A horrible thought penetrates my mind: did I waste a month? Did I lose a month with my dying father, trying to save him?
What the fuck was I trying to prove?
“There’s no need for any of that,” says my father softly, and his voice is as pure and strong and full of timbre as I remember. It barely sounds right coming out of him. He just looks so…resigned. “Whatever you ask, you will get, Ariana.”
“No!” I say, and Ari digs the muzzle of the rifle into my ribs so hard I gasp, flinching away from him. Tears spring to my eyes, and her grip on the back of my neck tightens enough to bruise. “Dad—”
“Shut your mouth,” says Ari, and I’m astonished at her tone. She’s scared, I realize, my own horror calcifying. Scared people do foolish things. Scared people make mistakes they usually wouldn’t. Suddenly, nothing here feels safe or right or familiar. Suddenly—I’m scared I might actually die here. “When I said this was a negotiation, I meant between Liam McNamara and me. Isn’t that right?” This she directs at my father, her tone derisive and disrespectful. It makes me want to attack her.
But I can’t. For myself. For my father. For the baby growing inside of me. I need to think rationally. Wasn’t it overestimating myself that got me—all of us—into this mess in the first place?
I swallow, but it feels like my throat is full of glass. Hot tears move silently down my face. I have a horrible, horrible sense that everything is about to go wrong.
And it’s all my fault.
“You know what I want,” says Ari, jerking her chin at one of her guards flanking her in the hallway. He walks forward with a laptop in hand and, when waved forward by my father, approaches like a page before a king. He sets down the laptop and opens the screen, then steps back. “We already talked in generalities. Here are the details. Every account I want access to. Every contact. There are properties on there that you will hand over immediately. And, of course, the cash—you’ll wire it offshore before I move this rifle from your daughter’s ribs.”
I close my eyes, dread pouring over the crown of my head. I left Ireland trying to save my father from his debts. Here I am, draining every last coin from his coffers. Fracturing his relationships, his infrastructure. He will die having lost everything. His people. His empire. His pride. His dignity. His legacy.
What have I done?
My father gazes at the screen. Finally, in his kingly way, he waves a dismissive hand. I expect Ari’s guard to move forward and take the laptop away. Instead, something else happens.
Ariana’s guards turn as one—and walk uniformly out of the room. I watch, rapt, confused. When I look at Ari, I expect to see her stoic and cool.
Instead, she is bone white. She doesn’t even glance and doesn’t even flick her eyes in the direction of the departing guards. She trembles slightly, head to toe. Her finger is on the rifle trigger. Her eyes are on my father, unwavering.
And his are on her. When she smiles, it is the most venomous expression I have ever seen cross her face. “You bought me out,” she says, almost like it amuses her.
And my father says, closing the laptop: “Cheaply.”
I flinch. For Ari, I flinch. For the ego that was growing desperately in her. She’s been undermined again—and after so, so much work. My father bought out Petrov’s men—and why not? He has the influence. If it was truly cheap, he had the money. And why would those men wish to die if they could get paid to walk out instead? Ari was their leader for a moment only.
Will she ever learn that loyalty, that respect—can’t be purchased?
She clenches her jaw, her eyes dancing. “I took you at your word.”
“There is no honor among thieves,” says my father, and I can hear an edge in his tone now. He’s getting tired. He’s losing luster. We need to wrap this up. But what is my dad’s intention? Ari still has me at gunpoint. And he doesn’t know her like I do, now—she will die on this hill. She will die to get revenge on my father right here, right now, at this moment. “Or don’t you know that, girl?”
Ariana’s smile is twisted. She slides her hand into my hair, gripping a fistful of it tightly enough to make me gasp. My father’s expression tightens. When he was a younger, stronger man, he could have bluffed himself out of anything. But he and I—we’re so soft now. Maybe we don’t belong in this world anymore, after all.
“Why?” Ari asks, leaning over to study me as though she might find answers written on my face. “Why bother with all of this? You got me to kill Pyotr, but he was nothing. A cockroach, underfoot. You did all of this to get your daughter back, but now you’ve tipped your hand. And I have no reason to hand her over. In fact, I have a hell of a lot more reason to splatter her brains on the wall here.”
“I want you to know that you are nothing,” says my father. “That I see you as no threat. I could kill you now. I could have killed you an hour ago. A decade ago. But I didn’t. Because you are to me as Pyotr Petrov was: insignificant.”
The nose of the rifle digs deeper, and now I truly don’t understand. What is he doing? Why is he bluffing? He knows what he’s doing, I think desperately. Please, Dad, know what you’re fucking doing. I don’t want to die today like this.
Not when my baby’s life is only just beginning…
“I’m insignificant,” says Ari with a soft, humorless laugh. “Look at you, old man. Bidding everyone else to do your dirty work. Bidding your daughter to sell herself to pay your debts. You’re the insignificant one here. You’re irrelevant. Your wars are over. Your enemies are dead. And you have nothing to do but sit and wait until you can join them.” She turns her head and spits. “I’m going to kill you both.”
The guards behind my father shift faintly, but he raises a hand to stall them—of course he does. If they shoot, they risk hitting me, too. And Ari knows that.
“But I’m going to kill your daughter first,” Ari says, smiling that sickening smile. What light I thought I glimpsed in her eyes is gone now. All I see are her blown pupils, huge and wide and empty. Pure evil. “And I’m going to make you watch. And before I do, I’m going to tell you a secret.”
“Ari,” I whisper, pleading, panic rushing through me. “Don’t do this.”
Ari drags her rifle down my side and presses it to my belly. “I’m going to kill your grandchild, too, old man. And you can think of that when I turn this gun on you.”
And true to her word, before anyone can move, Ariana digs the rifle into my side—and pulls the trigger.
