All Chapters of Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part : Chapter 51 - Chapter 59

CARMELA'S POVThe meeting had been Gabriele's idea, which surprised me, because everything I'd learned about him in the weeks since our alliance formed suggested he preferred to keep the Russians at a comfortable distance.He told me the night before, standing in the doorway of the study while I was going through papers, in the tone he used when he'd already made a decision and was informing rather than asking."The Russian Vor will be there tomorrow evening. Alexei Volkov. He's attending on behalf of the Pakhan." He paused. "I need you to be present.""As your wife," I said."As my wife," he confirmed, and the way he said it had shifted slightly from the earlier weeks. It sounded less like a role he was reminding me to perform and more like a fact he was stating. I nodded and looked back at my papers and listened to him leave.****The dinner was small and carefully curated, the kind of evening that looked social and was entirely business. I spotted Alexei Volkov the moment we walked

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE CARMELA'S POVThe note was still in my jacket pocket when I sat down across from Gabriele the next morning.I was aware of it the entire time — a small, folded weight that shouldn't have meant anything and meant everything. I'd read it maybe thirty times since last night and each time Elena's handwriting did the same thing to me, pulled the floor out just slightly, enough to make everything else feel temporary and uncertain.I kept my face exactly where it needed to be.Gabriele was already deep into the accounts when I arrived, three folders open across the desk, his coffee going cold the way it always did when he was properly focused. He looked up when I sat down and pushed one of the folders toward me without preamble."These are shell companies," he said. "I need you to look at the registration dates against the shipment timeline and see if the pattern holds."I opened the folder and started reading.For the next hour we worked in the focused, efficient silenc

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREECARMELA’S POVI'd been avoiding the east hallway for three days. Gabriele’s office in particular.Alexei Volkov had been coming to the estate for the past three days.It wasn't difficult to justify to myself. There were other staircases, other routes to the kitchen, other ways to move through this house that didn't take me anywhere near Gabriele's office while Alexei Volkov was supposedly inside discussing shipping routes or territory or whatever business had brought him back to Naples this time. I told myself I was being efficient. I told myself the note still sitting in my desk drawer had nothing to do with the path I chose to walk every morning.I didn't believe myself, but I kept saying it anyway, because the alternative was admitting that a single folded card had rearranged something fundamental in me, and I wasn't ready to admit that to anyone, least of all myself.Today I needed coffee, and the kitchen was closer through the east hallway than around the long

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVENCARMELA’S POVMy father had been away for five days on business in Rome, and he came back to the estate the same way he always did — quietly, without ceremony, like he'd simply stepped out for an hour rather than been gone nearly a week. I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment before descending, taking the time I needed to arrange my face into something that looked like a daughter pleased to see her father.It was getting harder every time."Piccola." He opened his arms when I reached the bottom step and I let him pull me in, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne, feeling the solid weight of his embrace, and somewhere underneath all of it the cold, quiet knowledge of what his name looked like on a payment record dated three days before my sister's brakes were cut."Papa," I said, pulling back and smiling. "I never knew you were back.""I just came back," he said, waving a hand. "Gabriele called for a meeting." His eyes moved over my face with pract

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE CARMELA'S POVThe third time Alexei found me, I wasn't surprised.I'd been half expecting it for two weeks. It was that particular awareness you develop around certain people, the sense that a conversation isn't finished just because it ended. He had that quality. Everything he said felt like an opening move rather than a conclusion.It happened at a charity event Gabriele had taken me to. It was a room that screamed old money, good wine. The kind of room where everyone knew everyone and nobody said anything directly. I'd been gallivanting and passing time for an hour when I felt him before I saw him. I felt that shift in the air that meant someone was paying the wrong kind of attention.I turned and there he was.Alexei was standing six feet away, dressed like he belonged there, which in this world meant he probably did."Signora Conti." He crossed to me without hurry. "You look well.""I feel well," I said. "Are you following me to these things?""Gabriele and th