“Huh. So…why am I even here? Is kidnapping me part of some revenge plot against the Morellis for Mom’s death?”
“In part,” Maggie says coldly. “But not in the way you’re thinking of it. And it’s not just business, Howie. Watching you die will be a great pleasure for me.”
“Yikes. I gotta say, I really didn’t think our sibling rivalry ran that deep.”
She slaps me again for that, even harder than last time. “You’re no brother of mine,” she says softly, once I’ve shaken off the stars again. “I am my father’s daughter. But you—” She gives me a contemptuous look. “You’re just some mutt. But we wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you. If you’d just died when you were supposed to…” She gives a sigh, a fake sigh.
“You mean a few months back when the Fuscone crew kidnapped me?” I ask slowly. “Or do you mean the time someone tried to kill me on my honeymoon? Or do you mean…”
“You know what I mean. When I mean.”
Her deep blue Donovan eyes look into mine, and yeah. I know. “That hit that took out Mom—”
“Was meant for you. Now you’re finally catching up.”
“You ordered the hit? But you were only…” I trail off. Maggie was in her twenties when it happened—young, but she knew the family business even then.
She laughs at me, a tinkling, refined little laugh completely unlike mine. I wonder now if she’s consciously decided to do everything opposite to me. To be reserved, cold, ambitious. To learn the family business, work hard, win by whatever means necessary. “Oh, don’t give me too much credit, darling. Pops ordered the hit on you—on my recommendation, it’s true. But if it’d been left up to me, I would have seen both of you dead. You and that whore mother of ours, may she never rest. But Pops was still in love with the whore, and couldn’t bear to do it. It was only supposed to be you, but things didn’t work out that way, did they? Afterwards, it was too much for Pops, her death. But then, he never had the stomach for what it is we do. He’s weak, Howie, weak like you. He called off the contract on you, said you could live out your life as long as you never came back to Boston. So off you went to boarding school.”
My mind is ticking over. It explains a few things, but not all. “But Pops reached out to me a few times. He wanted me to go to Harvard, come home to Boston. He gave me his old hoodie and everything…” I decide not to add that I palmed it off on Luca. Probably wouldn’t help my cause right now. Besides, I’m really over being slapped, punched, hurt. I want to get out of here.
I don’t want to die.
And that’s the scariest thing of all right now, that I actually want to live.
“Yes,” Maggie muses. “Yes, you’re right about that. Over the years I could see Pops softening towards you. Start to change his mind. Start to forget. You have a penis, after all, and I don’t. Pops is nothing if not a traditionalist.”
I’m not going down that road. Besides, I’m still trying to get things straight in my mind. “Did he really blame me so much? Mom’s death—”
“You’re not listening to me. Pops didn’t hate you because of Mom’s death. He hated you long before that. Hence the hit he ordered on you.”
“But why—”
We’re interrupted by gunfire and shouts outside the door.
Maggie starts, looking towards the door, and then her head whips around and she glares at me. She raises the gun. “You little—” she starts, but before the words come out, there’s an enormous thump, and the door shakes and shudders in its frame.
“Finch!” a voice shouts, and my whole body turns to jello, my limbs drooping in relief even as my heart leaps in my chest.
“Luca,” I try to shout, but my voice isn’t strong enough.
There’s another jolt of the door, and a splintering sound. Maggie reacts immediately, running around behind me to grab my hair, keeping my head still, so she can press the barrel of her gun to my temple.
And with one last smashing kick, the door bursts open.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
LUCA
I’ve killed a lot of people in my time, but I’ve never actually hated them while I was doing it. I’ve always kept my cool in a fight, and even when my adrenaline spikes, my hands have stayed steady and my mind clear. It’s been that way today, too, plowing through a handful of Fuscone men with my brother, right up until Frank kicked open the warehouse door and I saw Finch sitting there with a gun to his head.
I’ve never known the kind of red frenzy that’s coming over me now, like I could stretch out my hand and make this whole warehouse blow away just from the force of my will. My first instinct is to rush forward, gun popping, but the icy glare of the woman standing behind me gives me pause.
“If you come any closer, he dies.”
Finch’s head is pulled back, his throat bobbing as he swallows, his eyes trying to find me.
“If you kill him—” I begin, and my voice is shaking with rage.
“I won’t kill him if you don’t make me.”
I take a deep breath and force myself to think.
First of all, I know this woman. Finch’s sister. The eldest—Maggie. The one who gave him the phone. “Did your father send you?”
Her hand tightens in Finch’s hair and he yelps. “I am not my father’s servant,” she hisses.
Finch clears his throat. “Maggie’s a queen in her own right,” he says hoarsely, but somehow still snarkily, and I could die of love for him right now.
Frank, thank God, is keeping quiet, watchful. Waiting for orders.
“What do you want?” I ask.
She considers. “I think, for now, I simply want my
