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Slowly, I moved into the room and toward the fridge to collect the things I needed to make an omelet. Cooking was yet another thing Carla believed I should have been better at even though we employed a full-time chef. I could manage an omelet, but I had never tried to cook while my clearly psychotic mother-in-law and first love were holding weapons and in a clinch in the kitchen with me.

“What have you done, Carla?” I asked calmly as I pulled out a bowl and assembled the ingredients.

She beamed at me. “I’ve been married to that man for decades. It only took five years to train him to take what I wanted, to carve him into my little marionette, but the strain of living with an idiot for so long . . .” She shuddered. “He fucked anything that moved, including your little friend Alessia. He couldn’t help himself as most men can’t.”

“So you killed him because he couldn’t keep it in his pants?” I asked incredulously as I cracked eggs into the bowl.

She leveled a cold look at me that was so lethal, I was reminded suddenly of Dario and Luca and their ability to make someone piss themselves with fear. I’d always thought Lando wasn’t capable of instilling that same kind of fear and wondered where the twins got it from.

Clearly, from Carla.

“It would have been reason enough,” she hissed at me. “The injustices done to women in this world are disgusting. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, Fiammetta. Forced to marry a stranger when you were in love with a better man.” She stroked a hand down Niccolo’s arm. For his part, he seemed content to finish his apple and let his older lover have her moment. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that as the Oracle either. Chicago’s keeper of secrets. Yet you never figured out mine. I have to admit, I was surprised when we discovered you were the notorious fixer. I didn’t think you had it in you. Of course, you still weren’t nearly clever enough to root out my truth.”

“That your husband failed you and then your plan B—your sons—failed you, and so you what? Took them out to take over the Outfit? Why now?”

“Oh, the old capos wouldn’t accept a woman in the eighties or nineties or even the two thousands. I had such hope for Dario, but he fell in love with that Russian slut, and it made him soft. And then Luca? He was nearly perfect, a murdering robot, and I held the remote in my hand. But he found you.”

Her disgust was evident.

“No, I don’t like curry powder,” she said suddenly, when I went to lift it into the bowl. “Get Italian seasoning from the pantry.”

I did as she asked without question, mostly because she had leveled the gun at me.

The pantry was a walk-in beside the fridge, organized beautifully and filled with every kitchen gadget, ingredient, and cleaning supply one might need. I paused as I reached for the spice rack, my eyes raking over the cleaning supplies until they landed on nirvana.

When I emerged from the pantry, I had multiple bottles in my hand including olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Italian spices, and a box of cornstarch.

Carla narrowed her eyes at me, but didn’t say a word as I threw everything together and started to whisk the mixture.

Niccolo’s phone rang, and he moved away to answer it, speaking in low, rapid Italian. I couldn’t hear him, but my heart was in my throat as a slow, sinister smile claimed his face. When he put the cell down and wrapped his arms around Carla, my heart plummeted into my stomach like a broken elevator down the shaft.

“It’s done,” he murmured against her lips. “Tommy confirmed they got both Dario and Luca. They took out most of the men, but we got them.”

Carla sealed her mouth over his, moaning into the kiss and wrapping herself around him. He lifted her to the countertop, nudging Lando’s dead foot to the side to make space for her ass, and properly went at her mouth.

I turned toward the stove, lit the element, and placed a pan to warm over the fire. Without hesitation I poured the cornstarch box and a little milk into a small bowl and then added it to the egg mix before pouring it all into the pan.

I had one plan in action, but I had no doubt that Carla was divulging her secrets because she intended to kill me, so I needed as much help as I could get. My phone was in the other room, and she had killed Dario and Luca.

My heart tripped and fell, not restarting for a long moment as I thought about my ghost being a literal ghost now just when he had come back to life and I was ready to love him with everything I had.

Fuck her.

I flipped on every element on the stove without lighting them, the gas pouring into the room. Only the small flames from the one hot pan were flickering, but it would be enough, after a while, to set the room ablaze.

If they killed me, I was taking those motherfuckers down with me.

“Now, we just have one guest left,” Carla crooned behind me just as I flipped the omelet and turned to grab plates.

“Who?” I asked on impulse.

She ignored me, smoothing her hands up and down Niccolo’s chest as he kissed her neck.

“Niccolo, why?” I asked him. “You killed your own father to rule Chicago with Carla?”

“Oh, he’ll rule in Sicily, and I’ll rule here,” she corrected.

“You don’t want to be together?”