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Knocking on the door, I felt myself begin to fidget with my purse strap, then immediately stopped. Aurelio’s words were still living inside my head, and if my father opened the door to a scared, timid, unsure woman, then he’d probably slam the door back in my face. Weakness was a sin in the Sartori family, and I knew it just as well as anyone that’d been raised in Port Townsend.
When the door opened, the concern in my mother’s eyes was the only thing that I noticed. She didn’t look happy, surprised, or thankful to see me. She looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and that hope from earlier had begun to quickly fade.
However, before I could say anything, she was stepping back, and my chest caved in painfully as I saw Aurelio Provenza take her place, my father nowhere to be seen.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to just give up already.
“What…what is this?” I asked when I finally found my voice.
“Nero wants to speak with you,” Aurelio replied, and that one sentence explained the concern in my mother’s eyes. This had all been a ruse to get me back in Sartori territory because Nero Sartori wanted an audience with me.
My parents hadn’t ever wanted to reconcile.
I let out a broken laugh because I couldn’t believe what a fool I’d been, and that was saying something when you thought about it.
“Show some respect, Savina,” my mother chided, her frame hidden only partially by the door.
Before I could say anything to that or lose my shit, Aurelio was saying, “Give me your purse.”
I automatically held onto it tighter. “For what?”
“Because you and I both know that your locations are on,” he replied coolly. “So, give me your fucking phone, Savina.”
Because he was right, I knew that I didn’t have any choice. Only a person on a suicide mission would lead anyone to Nero Sartori’s house. Though it wasn’t a huge secret, it also wasn’t common knowledge outside his territory.
However, instead of handing Aurelio my purse, I pulled my phone out of the side pocket. He didn’t need my entire purse to turn off my locations. “I can turn off-”
“I said to give me your fucking purse, Savina,” he snapped, making my head jerk up. “I didn’t ask for your goddam phone.”
Though it was hard, I had to remember that I was here at Nero’s request, not Aurelio’s. If I defied Aurelio’s orders, then I might as well be defying Nero’s, and all that would get me was a bullet to the head, which wasn’t as sad as it sounded, considering what my life was like right now.
Nonetheless, I handed Aurelio my purse, then watched warily as he grabbed my phone and my car keys. “What do you need my keys for?”
Instead of answering, he said, “Your phone doesn’t have a lock screen.”
“It needs to be…uhm, accessible at all times,” I answered, letting him read between the lines.
“Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” he growled before grabbing my arm, then leading me to a car that I’d been too nervous to notice until now.
When we reached the black SUV, another man got out, and whatever could be said about the Sartori Crime Family, it couldn’t be said that they weren’t a good-looking bunch. The final piece of the puzzle had also finally come together when Aurelio handed the man my phone and keys.
“The locations have been turned off, though it’ll be clear that she did make it to her parents’ house. Power down the phone, tear it apart, then get rid of it,” Aurelio instructed, making my stomach wretch. “Drive the car south until it runs out of gas, then do the same with the car.”
What in the hell?
Just then, another black car showed up, and I could only stare in unknown horror as the man got in my car, drove off, the second car following behind.
“Get in the car, Savina.”
It was then that I noticed how Aurelio had opened the SUV door for me. “What…what’s going on, Aurelio,” I asked, even though I knew that he wasn’t going to tell me.
“You’ll find out when we meet with Nero,” he answered, and when I turned back over to my parents’ house, the door was shut, and no curtains were opened out of curiosity.
I was alone again.
