Page 170 of Brutal Vows

I nod, thinking. “So the bottom line, if I understand it correctly, is that my brother betrayed the Cosa Nostra and his own blood and was shot because of it.”

“Aye.”

I nod again. “And there was a vote for the new capo this morning.”

“Aye.”

“And you’re asking me to believe a male-dominated institution hundreds of years old just decided out of the blue they should have a woman as their leader for the first time.”

“The vote was split. Not everyone was on board.”

“Let me guess. Massimo.”

Declan lifts a shoulder. “Some lads still aren’t living in the twenty-first century.”

“Why didn’t they just elect someone else? Alessandro, for instance?”

“They can explain better themselves, lass, but you’re the onewho stood up in front of four hundred witnesses and God himself and vowed to love and obey this nutty bugger here so you could save your niece from getting shot. You’re the one who also spared Juan Pablo from getting shot, and guess whose uncle Alvaro now only wants to make an accord with the woman who saved his dear nephew’s life?”

My lips curve upward. “That would be me, I take it.”

“That would be you.” His voice grows quieter. “You’re also the lass who withstood fourteen years of brutality without complaint—”

“As if anyone would have listened.”

“—and managed to pull the wool over every law enforcement official’s eyes when she surgically disposed of her abuser.”

I say automatically, “I didn’t kill my husband.”

Declan smiles. “And is a mighty fine liar, to boot. Whywouldn’tthey want you in charge?”

“Oh, I don’t know. My vagina?”

He chuckles at that. “I did tell them I wouldn’t renew the contract with anyone else, so there’s that.”

My feeling of unreality grows bigger. I’m disconnected from my body, as if I’m seeing this all unfold from somewhere overhead. “But I haven’t signed the contract. Gianni did.”

Quinn and Declan just sit there and look at me.

“And you knew when I walked into this room that Gianni was dead. You only gave me the concession about Stavros and told me to send over the other changes because you already knew I’d been named capo. You even knew back at that meeting at the warehouse with Alessandro and the others that they were testing my loyalties. You knew the night we came for supper that the woman who agreed to marry this man next to me was a potential candidate for the most powerful position in the Cosa Nostra. You’ve known an awful lot all along, Mr. O’Donnell.”

He says evenly, “You can’t blame a leopard for its spots, lass.”

“Or a tiger for its stripes.”

Quinn’s tension is rising again. Even without breaking Declan’s gaze, I can feel him growing more agitated, and I know the reason why.

He just realized that if I’m capo, there’s no need for me to legally marry him at all.

We don’t need a marriage license to make the contract valid. If I’m the head of the Caruso crime family now, I’m free to negotiate my own contracts without selling my body as an asset to anyone.

I’m free to walk away from this non-marriage and still get everything I want.

I’m just … free.

I look at Quinn. He looks back at me, all of it written all over his face as plain as day.

In a gruff voice, he says, “I’ll have your things sent anywhere you like.”