Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

Lilith POVWe spent the first day watching a shipping company that Nonna Rosa had marked on her list as one of Don Salvatore's primary money laundering operations. The office sat in a run down building near the docks where legitimate cargo mixed with containers full of drugs and weapons and whatever else the Morettis moved through southern Italy."That's the third time that man has gone inside in two hours." I pointed to a figure crossing the street, middle aged with expensive shoes that didn't match his otherwise ordinary clothes. "He keeps checking over his shoulder before entering.""Nervous courier." Damien lowered the binoculars we'd bought at a tourist shop. "Probably carrying cash or documents, something that makes him valuable enough to protect but not important enough to send with real security.""So we follow him when he leaves." I reached for the binoculars. "See where he goes, who he reports to.""Too risky in broad daylight." Damien checked his watch. "We wait until tonig

Lilith POVThe apartment door splintered inward at four in the morning and I rolled off the bed before my brain fully processed the sound, Damien's hand already shoving me toward the window we'd kept unlocked for exactly this scenario while he grabbed the gun from under his pillow and fired twice at shapes pouring through the doorway."Go." He snarled and I went because we'd agreed on this, no heroics, no dying together if one of us could survive, and I was halfway through the window when I heard him grunt in pain and every instinct screamed to turn back but my hands kept moving and then I was on the fire escape with bullets chewing through the wall where my head had been seconds ago.I dropped to the alley and ran, bare feet slapping against cobblestones that were still damp from yesterday's rain, my sleep shirt doing nothing against the cold that bit through thin fabric. I couldn't think about the cold or the fact that I'd just left Damien fighting alone because stopping meant dying

Lilith POVThe church bells struck noon and Damien still hadn't appeared, Carlo and I sitting in the last pew of the abandoned church where dust motes danced in light that filtered through broken stained glass and made everything look like a painting of the apocalypse."He's not coming." Carlo's voice was flat and final, the same tone he'd used when telling me about the bodies. "Either he's dead or he's captured, and sitting here waiting makes us targets.""Five more minutes." I kept my eyes on the door because I refused to believe that Damien had survived fifteen years as a Moretti enforcer only to die in some dock-side ambush. "He said he'd come and he will.""Faith is a luxury we can't afford." Carlo stood and I heard the click of his gun being checked. "Rosa taught me that hope gets you killed when you're fighting people who don't hesitate, and right now the Morettis are hunting anyone connected to last night.""Then they're hunting us whether we stay or go." I didn't move from th

Lilith POVWe moved through Catania like ghosts, Carlo leading us through alleys and side streets that seemed to exist in a different city than the one tourists saw, and every shadow felt like it held Moretti soldiers waiting to put bullets in our backs.Damien was leaning on me harder than he had been an hour ago and his skin was radiating heat that meant the fever was climbing despite the antibiotics, his breathing shallow and labored like each step cost him more than he was willing to admit. We needed to find shelter soon or he'd collapse in the street and then we'd all be dead."There." Carlo pointed to a building that looked abandoned, windows boarded and walls covered in graffiti that declared it condemned. "Old textile factory, been empty for five years since the owner got arrested for trafficking, no one goes near it because of the reputation.""Perfect." I adjusted my grip on Damien and felt him sway. "How much further can you make it?""As far as I need to." His voice was ti

Damien POVThe restaurant where my father held court every Tuesday was called Il Leone and it sat in the old quarter like a monument to blood money dressed up as respectability, red awnings and white tablecloths hiding the fact that more murders had been planned inside those walls than the police had solved in a decade.I watched from across the street while my shoulder throbbed and reminded me that I was still healing, still weak, still potentially one wrong move away from bleeding out in an alley. Carlo was positioned at the corner with a phone ready to warn us if Moretti soldiers approached from either direction, and Lilith was beside me wearing dark clothes and an expression that said she understood what we were about to do."Your father's inside?" She kept her voice low even though the street noise would have covered it anyway."Back room, same table he's used for twenty years because creatures of habit die in their habits." I checked my gun for the third time. "Four bodyguards m