He needs to hear it. Don Bruno needs to know.
“Arturo Farese, you said?” He tilts his head. “And he was an accountant?”
“Died in a fire when I was ten. That was about eighteen years ago now.” I smile at him and sip my drink. My hands are shaking and my stomach trembles. “I heard my mother die, you know. I heard her screaming.”
“Terrible,” Don Bruno says quietly. He’s alert now and scanning my face, and he slowly puts his drink down on the table beside his chair.
He knows.
He fucking knows.
No doubt about it now.
Neither of us moves. The room’s thick with tension as he tries to sit casually, but my legs are jostling and my knees are bouncing, and I can’t keep calm even if I wanted to. I watch him carefully, waiting for him to make a move, and he’s waiting for me to do something, and neither of us is willing to go first.
Everything falls into place. All the effort, all the fighting, all the violence and death and sacrifice. Everything clicks, and the moment distends like a starving stomach, and all my emotions come rushing up from the center of me.
“Why did you marry my daughter?” he asks and his voice is stone, like the dead-silence of an unmoving mountain.
“To get closer to you.” I show him my teeth.
He lunges. He’s fast, but he’s over twice my age and I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment. I’ve been training for this, honing my edge, learning how to kill. He comes at me and whips a knife from his pocket, the steel glinting in the firelight, darting out toward my guts.
I twist sideways and the point burrows into the chair behind me. He grunts as I smash my glass into the side of his head. The whiskey spills all over the place, drenching my shirt and pouring down his face as blood wells up from the gash I leave above his brow.
I throw myself from the chair and tackle him back. He grunts in surprise and pain as I smash my fists into him over and over again. I pummel him, losing my mind as years and years of pent-up rage floods out on the old bastard. I break his face, his nose, his ribs, and he’s groaning as I wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze as hard as I can.
He gags and his tongue lolls out, his eyes bulging.
“You killed my parents,” I whisper, moving my face close to his. Sweat drips from my forehead into his mouth. His tongue lashes violently and his hands claw at me, but he’s not strong enough. I’m breathing hard and the world’s tinted red and black. “You took everything from me. You took my life and damned me to hell.”
He merely chokes, gags, retches. I tighten my grip on his windpipe.
“My father was shot and my mother was left to burn. She suffered, you bastard, she suffered bad. I swore I’d find you and get revenge, and I went through hell to do it. Do you have any idea what I’ve done to get to this moment? Can you even comprehend the sort of sacrifices I’ve made? But don’t worry, Domiano. I’ll take care of Karah, because despite being wrecked by everything you are, I’m not a monster. I refuse to be a monster.”
I lean all my bodyweight against him. His eyes blink rapidly as he paws at me, desperately trying to get me off him, but it’s too late. I’m big and strong and young and I was born and molded into this moment. I can feel the strength flooding from him, his hands getting weaker, his movements slower, his eyes less focused. His mouth tries to form words—begging, pleading, praying, I don’t know what—but only silence remains.
I won’t be stopped.
I choke the life from Don Bruno, and slowly his eyes dim and his hands slump down.
I hold him there. I choke, and choke, and choke, killing him, making sure he’s dead, so fucking dead and gone, and it won’t bring my mother back, it won’t save my father, it won’t give me all those years I lost or heal the scars or fix the memories that torture me at night, but at least he got what he deserved, he got a painful death, an ugly death at my hands.
“Nico.”
I look over my shoulder.
Karah’s standing in the doorway.
She’s wearing a white sleeping gown. It’s long and conservative, and her hair’s unbound. It falls around her shoulders. She looks beautiful, so fucking perfect, like an angel glowing with an inner light.
She’s white. Pale white. Her mouth his open and her fingers are clawing at her own neck like she’s trying to stop me from killing her. Her body’s tense, her back arched, and she’s on the edge of screaming.