Page 147 of Cara

Tohellwith this. I don’t need answers. Or to get the last word in. All I want is him—dead and bleeding out on these marble floors.

Dominic must see the decision reach my eyes because his arrogant grin fades. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Believe me, I do.”

“You’re finished. You get that, right?”

“This isn’t over until I'm dead.”

“You’re as good as dead, man.” Dominic has yet to grab a weapon—a terrible sign. “Your consiglere switched up on you the second you fucked them over. He’s already hauled her father from the prison while your boys were fending off the few remaining stragglers. Dario’s gone. Vito’s gone. Hundredsof men are combing the streets for anyone you’ve ever cared about, Marcello.”

Sophie starts to hyperventilate. Audibly. Without control.

I’m forcing the fear from my features.

Don’t. Don’t think of Isabella. Or Rosa. Courtney. Mimi. Viola. Michael. Delli. Theirchildren.

I have precisely one second to rid my face of any single emotion. One second to transform mind-numbing fear into an impenetrable mask of severity. That skill was drilled into me for years, beaten into the fabric of my DNA. And yet here I am, wondering if the wall I’ve erected is strong enough to get us—and everyone we love—out of this alive.

Dominic advances, flinching as my arm stabilizes, ready to fire if he takes one more step toward my wife.

“I already said you don’t want to kill me,” he presses.

“Then give me a reason.”

“Okay, I will,” Dominic says. “A good one, too. I’ll tell you that your father opened his big mouth one night after having too many drinks, Marcello. Told Vito he needed to get something off his chest. He justhadto tell someone about a little baby born out of wedlock.”

My eyes slowly expand.No.

“I made a pitstop before I got here.”

Sophie launches out from behind me,screaming. Before I can stop her, she’s pummeling him with her fists, but he’s not resisting. Not when she slaps his face, her nails carving blood from his flesh. Not when she yanks the gun from his hip and presses it to the space between his eyes.

“Whereisshe?”

“Not dead. Not yet. Can’t say the same about her parents, though.”

In an instant, the world goes dark.

My whole goddamn world.

A perpetual night with no dawn in sight.

“Where is she?” Sophie shrieks, fisting his shirt. “Whereisshe?”

Rosa.

Caesar.

Isabella.

There’s no way to breathe through this. My esophagus has clamped shut, like the rest of me.

“Sophie. Come here,” I barely manage to say.

This was always going to happen.

Sophie’s nightmare—her attack on these men—wasn’t the starting point. Nor were my failings for not seeing what rage threatened to free from her at her father’s reappearance. This has been years in the making: a calculated plan devised long before I had the will to create one myself. This is happening because I didn’t care to see it. I was on the verge of death until she came back into my life.