Page 102 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
“You didn’t know her.”
“I know what was taken from you.”
Something inside me gives way at that. Not all at once. Not cleanly. Just enough to make me hate the tears that spill before I can stop them.
I turn my face, but Stefano catches my chin before I can hide.
“Leon deserves to answer for her,” I say. “For Erin. For Heath. For every woman he moved through rooms like they were cargo.” My voice steadies because it has to. “I know what you think of men like him. I know what you want to do.”
His eyes do not leave mine.
“But he does not get to disappear into a grave and become a story people whisper about. He does not get to die before those children understand that he can be stopped. I need him alive.”
The tension returns to Stefano’s face, subtle enough that another person might miss it. His hand remains at my neck, but his thumb stops moving.
“You need him alive,” he repeats.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because prison is not mercy.” I wipe at my face with the back of my hand, angry at myself for crying and too tired to care. “It’s a consequence. It is people knowing the truth of what he did.”
Stefano watches me for a long moment.
Then he says, “Leon is moving through Boston.”
My body tightens.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the one I have.”
“Stefano.”
His mouth flattens. “Five days.”
The number hangs between us.
Five days until Leon. Five days until I have to stand in the same room as the man who made Alice disappear from every future I had imagined for her.
“You are taking me,” I say.
“Yes.”
“With Raven?”
“Yes.”
“With the FBI?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
