42
Gabriel
The door opened silently, and I slipped inside quickly before I could risk anyone noticing me.
With a hand on the railing, I made my way down the stairs with careful, cautious steps through the dark. I didn’t want anyone to know that I’d wandered into the basement.
Not yet anyway.
Only a single, dim light was on by the table where Rafael kept his tools, illuminating the terrifying knives and instruments vividly for the victims. It was all they could see in the light on the rare occasion that someone made it back toEl Infiernoalive.
More often, Rafael dealt with his victims in Ibiza itself, preferring to keep the island clean of the violence that happened elsewhere. This was his sanctuary, a land of life born from the shadows of all the death his father caused.
Death like my mother’s. Slow. Torturous. Painful.
I stepped in front of the chair, staring down at Odina’s sleeping face with contempt. She’d been a pain in my ass from the first day we started watching over Isa, and I always knew it would come to this moment.
To the choice to do what was necessary to protect Isa. Even when she didn’t want it.
Even when it was against her wishes.
I would do whatever it took to give her a life of true freedom, even knowing it might mean she hated me for the rest of my days. If she couldn’t look me in the eye, at least I would know she was alive to ignore me.
There would be no regrets.
I drew the knife from its sheath, the blade dragging over the leather as I stared down at Odina’s sleeping form and considered my options. The darkest part of me wanted to make her suffer, wanted her to feel every bit of pain she’d ever caused the girl I’d long since come to think of as a little sister.
But the knowledge that Isa would at least want it to be done quickly, to be more humane than Odina deserved, drove me to line the knife up to slip between her ribs.
She startled awake at the first press of the point against her skin, her eyes flying open as a shocked gasp escaped her lungs. The pain that lurked in them faded quickly when I shoved the blade forward, sinking it into her flesh as blood dripped free from the wound.
She groaned once, the sound cutting off as her eyes went glassy when I pulled the knife free from her heart and wiped the blood on the dress she’d stolen off of Isa’s body when she switched places with her.
Her head lolled, dropping forward to hang over her corpse as what remained of her wasted life poured out of the hole in her chest.
I swallowed, sheathing my knife and making my way for the stairs to find my brothers and tell them what I’d done. There would be no pretty lies to hide the ugly truths of what happened to her sister.
All that mattered was that Isa would be safe.