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I looked up toward the sky. “You don’t get a miracle, and yet I do?”

“You deserve it for what I put you through, for the way you grew up, for all of it—take care of that baby, at least now your father-in-law doesn’t have to kill you, he just has to get along with his enemy.”

“You made me their enemy and got me inside the family all at once. They can’t kill me, they have no choice but to keep me, and whoever runs La Nebbia will be watching.”

“Well…” She handed me the gun. “Don’t let them down, you’ve got a syndicate to run and a family to join, she’ll need to make it believable.” She looked beyond me. “And she’ll have to take on the mark of La Nebbia to swear her allegiance.”

“She gave birth. She can handle a tattoo and a fake betrayal.”

“Thought so.” Sienna gave me one last watery smile. “Thank you for allowing me to go out this way.”

“Maybe there are?—”

“No options.” She smiled as more tears slid down. “Let me end on a good note, Ace.”

“Go in peace, Sienna. You enter alive.” I took a breath. “And you will have to get out dead.”

“I accept.” Her smile was wide. “And now I must leave.”

“May God have mercy on your soul,” I rasped. “For I will not.”

I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. Dropped the gun, stole a mocking glance at the family, got into the running limo and ran away.

Lily was safe.

Raven was safe.

And I’d just been given complete control of the one thing the five families wanted to destroy but now needed to keep.

Me.

“Sir,” the voice said from the front. “The boss is calling, phone’s on the seat.”

I picked up the phone and hit accept. “Yes?”

“This wasn’t a part of the plan.” The male voice cracked; it sounded far away. “I’ll be in touch with the next target—until then, make them accept you by any means necessary. You’ll be given instructions on your wife’s tattoo. She betrays us, she dies.You betray us, you die. You both betray us, your family dies. We already have people in place.”

That’s what I hoped he’d say. “I understand.”

“We honor the fallen by striking those who caused it in the first place. You will always be one of them—a De Lange.”

“True. I will always be a De Lange.”

He hung up the phone.

I didn’t.

Instead I kept talking. “But I didn’t fall, you jack ass—I just fucking rose.”

31

RAVEN

The one where you pick sides and realize you belong with the enemy more than you ever belonged with the allies.

It had been a week.

A week of staying with my dad, wanting to murder anyone who looked at me or asked how I was holding up, as if I was standing in front of a wall making sure it didn’t fall.