Chapter 2

We crouched in the tunnel.

Prayed not to be heard.

But the prayer didn't take.

"There's a steel door down here!" a voice shouted above us. "I'd bet my fucking life the women are behind it!"

"I knew it. No way an island this big runs out of women."

"Six months at sea, boys. I've been dreaming about this."

They started smashing at the door.

The women went white.

Some of them started shaking.

All they could do was pray the men would get back in time.

Half an hour later, Mia came scrambling back up through the sewer.

Filthy.

Trembling.

A few of the women cried out in relief, certain she'd brought the men.

Then they saw her face.

She wiped her eyes, voice small.

"I'm sorry. They wouldn't come."

Donna Isabella's voice cracked.

"What do you mean they wouldn't come? Their wives are down here. Their children are down here."

Mia's tears spilled over.

"My brother said I was lying. He said the Morettis would never hit our family out of nowhere. He said Wren and I were running some scheme together."

She lifted a shaky hand to her cheek.

"And he slapped me."

The handprint was livid against her skin.

The women erupted again.

Curses for that conniving bitch.

Curses for Lucien, who'd left his post for the sake of one woman.

Then came the explosions.

The Morettis had brought charges.

The steel door wouldn't hold another hour.

* * *

I gathered my voice and told them.

Pelle Island was twenty minutes out.

The Lombardis ran it. They still owed the Vitales a favor.

I could go to them.

Donna Isabella seized my arm.

Her palm was cold with sweat.

"Wren. Every woman, every child in this tunnel—it's on you now. You bring help back."

She pressed something into my hand.

A silver crucifix on a tarnished chain.

Three generations of Vitale women had worn it.

She'd never taken it off, not once that I'd seen.

Then a small oilcloth packet. Heavier than it had any right to be.

"I've been watching Celeste for two years," she said, quiet.

"Photographs. Recordings. Every contact she ever made with the Morettis."

"I was waiting for my idiot son to open his eyes."

She let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.

"My stupid boy."

She looked at me then.

Something in her gaze went soft and strange.

"If I don't make it out—give these to Mia. Tell her to learn from Wren. Not from her brother."

I nodded.

I couldn't trust myself with words.

* * *

Anita caught me before I climbed up.

She pressed a small pistol into my palm.

"Marco's been keeping a backup speedboat under the western cliffs. He never told Lucien. Keys are in the ignition."

She smiled.

The same smile she'd worn on my wedding day.

"And tell that bastard husband of mine—"

"His wife is down here in a tunnel."

"Waiting for him to come bring her home."