The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,68

still not turning him back from this path I think we’re both destined to be on.

I just have to have faith. Faith that God will protect us and guide us where we’re supposed to be.

I kiss his throat, and whisper, “You need to get ready for the service.”

“My last one.”

I hum. “Make it count.”

He shuffles off to his bathroom, leaving me in bed. I stare up at the ceiling and hope I’m not wrong, and that this truly is a journey we’re destined to take.

Later, after he finished the service, we discussed our intentions, and he told me of the capo’s base in a piazza a short drive from the church.

His intention was to go in, to demand to speak with Corelli, and to bring him outside.

He said he didn’t need me there.

But I knew he did.

How couldn’t he?

This was my sanctioned kill.

I knew this was righteous.

But I agreed to stay back. To merely watch in case he needed me.

And as I watch him wander into the restaurant that is Corelli’s front, I have to admit, he looks calmer than I expected.

I don’t know if this will go wrong, and I have to think that Corelli won’t be eager to come outside like Savio plans, but I figure this isn’t Savio’s first time. He knows what he’s doing.

He’s surprisingly slick, after all. Yesterday, I watched him manipulate Paulo Lorenzo. I watched him get him drunk, befriend him, and lubricate the situation until the man was at Savio’s mercy.

I have faith in my man.

And I’m not disappointed.

When Corelli storms outside, shouting, “What the fuck, Father? You think you can come into my restaurant after I invite you here and—”

“And what, Marco? You didn’t come to confession speaking the truth,” Savio interjects calmly, as I watch from the car I didn’t know he owned, which is parked just off the piazza as he starts to herd Corelli forward.

I have no idea what went down in the bar, and to be frank, I don’t really want to know. I’m scared, even though I know this is a justified killing, because I’ve only just found him.

The last thing I can handle is losing Savio before I’ve even had a chance to have him.

To hold him.

In truth.

I shudder at the thought of him being taken from me, but when Corelli grabs something from his pocket, I almost die. I’m so certain it’s a gun that, for a second, I don’t even register that he’s grabbed a cigarette he’s shoving in his mouth.

The windows to the car are open, and I’m close enough that the faint tang of tobacco slips in through the gap.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Father?” he demands, the cigarette drooping from his bottom lip.

I watch as Savio’s finger is suddenly in Corelli’s chest as he pushes him back.

It’s clear that Corelli sees no threat in him—his mistake. If anything, there’s no fear in the mobster’s face, just outrage.

“You lied in confession,” Savio repeats on a rumble, sounding so convincing that it surprises even me.

Corelli’s frown appears, and I stare at it, sensing his bewilderment, and move my hands under my butt to stop myself from leaping into the fray. “I paid my dues,” he grinds out.

“You gave a false confession. You said they were enemies. You never said it was a—”

“A what?” Corelli snaps, and as he peers in the restaurant, whatever he sees has him waving a hand.

I imagine that’s him dismissing the guards.

The idiot—thank fuck!

As Savio grinds out a reply, each finger prod in Corelli’s chest takes him back a step, but it angers him too.

In the rearview mirror, a sharp blue light catches my eye. I can’t even tell you why I saw it, why it suddenly appears in my line of sight, but it’s there.

A bright, glittering presence that I can’t ignore.

I don’t even see Savio pull the dagger he said Corelli was renowned for carrying in a holster on his shoulder. Don’t see him shove his hand against the capo’s throat as he pushes him into the wall.

I just see the lights.

Plural.

There are many now.

Many.

Too many.

And they’re coming this way.

Had the guards called the cops on Savio? Somehow, I doubt it. But their presence has me tensing, because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, they’re coming to the bar.

Maybe they’ve cracked a case and found that Corelli’s at the center of it, maybe something implicated him in Gianni’s death, but even a lifetime in jail isn’t enough for Savio.

I’ve seen the desire