But was she Mateo Castellano’s kid sister? Had whoever killed him taken her? What had she had to do with anything? Although it wasn’t like she needed to be involved at all. This was the Italian mafia, after all. Families thrived together, and they were destroyed together. Was this sleeping woman the girl I’d once saved from two overzealous boys at a party?

I stood abruptly and stepped away.

What did it matter if she was? She was a job. That was all. Just because I’d saved her from some idiot kids years ago, didn’t mean we were connected, that I was going to be her savior again. I had to remember I was no longer a Benedetti. I no longer had an army behind me. I was Dominic Sapienti. A nobody. Even if I fucking wanted to protect her, what the hell could I do? It’s not like I had the fucking money to buy her outright. I’d blown all the money I’d had when I’d bought Salvatore’s mansion, lock, stock, and barrel. Everything in it now belonged to me, and it fucking sat there under seven years’ worth of dust because it wasn’t like I was ever going back there. I didn’t even know why I’d bought it.

And even if I hadn’t, what now? Buy her? Keep her?

Keep her.

“You’re a fucking imbecile, Dominic,” I muttered to myself. I stood, walked the few steps to the center of the room to unscrew the lightbulb from the ceiling, and plunged the room into near darkness again. It took a moment for my eyes to readjust.

Keep her, and do what with her? I’d question her about the brand. Find out who’d done it. Why they’d done it. Then what?

This was the drawback to my line of work. I never knew who hired me, and they never knew who they hired. An anonymous world of monsters.

I reached for the phone in my back pocket, closing the space between me and her, and began to dial a number I hadn’t dialed in way too many years. I pulled the blanket back over her, taking in her sweet, innocent face—at least in sleep—and walked out of the room, locking the door behind me. I looked down at the phone display. One digit more and the phone would start ringing. My heart pounded, and my hands felt clammy. I hit End. I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Instead, I opened up my laptop and took a seat at the kitchen table, where I typed in Mateo Castellano’s name on the Google search field, already knowing what I’d find.

8

Gia

Light filtered through the slats of wood covering the bedroom window. My eyelids felt sticky as I blinked them open, my mouth like cotton, and my head heavy. A combination of the drug and life.