nт
Is he really taking them with him?” I ask, watching Kai’s blond-haired friend trying to stuff the poor judge into the trunk of his SUV. The two priests are sitting tied and gagged in his back seat.
“Looks like it,” Kai responds.
Belov slams the trunk closed and, whistling to himself, gets behind the wheel. Two quick honks of his horn and he drives off, heading toward the gate. Kai tightens his hold on my waist. “Should we go consummate the marriage right away, or check on our prisoner first?”
Shit. I completely forgot about Armando. “Maybe we should—”
I don’t finish the sentence because Kai pushes me behind him and takes out his gun. Peeking around him, I notice a sleek black car advancing up our driveway.
“Who the fuck let that vehicle through the gate?” Kai yells.
The car stops a dozen feet from the stone steps. The driver’s door opens and a man steps out. It takes me a moment to recognize him without his prison uniform. He’s wearing a stylish gray suit and a perfectly pressed white shirt underneath, just as he was the night the police led him out of our home. But it’s the only similarity to that twenty-year-old man from so long ago.
“Hello, sis.” Massimo fixes me with his gaze.
“It’s okay.” I take Kai’s wrist and lower his hand. Only when he’s put away the gun do I face my stepbrother again. “Massimo, I didn’t expect to see you out for a few more months.”
“Me neither. But it looks like someone important pulled some strings and got me released sooner.” Massimo climbs the stairs and stops in front of us. “I hope you don’t mind?”
“I think I’m going to celebrate this day as my second birthday,” I say. “I fulfilled my part of the deal. Are you going to fulfill yours?”
A menacing glint flashes in Massimo’s eyes as he probes me with his unrelenting stare. Then, he switches his focus to Kai. He looks my demon over as if assessing the level of potential threat, and his attention falls on our joined hands. Ever so slightly, Massimo’s eyebrows rise.
“Yes,” he says when his eyes meet mine again. “You’re absolved of any further obligations to Cosa Nostra. I’ll make sure everyone in the Family is informed.”
“Not good enough, Massimo. I want a written statement that I’m not considered a part of the Family anymore. And I want every capo’s signature at the bottom.”