Page 28 of Vow Of Fire

THE LIES KEEP ON COMING

Dante

Imet my mother at the Laurent, in a private dining room off the main restaurant. This was where politicians, billionaire businessmen, and those who paid a premium for privacy sat.

You couldn’t reserve a table in here, and the maître d’ looked like he could easily bench press a small truck without breaking a sweat.

Above us, a crystal chandelier sprinkled fragments of light around the room, and a quartet played something classical in the background. It was loud enough to be heard, but not to drown out a conversation.

Valentina, already there when I arrived, looked glamorous in a silk suit, a strand of pearls around her neck. She sipped from a glass of wine and studied her phone. To any outsider, you’d never guess she ran a billion-dollar crime syndicate. The truth was, Valentina could root out a traitor, issue an order to have them taken care of, and finish a hot yoga session, all before breakfast.

She glanced up as I entered.

“Hello, mother.” I took the chair opposite.

“You look tired,” she said, before I’d even gotten comfortable.

“Thank you. It’s good to see you too,” I retorted. Problem was, she wasn’t wrong. I’d spent most of the night guarding my beautiful captive. While I knew she couldn’t escape, I wouldn’t have put it past her to surprise me in the night and smash something over my head while I slept.

So I didn’t sleep.

I worked instead. By sunrise, I’d gone through every file Nico had sent me.

Evelyn’s personal bank accounts were healthy, although she did like to shop online. She rarely took vacations and put money aside every month, filtered into a high-interest savings account. It showed she was responsible and disciplined.

Aside from the lump sum that had hit her account a week before the ambush, nothing stood out. But that was enough, wasn’t it?

One payment.

One week later, six men dead.

I already knew what was in her business accounts. Vincent gave me quarterly reports, flagging the transactions we used for laundering. Every few months, a fake buyer purchased a high-value painting. The piece went straight to our vault, then later was quietly resold to a private collector. Sometimes at a loss. Cost of doing business.

There were numerous other transactions that I didn’t understand but wasn’t worried about. Restoration costs, reserve fees, down payments, installments. Names and companies I didn’t recognize but wasn’t interested in. If she’d taken a bribe or cut a deal, it would show up in her personal account. Not the gallery’s.

My mother leaned forward, her fingers idly toying with her glass. “Is it done?”

I didn’t need to ask what she meant.

Nico had informed her about the unverified payment to Evelyn’s personal account the week before the hit. Rocco would have told her he’d left Evelyn with me at the cabin. My mother was merely reading between the lines.

The intel was damning and had I not personally interrogated her and seen the fire in her eyes, I might have felt the same way.

Still, there was only one reason I’d take a traitor out to the cabin, and it wasn’t fishing. With hundreds of acres of woodland, a vast lake, and wild animals, the body would never be found.

“Well, is it?”

I gritted my teeth, hoping she wouldn’t spot the lie. “Yeah.”

She studied me for a long moment. I’d learned to lie a long time ago and was fairly good at it. Then again, I’d learned from the best.

Eventually, she nodded. “Good. Any problems?”

“Nope.” I pretended I didn’t want to talk about it. Natural, under the circumstances.

I couldn’t tell her the truth: that I had to be sure.

I’d been given orders to kill indiscriminately before, and I wasn’t going to do it again. If Evelyn was guilty, she would get what was coming to her, but I was going to make damn sure before that happened.