Carmine grunts but releases me, and I rub at my tender throat. I follow the men to a darkened room at the back of the house, lit only by one bare low-watt bulb. The faint scent of copper that always seems present in this room makes me gag. I lost count of the number of men I saw walk in here and never come out. It’s the same room where I first saw West Archer. The thought of him and Zeke and Xander gives me a fresh injection of courage.
“Lily Pad?” Nico shouts, and I rush to the back of the room where he and Dean remain bound to chairs. Dropping to my knees at their feet, I check them both over for injuries and find nothing serious. Their wounds were caused by someone who knew what they were doing. Someone who knows how to make the cuts and bruises appear worse than they actually are. “Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine. We’ll both be fine,” Nico assures me.
I stand up and face Carmine and Stefano. “Let them go.”
Carmine’s lips twist into an evil smile. “Soon. Once you’re dead. For good this time.”
“No!” Nico and Dean shout in unison, struggling against their bonds. “Let her the fuck go, Pop,” Nico adds.
I put my hand on my brother’s shoulder and squeeze. “It will be okay. I promise.”
He blinks a drop of blood from his eye, his face a mask of confusion. He isn’t stupid. He knows something isn’t adding up.
“Stefano has been waiting for your return, Liliana. Isn’t that right?” Carmine turns to his second-in-command.
Stefano winks at me. “Sure have.”
“You remember why we call him the surgeon, don’t you?” Carmine picks up a scalpel and holds it to the light. “You know he can peel all the skin off a person’s body while they’re still alive.”
Stefano grabs the blade from him. Not taking his eyes off me, he stalks across the room. I step back and bump into my brother’s knees.
The unmistakable click of heels on marble echoes from the hallway outside, and Carmine turns toward the open doorway. “Who the fuck?”
I suppress a smile as Stefano reaches me. With Carmine’s back turned and his attention focused on the noise outside, his most trusted soldier leans close to my ear. “Okay, Marshmallow?”
I nod, and then he winks at Nico and Dean, who I turn to see are both staring at the two of us with pure shock on their faces. But it’s nothing compared to the look on Carmine’s face when my mother strides into the room.
“Ludovica.” The obvious tremor in his voice makes me want to fist pump the air.
“Carmine,” she says, her voice dripping with disdain.
Carmine’s mouth opens and closes. “What—how did you get past my guards?”
“Oh, I used that secret entrance. The one you use for your whores.” She holds up a shiny silver key and he sputters. Then he turns and looks at Stefano, the only person other than him with access to the key for that door.
“What do you want me to do, Boss?” Stefano asks.
Carmine curls his hands into fists. “I want you to—”
“He wasn’t talking to you,” my mom says, breezing past him. “I think we should keep it as clean as possible. Perhaps a fight between father and son that escalated? Carmine pulled a knife, and Nico tried to defend himself and … oops.” She shrugs. “It was all a nasty accident. You and Dean witnessed the whole thing.”
Carmine gapes, his eyes ping-ponging between my mother and Stefano.
“Did you really think I would allow you to take my daughter and not afford her some protection, Carmine? I should have had you killed a long time ago for what you did to me, to my Angelo, and to our beautiful Liliana.” Her cool facade slips for a fraction of a second before she slots it firmly back in place.
Carmine spits at her feet. She laughs, but it’s not a pleasant sound. It’s cruel and mocking. “Did you not think it even a little strange that Stefano turned up on your doorstep looking for employment just a few days after you and my uncle took Liliana from me?”
“But he was sent by—”
“By a friend of my family, yes. But Stefano’s family has been loyal to the Santangelos for almost a century.”
“But he …” Carmine blinks and redirects his attention to Stefano. “You’ve saved my life.”
My mom scoffs. “How else would he have earned your trust for all these years, Carmine? Are you really as stupid as you look?”
Foaming at the mouth, Carmine lunges for her but doesn’t get close. Stefano blocks his path and sinks the scalpel into Carmine’s stomach, slicing upward. My childhood abuser slumps to the floor, clutching at the guts spilling out between his fingers.
I stand over him and watch the life drain from his body. “You should have just let me go, Carmine.” He opens his lips to say something but chokes on the blood pouring from his mouth.
“I wanted nothing from you, but you couldn’t just leave me to live my life in peace.”
With a final sputter, the last flicker of light in his eyes is extinguished. I take satisfaction in knowing that mine was the last face he saw before the devil dragged him to hell.
Chapter
Seventy-One
LILY
Stefano makes quick work of freeing Nico and Dean from their bonds. Running straight to me, Nico wraps me in a hug.
“Lily Pad. What the fuck?” He squeezes me tight as Dean comes up behind me and does the same.
“Are you two okay?” I ask.
They step back. Nico nods but glares at Stefano. “Yeah, but what the hell, Doc?”
Stefano, or Doc as we’ve affectionately called him since we were innocent little kids and heard people refer to him as the surgeon, pats Nico on the back. “I’m sorry, boys, but I had to make it look real. Besides, I barely scratched either of you.”
Dean wipes a streak of blood from a cut above his eye. “Tell that to my face, Doc,” he says, but he’s grinning.
“So, we’re not twins?” Nico frowns. “Not even brother and sister?”
I shake my head. Smiling, I try to lighten the mood. “I was born two days before you, by the way. So I’m officially the oldest now.”
He looks down, sorrow clouding his handsome features.
I cup his face in my hands. “You’ll always be my brother, Nico. No matter what.”
Stefano wraps an arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “Can we save the family reunion for later? Ludovica has to get out of here before anyone notices she’s gone, and we need to deal with all this. Nico and I will let the men know the new order of things.”
“You think they’ll accept it?” I ask.
“They’ll have no choice.” He shrugs. “I’ll stay on as Nico’s adviser for a while, and once the dust settles, I can finally go home.”
The look he shares with my mom makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but the soft expression flickers on my mother’s face and disappears as quickly as it arrived. Clearing her throat, she turns her focus back to me. “Come to the hotel as soon as you can, Liliana. We have things to discuss.”
“I will.” Swallowing a sob, I watch her slip out the door.
Stefano nods down at Carmine’s body. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up and you out of here before the cops show up. And I’m sure those friends of yours from New York will be here soon too, Marshmallow.”
I shake my head. “I told them not to come. I’ll call them and let them know I’m safe.”