Her fingers must have trembled because Dante paused in his conversation, turning to look at her, his dark eyes taking her measure within seconds.
“You need air?” he asked in a low tone, low enough that nobody else could hear. She gave him a nod, grateful that he knew her the way he did.
Alerting Vin, he put pressure on the small of her back, urging her to take a walk outside while he circled the party. Amara looked to see her friend, and now her head of security, waiting for her by the side door. He held the door open for her and Amara gave him a smile, walking out on her heels on short, sure steps.
The door closed behind her. “You okay?” he asked, leading her down a cemented path gilded with vines on the sides, ending a few feet away in a short gazebo.
Amara gulped in the fresh air on the hill, the scents of night blooms permeating the air, and felt her racing heart begin to calm. She took a seat on the marble bench and looked up at the stars, feeling Vin standing guard by the entrance.
The sound of footsteps had her leaning to the side to see Leo Mancini striding down the gazebo towards her, his eyes shifty, looking around to see if anyone was watching him. There were hardly any guards patrolling this side of the compound. Amara straightened as Vin blocked him.
“Move aside, boy,” Leo spit out. “I have to talk to her.”
Vin turned to look at her, asking silently if she wanted the man to be sent away. Amara didn’t want to be alone with him, but she was curious as to why he sought her out. She gave Vin a slight nod, and he let the older man pass, putting his hand on the gun on his hip in case Leo did something he didn’t like. Amara doubted he would, so close to Dante.
“Amara,” Leo took a seat on the marble bench opposite hers, the relation to the Maroni gene evident in his jawline and distinguished looks. He looked around, hunching down a bit, and spoke. “Someone is going to kill me tonight.”
Amara raised her eyebrows in surprise. “How do you know that?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Ten years ago, you eavesdropped on a conversation you shouldn’t have,” he began, and Amara felt her heart begin to pound, her palms get clammy. She gave a look to Vin, who looked back at her, his body alert.
“Yes,” Amara swallowed, remembering the exact conversation. “I was abducted because of that, wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” the man nodded. “But Lorenzo or I didn’t give the order. We’d been working as affiliate partners with the Syndicate back then. Transporting…packages.”
Amara felt bile rise in her throat. “But you worked as more before, didn’t you? When the Alliance ended?”
Leo hesitated. “Lorenzo tried the shipment of one batch, but it ended in a fiasco with the Reaper and Gabriel’s kids getting mixed up. The Syndicate told Lorenzo to just do damage control and stick to transport. Listen to me. I don’t have time and I can’t talk to Dante with the party going on. You’re my only hope.”
Amara didn’t understand him. “Hope for what?”
“Redemption.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve done terrible things. Terrible. With my hands but also with my silence. You coming to the compound again with Dante has made some people high up to take notice. I will be killed tonight and before I go, I want to confess. And Dante needs to know.”
“Tell me.”
Leo wiped his hand over his face, looking much older than his years. “The Syndicate is lethal about its privacy. Anyone who worked with them knew that speaking about it meant certain death. We had a contact, a handler, at the Syndicate during the Alliance when the first shipment was being planned.” Amara felt ants crawling up her skin at the casual way he referred to innocent children as ‘shipment’. She stayed silent, letting him continue. “We had a meeting with him to discuss further action. It was later that I discovered that Talia, Dante’s mother, had overheard the meeting.”
Pieces fell into place. “So you killed her.”
He shook his head. “No. Lorenzo grew very fond of her actually. They’d had a rough start but over the years things became good for him. We decided to keep it quiet and protect her. She became antsy after that but we were containing the situation. Except we didn’t realize another thing about The Syndicate – they always plant their people where they’re dealing. One of our soldiers was their spy, and one day, he went into her studio and made her slit her wrists while holding the gun to her son’s head.”
“Oh god,” Amara clapped a hand over her mouth, the shock of the words hitting her. She felt her heart bleeding for the woman, for little Damien, for Dante.
The wind swept over her exposed arms, chilling her to the bone, her eyes taking in the sincerity on the older man’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Leo said, his voice deep, and hesitated. “It was to teach Lorenzo a lesson, to keep him in line. There were bigger fish in the sea than he was.”
“What happened to the spy?” Amara asked, her hand fisting the fabric of her dress.
“After the assassination and Lorenzo’s cooperation, the spy got promoted in the Syndicate and became our handler. Any work, any news, any report, he was our contact.”
The hesitation in Leo’s demeanor had a rock lodging itself on Amara’s chest.
This was bad. Whatever this was, it was bad.
“Say it,” she whispered, hoping it wasn’t what her mind was telling her. She felt Vin’s hand come on her shoulder in support, and took a deep breath, steadying herself.
“When we caught you eavesdropping, we had to report it to him,” Leo said, his eyes regretful. “He-”
A shot rang out, a bullet hitting him right between the eyebrows, and Amara screamed, her throat straining. Vin ducked, pushing her down to the floor, and Amara kept her eyes on the dead body of the man who had been partly responsible for her abduction.
A wave of dizziness swept through her, and she realized she’d been holding her breath for too long. Gripping the marble at her side, Amara felt her eyes begin to burn, her jaw shaking with the effort of keeping in the scream in her throat, memories, horrific memories, assaulting her.
What had he been about to say?
Guards came running to the gazebo, along with some guests from the party. Amara sat up on the floor, the chill from the marble seeping into her bones.
“Amara!” Dante’s voice thundered through the ground as he ran towards her, his eyes panicked.
He dropped on his haunches as soon as he reached her, his hands going to her face, his eyes running over her body. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay? Fuck, Amara talk to me!”
Amara shuddered, hanging onto his hands. “I’m okay. We’re okay,” she reassured him and watched his eyes harden as he turned to Vin. “I want to know where the bullet came from and which motherfucker fired it.”
Vin gave him a quick nod before running towards the mansion, and Amara turned to Dante, watching the deep pools of darkness in his eyes, wondering how she was going to tell him what she’d learned.
“So, wait, let me get this straight,” Morana said over the video filling her phone screen. “This MrX dude who ordered your abduction was an Outfit soldier before he became a Syndicate spy? He got promoted for killing Dante’s mom? Wow, that’s a different level of fucked up. How did Dante take it?”