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“I care for your sister.”

“I know,” he replied. “But it’s time to let her go.”

Every sinew of muscle inside me rejected those words even when logically, if I cared for Bianca at all, he made sense. After I’d determined I wasn’t getting any help from him, I gave him a brief nod and left the café that day, but it didn’t mean I didn’t do what I did best.

I lurked. I stalked. I tried to find clues to where Bianca had gone.

The pounding of the music resurfaced, and I realized I had yanked open the drawer. A carved box sat in its depths, taunting me to lift it. Everything I’d given her over the years was inside it.

She returned it with a note.

I don’t need these anymore.

Thank you for looking out for me. I got it from here.

I got it from here?A snarl bubbled up my throat.

She had no clue how I kept the mafia shit from touching her. She was the prized daughter of Cesar De Lucci, for fuck’s sake. Her father had many enemies. Many of them swam in the underworld's filth, hiding and afraid of Cesar, but that didn’t mean they weren’t plotting for the right time to strike. I swam with such scum so I could keep tabs on them. Each time I removed a threat to her, I only became more unworthy.

The blood on my hands was nothing like what she grew up with.

Let her go.

I couldn’t. I was forever tied to her, even if she rejected the idea that a protector was all I could be. And the reason I drove all her boyfriends away was because she was safe as long as the De Luccis looked out for her. If she were to marry…

I shut down the line of thinking I wasn’t prepared to face.

The door to my office opened, letting in the irritating music of the club. Griselda Scavo stepped in. She was my club manager and former fiancée.

She must have sensed my irritability at the music and quickly closed the door.

“What do you want?”

She raised a brow. “You’ve been holing up in your office for months.”

I pretended to pound on my laptop. On the screen was the report of the last private investigator I hired to find Bianca. “Nothing new there.”

“And sometimes you disappear and no one knows where you are.”

“Nothing new there either.”

“Sandro, now is not the time to bury your head in the sand.”

I cast her a disinterested look. “Excuse me?”

“We have a problem.”

“We…” I narrowed my eyes. “Elaborate.” I leaned back in my chair. As much as I had my focus on Bianca, that didn’t mean I couldn’t multitask and know when shit was about to hit the fan.

“Gian wants me to marry a capo from the Philly mob.”

“And that’s my problem, how?” It was a big problem. The Philadelphia mob had been pushing for a firmer alliance with the Rossis. Gian was my cousin, but he was adopted and the only Rossi who wanted to become boss. The rest were wary. After all, two bosses were killed less than two years apart. No one knew exactly what went down, but I did, and I was determined to keep the truth buried.

The Philly mob smelled blood in the water and wanted to move in on our territory.

With Gian as their puppet.

“We used to be engaged,” she said.