Corrupted Vows: A Second Chance Dark Mafia Romance (Mafia Kings: Corrupted Series Book 5) by Kiana Hettinger

Author:Kiana Hettinger [Hettinger, Kiana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

***

“Gabe, can I speak to you for a moment, per favore?” my mother asked, catching me at the bottom of the stairs.

“Of course, Mamma,” I said, though not without one longing glance up the staircase.

“I thought you might want this back,” she said, holding out her closed fist. “I know you’d thought about giving it to Caitriona before…” she said, trailing off. “I thought you might want to give it to her… at some point.”

She opened her fist to reveal a ring in the palm of her hand. A gold ring with a flawless diamond in the center, surrounded by Burmese rubies. It was a ring that had belonged to my mother’s mother. An engagement ring.

My heart started to pound like a drum inside my chest.

“Where did you find this?” I asked, picking it up between two fingers.

I squeezed my eyes shut hard then opened them. It was still my grandmother’s ring I was holding.

“I found it when I was packing away your father’s things,” my mother said as a flicker of grief ghosted through her eyes. Despite the asshole Lorenzo had been, she mourned for him.

I didn’t.

Now, there was no way I ever would.

I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples as something twisted in my gut.

“Gabe, what’s the matter? I’m not trying to pressure you,” she said, putting a comforting hand on my arm. “I only thought that one day—”

“I gave this to Cait,” I said.

My voice was quiet despite the violent urge to tear the whole world apart.

Lorenzo had done it.

My father, my own flesh and blood, had Cait abducted.

He’d sent her to hell.

The asshole that he was, he made sure to take the ring back from her before he did.

My mother’s hands were clasped over her mouth, her eyes wide with something that wasn’t quite disbelief.

As unbelievable as it should have been, it wasn’t.

Just when I thought I couldn’t possible feel more, hate more, something new came along. Something that made it feel like there was hot lava speeding through my veins, scorching everything inside me.

“Gabe, I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” my mother said, her voice almost ghostlike.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t stop looking at the ring in my hand.

I could clearly remember when I’d slipped it on Cait’s finger.

Just as clearly, I could see Lorenzo wrenching it off her.

I swallowed and licked my dry lips.

“When I started hunting down traffickers, I began to pray after I killed them, Mamma,” I said, my voice eerily quiet even to my own ears. “Not for their peace or for their sins to be forgiven. I prayed that God would punish them for what they’d done, that death wouldn’t absolve them of their sins.

“I prayed when Lorenzo died too, Mamma. I prayed he would rot in hell, but it turns out, I asked for the wrong thing. Because hell doesn’t have anything on what I’d do to him if he was here now.”

“I can’t undo what he’s done,” she said. “I wish with all my heart I could.” Her voice was filled with sorrow, but something else too.

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