Chiara’s sitting in the back and she wraps her arms around his shoulders from behind. “Is everything okay?”
He reaches up to cup the nape of her neck. “Everything’s perfect, princess. I just thought of something I wanted us to do.”
Whatever he wants, it seems to be at the compound. When we pull into his basement, he digs a set of keys out of his pocket, heads down the corridor, and unlocks a door. There’s a small room beyond, with nothing inside but a safe the size of a small fridge. He enters the combination and pulls it open, hunting through the contents until he finds what he’s looking for.
When he turns around, he shows us something sitting in the palm of his hand. Four somethings. Flash drives with labels stuck to them, each one bearing a name.
Ophelia.
Evelina.
Amalia.
Sienna.
Chiara opens her eyes wide. “Those are the videos.”
The recordings De Luca sent each of us, showing him torturing and murdering our sisters. I wondered where they were but I never wanted to ask. Lorenzo closes his fist around them and nods, then glances at me. “Call the others. Tell them to meet us at the gas station at exit twelve on I-28.”
That interstate heads out into the wilderness, and I start to get an inkling of what he has in mind as I pull out my phone.
“Can Ginevra watch the baby?” Lorenzo asks Chiara.
“I’m sure she can. Let me give her a call.”
“We’ll swing by her place. Vinicius, I need your help with something from the armory, and then we’ll get back in the car.”
Forty-five minutes later, we’re waiting in the gas station lot as Cassius’ white SUV and Salvatore’s Maserati pulls in. They each kiss Chiara and then turn to Lorenzo for an explanation.
Wordlessly, Lorenzo shows them the flash drives, and then opens the trunk of his car and shows them what we loaded inside. It’s a grenade launcher, the same one that Salvatore almost killed Lorenzo with the night De Luca tried to trap us.
“What do you think?” Lorenzo asks, gazing around at us all.
Salvatore blinks rapidly and nods. His voice husky as he says, “Yeah. Blow them to smithereens.”
We pile back into our cars and drive for another hour into the hills. Lorenzo seems to know where he’s going and takes us to a deserted quarry. There’s not a soul around, and standing at the bottom feels like we’re cut off from the rest of the world.
Lorenzo takes a red gas can out of the trunk and walks it across the quarry before coming back to us. “Who wants to pull the trigger?”
“You have to do it,” I say. “You’ve been holding onto them for us. But let’s all take a flash drive over there.”
One by one, each of us picks up the drive with our sisters’ name. Cassius kisses his and makes the sign of the cross, his eyes suddenly overbright as he turns away and walks up the slope. We follow him, and Salvatore and Lorenzo place their drives at the base of the gas can.
I grip the small metal object in my hand fiercely, thinking hard about Amalia. The happy girl she once was, long, long ago. This is the last physical piece of her tethering her to this earth, and it’s bittersweet to let it go. But in the end, I do, because I still have the best of her in my heart. Always.
I kiss the drive and whisper, “Your nephew is going to know all about his brave sister. I love you, Lia.”
We all walk back and stand in a row behind Lorenzo as he hefts the grenade launcher onto his shoulders.
“Stick your fingers in your ears,” Lorenzo says, bracing his feet against the ground. We do, and a moment later, he pulls the trigger. The force of the explosion knocks his shoulder back, and a split second later the gas can explodes. Flames and black smoke erupt into the sky.
I step forward and clasp Lorenzo’s shoulder, and he covers my hand with his own for a moment, still staring at the flames.
I turn and look at the others. Cassius has his arms wrapped around Chiara, who has silent tears running down her face, but she returns my smile.
Salvatore nods to himself and says, “That’s better. Now they’re free.”
Lorenzo tilts his head back and breathes deeply. They’re free, and now he is, too. He gazes at the clear sky, the grenade launcher still propped on his shoulder, and then turns and looks at each of us in turn.
His brothers.
And the mother of our child.
His gentle smile is lit with peace and burnished by sunshine as he says, “What a beautiful fucking day.”
Coming Spring 2022
Pageant: A Russian Mafia Reverse Harem Romance
I’ve been stolen. Paraded. Forced to vie for their crown.
Through a cruel twist of fate, the dangerous life I escaped has seized hold of me again. Three men have snatched my freedom and they’re playing a twisted game, and they’re the only winners.
My captors glitter like diamonds in the dark, each one more handsome and ruthless than the last. Konstantin, the scarred and heartless ringleader, and mastermind of my fate. Elyah, the demon from my past who once craved me and now covets my demise. Kirill, a bloodthirsty maniac with depraved needs who thrives on misery and mayhem.
Sixteen women are forced to compete in their twisted pageant, and one by one we’re eliminated until there’s only one jewel left. My captors’ desire burns as hard as their cruelty, but the true torment only begins when the pageant ends.
Heavy is the crown that glitters on the winner’s head.
Author’s note: Pageant is a standalone dark reverse harem romance with Russian mafia anti-heroes. This book contains captive themes, violence, and a Why Choose romance with ruthlessly possessive men. The story is dark, dirty, and delicious, so please read at your discretion.
You can step into the world of Pageant right now with Contestant: A Russian Mafia Reverse Harem Prologue Novella. This free download contains the first five chapters of Pageant.
Get your free copy of Contestant: https://BookHip.com/VLRMBPF
You can also pre-order the full book Pageant now
Acknowledgments
Thank you to you, dear readers, for coming on this journey with me. Writing this series has been the most fun I’ve had in years. I’m delighted that you’ve embraced Chiara, Salvatore, Vinicius, Cassius, and Lorenzo along with me.
Thank you to my editor Heather Fox, who has been amazing to work with. Your encouragement and energy have been wonderful. I couldn’t have done it without you!
Wrapping up a series means tying up all the loose threads, but there are a few story threads that some of you will have noticed I left hanging. The gang problem in the southwest of Coldlake is one. How the Strife men and the Coldlake Syndicate will cope with each other going forward is another. Thane was so curious about what it’s like to share a woman, and was he asking Vinicius about it to be an asshole, or is he genuinely curious?