Page 22 of The Prices We Pay (Vittori Enterprises #1)
Physically, I’m fine. Mentally, this is a lot to take in.
I nod again .
“Do you want us to leave?” He doesn’t hesitate.
He doesn’t stutter. He asks me, point blank, what I know they’re all dying to know.
I know they would leave my apartment if I asked.
They would get up and leave without question, and we could all go back to me being an employee and them being a group of men that I work for.
I could pretend I don’t know about any of this, and I know that they know they could trust me with this secret.
Sebastian knows about my past. He knows, more than the rest of them, how far I’m willing to run from a life that was filled with nothing but crime and violence.
For all intents and purposes, I hate it.
I hate the thought of being in a situation where I have to wonder if I’m safe or not ever again.
It’s why I moved so far from my old life.
It’s why I made a name for myself outside of Billings.
It’s why I took up kickboxing and gave up drinking.
I don’t want anything to do with any of it.
The only pieces of that life I’m not willing to let go of are Jasper, Beau, Lawson, Lincoln, and the ranch.
That place and those people were the only things that helped me find solace or safety until I was able to make that for myself.
And I know, deep down in my bones, that the danger I faced in Billings is incomprehensibly different than what I’m looking at right now.
The only person I had to keep me safe back then was my mom, and when she was gone, I had to learn to keep myself and Jasper safe.
Safe from the world and safe from him. And once Jas was old enough and I knew he could take care of himself, I had to get out of there. This is different, though.
Luca, Sebastian, Enzo, and Dante… They are part of that danger.
They’re part of the reason it has found me once again.
Yet, if I take the risk—if I stay—I know they’ll do everything in their power to protect me.
To keep me safe. To ensure that being with them might come at a price, but that it would be a price worth paying.
“No,” I whisper as I shake my head. I can practically hear all four of them let out a sigh of relief.
“Okay, Love.” Taking me by surprise, he bends down and plants a soft kiss on my forehead before spinning my stool back around to face the kitchen island. I wrap my hand around my bowl of Pho, letting the warmth from it ground me, and listen as they continue telling me as much as they can.
And when Luca started to explain how all of this started, I finally let the tears fall.
“Enzo told you my mother, Serafina, passed away when I was two?”
“Yes.”
“She was murdered. She was shopping at the local markets one afternoon and never returned home. My father and Enzo’s father, Giovanni, searched for her for days on end, only to come up empty-handed. Well, with my father’s money and Giovanni’s resources—”
“He was a well-known weapons dealer,” Enzo mumbles through a mouth full of noodles. The statement doesn’t even shock me at this point, so I just let Luca continue.
“They were able to trace her movements to Barcelona, only to find her body in the middle of an abandoned warehouse along with several other women. She was taken by a sex trafficking ring. ”
I cover my mouth in shock, and instead of comforting Luca, he takes a moment to run his hand along my back before explaining further.
“My father basically dropped off the face of the earth for about six months after he found her and left me under the care of the Santoro’s.
I was young, so I remember very little of this time, only bits and pieces of my mother’s funeral.
But the thing that stands out the most is how different my father was when he returned.
“I found out when I turned eighteen that he spent those six months tracking down and killing anyone who had a hand in hurting my mother. He single-handedly took down an entire sex trafficking ring. When he told me, I asked him if he ever regretted killing those people, and he said, ‘Not for one moment. I couldn’t save your mother or the women and girls that came before her. But because I did what I did, no one will ever know the pain at their mercy. I would do it a hundred times over.’”
“Pascal is a certified badass, Sweetheart. But I promise you, he is the nicest man you will ever meet in your entire life,” Enzo says, making Luca smile .
“I knew in that moment that I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to take over an empire that he worked tooth and nail to build with my grandfather, and I wanted to honor my mother’s memory the way he did by making the world a better place.
Killing these people doesn’t bother me, Vita Mia.
None of us lose a minute’s sleep over it.
But one thing you should know is that we will stay awake every second of every day, protecting the people we care most about. That now includes you.”
My breath hitches at the confession that I know is now true. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I say as I reach for his hand.
He threads his fingers through mine and brings them up to his lips, placing a soft kiss on the back of them. “There’s no reason for you to apologize. But thank you.”
“It goes without saying, but you can’t tell a soul,” Sebastian says sternly. “The only people who know outside of this room are Pascal and Enzo’s parents. It’s how we’ve been so successful. It’s how we all stay safe.”
“I won’t tell anyone, I swear,” I answer quickly .
Seb smiles. “I know you won’t, Love.”
“What about Harper and her husbands?” I stumble a little bit at the use of the term husbands, but none of them correct me, so I must be right.
Enzo huffs out a laugh and says, “Bella ran into a little bit of trouble last year. They know Pascal from Kings, so he brought us in to help them.” He shoves another pile of noodles into his mouth and points his chopsticks at me, speaking through the mouthful of food. “Which we did seamlessly, by the way.”
“But we never told them exactly how we know how to do what we do, and they had the good sense not to ask.”
“Why would they not ask?”
“Ronan, Mac, and Finn are the heads of the Irish Mafia,” Dante answers. “They know when and when not to ask questions.”
“I—they—what?”
“Pretty cool, right?” Enzo asks.
“So, Irish mafia good, Russian mafia bad?” I ask, not even believing I’m having this conversation.
Luca smiles as he says, “Basically, yes. ”
“That makes this all so much less confusing,” I answer sarcastically.
“I know, Love. This is a lot of information to be thrown at once. But the most important thing to know is that we trust you, and we want you to trust us.” Sebastian eyes me sympathetically. “We’re not going to lie to you. You’re a smart woman.”
“Obviously,” I add with a wink, which he reciprocates, and I practically feel it sent straight to my pussy.
“If the Bratva is involved, there’s going to be some dangerous stuff that’s going to happen. But nothing is going to happen to you. We will be here every step of the way. Okay?”
I’m entirely aware that, regardless of how much they want to, they can’t control everything.
Nor can they guarantee with absolute certainty that nothing is going to happen to me.
But I also know that they are going to do everything in their power to keep me safe from harm.
“Okay. I just have one more question… for now.”
“Ask us anything, Sweetheart. ”
“Why is the Bratva stealing from you? I mean, out of all people, why you guys?”
“Honestly…” Luca says, “They have moles all over the city. We presented them with an easy target, and they found our weak spot. I should have been changing the delivery schedules to and from the port more frequently, but I got lazy. They got a payday from my negligence, and now they don’t want to lose it.
Little do they know who exactly they’re fucking with. ”
A smug smile forms on my face at Luca’s vengeful tone.
“Thank you for trusting me with this—for being upfront with me.” It’s not lost on me how big of a deal this is.
They didn’t have to tell me anything. They could have kept me completely in the dark.
They’re giving me the opportunity to remain as in control of my life as possible.
And as someone who grew up in a world that she had absolutely no control over and fought tooth and nail to get it all back, they’ll never know how much that means to me.