Page 141 of Devil's Vows

“We can talk later, Gabi, you’re still—” Matteo starts.

“No, now. I need to know,” I insist. I have work to do. A network to destroy. A friend to find.

The men all exchange looks, and for a second, I wish I wasn’t so weak so I could blow fire like a dragon and make them all stand to attention. I might have walked out of a convent mere months ago, always on the run, but now, I’ve seen and felt my strength, and I’m staying put and fighting for what’s mine. Fighting for every girl that went down Mancuso’s cellar and who disappeared. “Don’t spare me. I think we all know I can take it. And for the love of God, please tell me where Chiara is. I’ve run out of patience.”

“There she is,” Ivan says, pride in his voice as he raises his coffee as if it’s a glass of vodka, ready to toast with my brothers. “Moy drakonchik.”

My little dragon.My heart swells. Ivan won’t hold me back. Something in him has shifted and I get the feeling he is all in with this marriage, with us, grasping what we have with both hands.

Matteo huffs a sigh and takes a fortifying sip of his coffee. “Okay. Here is the lowdown. The Mole is on the run. We have no clue where he is. Mara is dead, and we’re disposing of her body.”

“Did you do an autopsy or anything?” I cut in. “She took three pills just before she walked out of the bathroom.”

He raises a brow and shoots glances at Luca and Ivan. “No, but it isn’t too late.”

“Probably took something to make sure she wasn’t taken alive,” Luca says. “Won’t be the first time someone who deals with the Mafia has that backdoor open.”

“She knew she was going to die,” I say. “But it would be on her terms, even if she was there under duress.”

“What do you mean, under duress?” Ivan asks.

“Do you have footage from the washroom?” I shoot Matteo a glance.

“Probably. I’ll check with Dominic. We were focusing on The Mole once we realized he was on the run.”

On the run to spread the word thatChertnikov’s girl is here.The last words Mara screamed down the phone. There’s only one guess where that info went: right back to Chertnikov with The Mole.

God help us all.

“While she was in the washroom, she said that The Mole needed to stick to their deal and release her, or she would haunt him.”

Ivan lets rip a string of Russian curses. “Releaseher?Fuck. We didn’t know this.”

“You’re sure that’s what she said?” Matteo asks.

“Yes.” I swallow and it’s painful with the ventilator’s bruising in my throat. “I don’t know who Mara referred to. It could be any girl, her daughter, her mother—anyone. And more than one, too.” Locked in a cellar. Just like I was.

Ivan’s eyes grow icy, and I’ve started to recognize the signs, how he turns into the Pakhan, with cold, calculated, ruthless wrath gathering. I knew how he’d feel about all of this, just like my brothers would feel when I finally tell them everything that happened to me.

Soon. I’ll need to tell them soon.

“It could be Chiara,” Ivan says.

His words rip right through my chest. “What? How? What do you know? You’ve had news?”

“Slow down,cara,” Matteo says. “Don’t overexcite yourself.”

I want to roll my eyes at him, but Matteo knows firsthand about surviving gunshot wounds. So does Ivan.

“Yuri’s had some intel,” Ivan says. “She’s been recruited to work for Chertnikov. We don’t know what happened when they found her and interrogated her?—”

“You meantorturedher? Don’t spare me. I’m no longer a kid.” I’ve never really been one, bar my first seven sweet years of bliss. I’m not backing off now. “She had no clue who I was or that I was coming to the States.”

“Maybe, but if they realized she’s useful, young as she is, with a certain…skill set, they might train her to be more.”

“To be a spy?”

“To be what they need her to be,cara,” Matteo says, letting the words hang, open for interpretation.