Page 45 of SINS & Riley (Dante & Riley #2)

ZVER

M ost of today has been eaten alive by me rolling up my sleeves and squeezing Emilio’s brain of every last piece of valuable intel before his impending death sentence.

No easy task.

When he’s not out cold, he’s spitting insults between broken teeth.

The son of a bitch is stubborn. I’ll give him that.

But time isn’t on his side.

Or mine.

Tomorrow, I face my uncle. So today, the intel lodged in Emilio’s brain shakes free, or it’s gone.

And I need leverage.

Which means, I’ve got exactly one weapon left in my arsenal.

One I swore I’d never use.

My knuckles drag across my jaw. Desperate times.

The electric buzz of the lock jolts through the room, yanking Emilio out of his near-catatonic state. His head jerks up, lids twitching.

“You have a visitor,” I grit out, disgusted it’s come to this.

His sunken eyes try to focus.

The door groans open as Dominic steps aside and lets the woman in.

She doesn’t hurry in. Instead, her eyes make their way across every inch of the space.

Eighteen inches of reinforced concrete.

A table lined with thirty-one flavors of persuasion.

The piss puddle glistening beneath Emilio’s chair.

If I ever questioned bringing her here—how she’d handle this place, or facing Emilio again—the answer stares me in the face. Her stance says it all.

His hold over her is over.

And payback? She’s a pissed-off bitch with claws.

The air shifts as the room bends around her like gravity.

Emilio blinks once. Twice. His lips tremble.

“Sabine?”

Her answer slices clean: “Hello, brother.”

Alarm detonates in his face, and then he shifts to, of all things, denial. “Sabine. You’ve got to get me out of here. Zver, he’s crazy. You wouldn’t let him kill your only brother?”

She doesn’t flinch. Just flips the give a fuck switch in her head to off and turns to me.

“Leave us.”

Dominic and I trade a look.

“Are you sure? We can help.”

She plucks a blade off the table. Tests its weight with a flick of her wrist. The sound alone makes Emilio choke.

Her eyes never leave him.

“I’m sure.”

* * *

Sabine hasn’t been gone an hour when the door slams open.

She’s back. Pale, trembling, like she just walked out of a grave.

“He’s…dead.”

The words are whispered, but they gut the air between us.

I open my mouth—ready to tell her anything that will make this fucked up situation better.

I hate that she had to see her brother again. I hate that I went back on my word.

And I hate that he was my last lead on my father’s disappearance. That maybe I killed him for all the wrong reasons. Not that a bastard like him deserves saving.

But her eyes slice into me, sharper than a blade. “You don’t understand. It’s worse than we thought.”

“What do you mean?”

Her lips part. Her face drains until she’s nothing but ash. “He said it. My fucking brother said one word.”

“What?”

Her eyes brim, tears balancing on the edge. “Tuscany.”

The name detonates inside me.

It’s not just sound—it’s shrapnel. Lodging in my chest, shredding air, forcing me back a step as my lungs seize.

Three hundred and fifty women and children. Innocent. Fragile. Sitting ducks.

And now? Now they’ve been painted with crosshairs.

Because Tuscany isn’t just geography. It’s a refuge. A new life carved from the ashes. The second chance every single one of them earned ten times over.

And now, it’s a goddamn target.

My pulse hammers, frantic and useless.

And fuck.

My uncle is about to pull the trigger.

And there's not a goddamn thing I can do to stop him.