“She’s here,” he said.
Silence. Then: “We see you coming down. Find a position out of the way.”
Callum and Azara hit the ground floor, working their way around pieces of broken concrete, an unfortunate fact of life in Walakan. It hid suicide bombs, protected lone gunmen.
Tonight, though, it would shield them from sight while Azara identified the Prince, who had killed her mother. Poor woman had seen too much, and the Prince had personally dispatched her.
That was Azara’s second form of payment, one Callum understood. She was willing to bleed, to die, as long as the Prince got his.
But it shouldn’t come to that. The unit was supposed to stop the convoy at a critical place, where they’d be pinned in, and remove them by force.
Azara would give Callum the nod from behind their secret hiding place, and Callum would give the go-ahead.
In theory, they were going to keep the Prince alive, but a theory was all it was.
“Convoy’s closing in,” crackled the radio.
Callum tensed, watching three silver SUVs drive into their midst. He glanced at Azara; she looked pale and sweaty, but determined.
“Countdown. One… two… three…” said the radio.
The cars slowed when they spotted the roadblocks, set up as removable rubble from one of the many bombings. They halted just where the SEALs expected them to.
The front passenger door opened, a guard ventured out. All according to plan…
And then everything went haywire. The SEAL team didn’t have time to release flashbangs, because there was an overwhelmingly bright white light and sound that filled the entire area, making Callum cover his ears and duck.
Callum dropped his radio as gunshots rang out, some so close he was sure he was sure he was going to die. Smoke filled the air, too thick for Callum to see.
“Azara!” he yelled. “Azara!”
The smoke started to dissipate, allowing Callum to move at last. He spotted his radio, picked it up. It squawked in his hand.
“Alive.” Cormac’s voice. “One injured.”
“Alive,” he called back.
The smoke faded away, and suddenly Callum saw Azara. She was slumped over a broken piece of rubble.
“Azara!” he cried, running for her.
He turned her over, saw the small trickle of blood from her mouth, and the glassy look in her eyes.
And the worst part was, her eyes were blue, twin pools of sapphire light…
Callum sat up, shaking and sweating. He threw off the covers, swinging his legs to the side of the bed, and put his head in his hands.
Breathe. Viola and Azara are not the same person. You cared about Azara, but you never loved her.
He went still. Did he love Viola? She fought him at every turn, and she seemed to hate the life he led… but still, for some reason, he felt that she was the only woman that really knew him.
Fuck. He loved her.
That was why he couldn’t shake her off. Why he couldn’t just sleep on it, and get over her, the way he had with others in the past?
He slowly stood and went to the mirror, staring at his own face.
Now the question was, what was he going to do about it?
26
Vi stood in the grand ballroom of The Ritz-Carlton in New York, trying not to cry. Her father’s men swirled around her, smiling and telling jokes. Vi wasn’t in much of a joke-telling mood, but then again no one cared.
She was the heir apparent to the mafia throne, and they were only interested in one thing: being the next Don. In this family, that went by marriage, like the royals.
Or so her father said.
She raised her eyes and spotted Antonio Valetti across the room. He wore a pinstripe suit and the assured smile of someone who was getting what he wanted. Actually, in that, he looked the same as every other man in here.
She brushed her hands over the black, floor-length satin dress she’d been forced to don. It was her second débutante party, after all.
Her father made his way over to her, giving her a look that once would’ve sent her scurrying to do his bidding. She looked away instead, pretending to admire a glass sculpture.
“You’re not talking to anyone,” her father said.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she said, raising her chin. “You made me come here. You don’t like me, that’s not my fault.”
Her father scowled. “You will be pleasant and biddable. What you do after you get home is none of my business.”
“Fat chance.”
He grabbed her arm, drawing her off to the side. His fingers dug in, painful.
“You’re hurting me,” she told him.
“I don’t care what you’ve been doing, who you’ve been seeing, all right?” he said, close to her face. “Forget about that. You’re going to do as I say, or your Irish boyfriend gets it.”