“You can’t be serious. You would have me kill a man as afavor?”
“I’m sorry,topolina.I would ask anyone else if I could. You are the only one I trust.”
Her heart gave a quick, painful jerk in her chest. “There are others just as experienced as I.”
“The others lack your finesse. I need this done as quickly and as quietly as possible. And I need to ensure it won’t be traced back to me.” Grief shone in his eyes. “I wish I didn’t have to ask this of you,topolina.”
Perhaps it was perverse of her to feel such a fierce sense of pride at his words, but it was there nonetheless. “When?”
“Tomorrow night. It’s Rinaldi’s monthly dinner for the families. We’ve already RSVP’d, so it won’t draw any suspicion for you to be there. You’ll make apologies for me.” He paused, the weight of what he was asking filling the heavy silence between them. “You know how to take care of the rest.”
“Yes.” Normally a job, especially one as fraught with danger as this one could potentially be, gave her a thrill. But she couldn’t find any excitement, only bitterness. “You’re sure this is the only way?”
“I wish it weren’t. You of all people should know this isn’t something I ask lightly.”
She did know. Ordering the death of another human being always weighed on him, even when it was a disgusting piece of human debris like Robert Grayson had been. Ordering the death of a respected rival, the head of another powerful family, however...
“This must be some favor you owe.”
“It is.”
She waited, hoping for more of an explanation, but when it was obvious none was going to be offered, she pushed up out of her chair. “Goodnight, Uncle Gio.”
“Goodnight, Amara.”
With another kiss, this one distinctly colder than the last, she headed for her room. There, she picked up the picture of her parents she kept on her dresser, the last picture of them before their deaths nearly twenty years before.
A drunk driver, a rainy night, and the two people she’d loved most in the world had been ripped from her lives. Which was where ‘Uncle’ Gio had come in. Technically, he was her father’s cousin. The pair had been inseparable as children, and that bond had followed them well into adulthood. When her father had taken the reins as head of the Vitali family, Giorgio had naturally stepped into the role as his right-hand man. She’d grown up calling him uncle, and when her parents had died, he’d adopted her without so much as a second thought.
Not for the first time, she wished she could go back to that time in the picture. When she’d been young and innocent, without a care in the world. When the most pressing wardrobe decision had been which dress had the most sparkles, and not which dress provided the best range of motion in case her target put up a fight.
But she couldn’t go back, and her heart was heavy with grief as she planned her strategy for her next job. Rinaldi wasn’t a friend in the most traditional sense, but there was a longstanding and mutual respect between the two families. At ten years his junior, she’d known Emilio Rinaldi her entire life. Much to her own chagrin, she’d been a little bit in love with him as far back as she could remember. The absolute epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, he’d starred in her childhood daydreams and her teenage fantasies.
And he’d made it clear they would be no more than fantasies during her rather disastrous twenty-first birthday party, when she’d gotten completely sloshed and climbed into his lap in front of God and everyone.
You’re making a fool of yourself, Amara. Go home and sober up.
She’d barely spoken a word to him since then, but their world was small, so she hadn’t been able to completely avoid him. Five years ago, his father had handed over the reins and retired to Italy with Emilio’s mother. From what she’d heard and seen herself, Emilio was just as strict as his father had been, but just as fair, as well. His people not only respected him, they genuinely cared for him.
And that, at the core, was why this hit didn’t sit well with her. It was easy to take a man out when there was a good reason, even if that reason was mostly business. But this? Taking the life of a good man simply because some nameless, faceless person wanted it done? It was... revolting.
She set the picture back down and headed for the en-suite bathroom, where she ran the water in the tub as hot as she could stand it. With water running, she dumped a few capfuls of her favorite lavender-scented bubble bath under the tap. Nobody who knew her would believe the Vitali family’s ice princess enjoyed her baths with actual bubbles instead of the bath salts most of her peers seemed to enjoy. But the bubbles were a small joy, the one piece of her childhood she still allowed herself to indulge in, and that bit of joy helped to remind her she was human.
After stripping off the stiff uniform, she stepped into the tub and sank into the water with a blissful sigh. The heat helped leach the stress from her muscles. Normally, she could let her mind go blank, or at least wander while she soaked. But tonight, no matter how hard she tried, her mind only focused on one thing.
Killing Emilio Rinaldi.