Negotiation: A Mafia Love Story (Triple Threat Book 1) by Kit Tunstall, R. E. Saxton Page A

two fingers. Somehow, she doubted that.
    The tall, dark-haired man stood nearby, watching impassively. After hanging up the phone with Roman a few moments ago, he had casually dropped it to the floor of the yacht and stomped it ruthlessly. He didn’t seem to care that he had severed his only connection to Roman and was clearly confident he would come for her. Sarah was confident herself, but she was also worried for him and tried to distract herself with fear for Roman from the burning pain in her finger a moment later as Audra hacked through bone and tissue to sever her pinky.
    She screamed when the girl cauterized the wound a moment later with the side of the knife blade, which she had heated with a lighter right before removing her finger. At least she wouldn’t bleed to death, but she wasn’t certain that was necessarily a good thing under the circumstances. “Why are you doing this to me?”
    “Because you mean something to Rinaldi, and he owes Audra for taking her fingers.”
    Through the haze of tears, she tried to focus on Benas as his feet scraped against the wooden deck when he moved closer to them. “She stole from him. You’re lucky he didn’t kill her as compensation.”
    “Robbie stole from them,” said Audra with a hard look in her eyes. “He made me the patsy, but I had nothing to do with it.”
    Sarah snorted her contempt. “Yeah, right. My brother, the genius mastermind behind all criminal activity.”
    Audra slammed the knife down into the table, and unfortunately straight through the back of Sarah’s hand in the process, pinning her to the wood. Amid Sarah’s screams, she leaned closer, her rage evident. “That’s what he wants you to believe. He’s not naïve or foolish. We were barely involved. Robbie used me as a scapegoat so he could get away while Roman focused his anger on me. Your brother intended to steal that shipment and sell it right from the start. He only screwed up by not lining up a buyer soon enough and not protecting it well enough. Roman got it back, but Robbie got away. Thinking I was involved, he took my fingers as compensation. If I hadn’t had the goods to return to him, he would have killed me.”
    She still couldn’t reconcile what she knew of Robbie with the version this girl was presenting, and she shook her head. “Robbie’s not dumb, but he’s not smart enough to do what you’re talking about.”
    Audra snorted. “Take off your blinders, foolish girl. If I hadn’t made the mistake of starting to date Robbie, you would have been his patsy instead of me. As it was, he convinced you to trade yourself to Rinaldi and allow him a chance to escape. You’re a fool if you believe differently. Robbie’s a sociopath, and he cares nothing for you or anyone else.”
    Audra’s expression was so sincere that it was difficult to doubt the girl at least believed her own words, even if Sarah couldn’t imagine how they could be true. A sharp sting of betrayal swept through her when she remembered how enthusiastic Robbie had been about her plan to offer herself, her 401k, and the proceeds of Grandma’s jewelry to buy his freedom. He’d never once tried to dissuade her.
    In an attempt to distract herself from thoughts she didn’t want to think, she asked, “If that’s true, how do you know any of it?”
    “Your brother likes to brag in bed. He told me all about how he was setting up his first job for Rinaldi so he could make off with the money, and he figured you would divert Rinaldi from him long enough for him to get away. He made it sound like a lot more than a hundred Gs, and when he offered me the opportunity to be his partner, I decided to go for it. I was tired of living the criminal life, and the picture he sold me of going somewhere far away, somewhere safe and tranquil, appealed to me. I was too stupid to realize he was setting me up so that he had a backup plan in case Roman caught him before we fled. He wanted it to seem like I had convinced him to steal