Page 97 of Forsaking All Others

“No?” she hissed. “Only the fact that my husband is not my husband. Who the fuck are you, and what have you done to Dario?”

“Aw,” I said with faux sweetness that tasted like ash on my tongue. “Are you actually concerned about the husband you proclaim to hate?”

She pressed her lips tightly together and tried to wrench away from my hold again.

“So stubborn, little flame.” I clicked my tongue. “But you may remain silent while I tell you quite simply that if you do not do exactly as I say, your life will be forfeit.”

Her eyes flashed, and something in my chest pinched as the truth passed my lips.

“You are a tool just as much as I am. I am merely the knight, but you are the queen. You have the power to stay strong and alive, but you have to play this game the right way. Lando and Carla chose you for Dario because of who your family is, but they don’t need that connection anymore. You haven’t done anything to jeopardize this family, but do you really think the moment you do, they won’t have you killed?”

“Carla likes me,” she said a little mulishly. “She wouldn’t let Lando . . .”

She trailed off at my arched eyebrow.

“Carla couldn’t make Lando take out the fucking trash unless he wanted to,” I revised. “And you’re smart enough to know that. Lando won’t let any fucking thing touch this family’s success, not even a member of the Family in question.”

I paused and leaned down over her, bracing my forearms on either side of her head like I had earlier that night when I was driving hard into her stunning cunt.

“I should know,” I murmured as I ran my nose along her cheek and she tried to dodge the caress. I pinned her face still with one hand on her chin and licked a line along her jaw, tasting the sweet salt of her sweat. “When I was shot and pronounced dead at nine years old, Lando had me declared legally dead even after I was resuscitated and raised me in the shadows. The perfect replacement capo if anything should happen to Dario. The perfect dead man to send out to do the Outfit’s dirty work. On my tenth birthday, I was slitting a man’s throat for the first time. What were you doing, principessa mia, eating cake?”

Fiammetta’s mouth fell open into a perfect O of shock, lips still swollen and rubbed red from my mouth and beard burn.

“You’re Luca,” she whispered, more air than sound.

I tried to smile, but the expression felt like a wound on my face. “At your service, principessa, as I have been for the last six years.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Fiammetta

Not brothers, but identical twins.

Dario and Luca.

One reigning in the light and the other serving from the shadows.

It was the perfect setup, one any number of criminal syndicates I could think of would kill to adopt for their own.

Lando Ferretti had taken advantage of the boon nature had given him in the form of two identical sons and split them into two separate but lethal weapons.

It was as brilliant as it was psychopathic.

Forcing one of his own sons to live off the books? I could only imagine what that must have done to Luca’s head, how he must have developed knowing no one but his parents and brother would ever call him by his own name or know him as any kind of independent entity.

He was Dario 2.0 when he was required to be, and every other moment he was a ghost.

“Lo Spettro,” I whispered as gears clicked into place and I realized exactly who this man looming over me could be. “The specter that haunts the underworld. No one has ever pinned you to one locale, but they speak about the assassin who operates from coast to coast, all the way up in Canada down to the south of Mexico.”

“Europe, too, when the occasion calls for it,” he said with that same bared-teeth expression that on anyone else might have been a smile. “Asia, only rarely. The Yakuza and Triads keep their shit together.”

“Did you kill my family?” I demanded, the words surging up my throat from the depths of my gut where they had been fermenting for the last six years. “There were rumors it was Lo Spettro who put my family in the ground.”

I watched the familiar face of this total stranger for any signs of falsehood, using every bit of my university training and subsequent experience as the Oracle to formulate a lie detector test I hoped was infallible.

“When in doubt, sensational murders are always pinned on Lo Spettro,” he said calmly, his pulse steady and his gaze trained on mine without blinking. “If I had committed every crime people whispered about, I would have to be superhuman. I wish I had answers for you, Fia, but I don’t.”

My heart pounded so hard it ached, but I could find no reason to disbelieve him. It had only been a vague rumor on some obscure Italian blog that had sent me down the rabbit hole searching for Lo Spettro, but it pained me to acknowledge I might have spent years of my life focused on a dead-end lead.