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This moment, this pause in time, it stopped Vitari’s heart.
“For he is God’s servant for your good,” Francis quoted. “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.”
Sasha’s trigger finger twitched—he jerked the gun up.
Francis tilted the shotgun down and fired. The blast tore into Sasha’s torso, eviscerating clothes and skin. Vitari ducked and dropped, covering Aldo. A second blast boomed. Sasha staggered, grabbed the chair, and fell into it, mouth gaping.
He still had the gun loose in his fingers, clutching it like a dying man clutched a crucifix.
Francis made his way over, the smoking shotgun now at his side.
Sasha made a weak attempt to try to lift the 9mm, but Francis snatched it from his fingers and held it behind him, for Vitari.
Vitari took it, and with Sasha unarmed and bleeding from every important internal organ, Vitari turned his attention to Aldo. He tore off the tape around his wrists and mouth and checked his shoulder. “You’re all right, it’s just a flesh wound. Hold here.” He placed the boy’s hand over the wound on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. All right? It’s over.” He met the kid’s terrified gaze and watched it turn to anger. Aldo glanced past Vitari at Francis, standing beside the fire, with his messy hair and baggy pajama bottoms, staring at the gurgling, dying Russian.
“He’s not just a winemaker, is he?” Aldo sniffed.
Vitari snorted and ruffled the kid’s hair. “Shh, that’s Padre Blanco, God’s wrath on Earth. But it’s our secret.”
The boy nodded, wide-eyed with awe and fear.
Vitari straightened and joined Francis in looking down at Sasha. “Two shotgun blasts to the gut. A fucking agonizing way to go.”
“I thought so too,” Francis agreed, matter-of-factly.
Vitari glanced back at the kitchen, where Francis had been standing behind the counter. From his position, he couldn’t have seen how Sasha had been about to put a bullet between Vitari’s eyes. Francis had shot him because he’d wanted to. Because Sasha deserved it. For justice. And maybe a little vengeance too.
The Russian’s mouth moved, his lips scarlet with blood. He gurgled something, but Vitari was done hearing his bullshit and slammed the tape he’d taken from Aldo over Sasha’s mouth. He’d said his final words.
Vitari braced over him in the chair, eye to eye. “You were never worthy of my father’s love, not worthy of the Battaglia. He wasn’t always right, but he did the right thing in removing you. And while you robbed me of knowing my mother, what I do know about her makes me think she told you the truth, that you were a sick fuck who had no place among the family.” The Russian’s eyes betrayed his rage. “For every kid you butchered and abused in homes like Stanmore, for all the lost boys who never saw justice, you’re going to sit there and drown in your insides. I know the Hell that’s waiting for you. I was raised there.” He let those words sink in, tasting their sweet vengeance on his lips. “Nobody is coming to save you, Sasha. Nobody will care when you’re gone. You’ll be forgotten.”
The light gradually faded from his eyes, and Vitari absorbed every single second of Sasha’s final moments like a soothing balm to the soul.
Then, in the glow of the fire, with Sasha cold in the chair, it was finally over.
“I suppose we’d better get the shovel,” Francis said as he rested the shotgun against the wall.
“I’ll do it, you fix Aldo’s arm and take him home.”
“What do I tell his mother?”
“We don’t need to tell her anything,” Aldo piped up with a grin, albeit a grin he winced through. “I was running and fell. Mama doesn’t need to know about Padre Blanco.”
“Lying to your mother is… very bad.” Even Francis struggled to justify that since he’d just shot a man twice with a shotgun and watched him die, savoring his final moments.
Aldo glanced between them. “I can tell her the truth—Padre shot a Russian, if you think that is best?—”
“No, Heavens no, no, definitely not telling your mama that.” Francis took the boy’s hand. “Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll get our story straight on the way home.” He slung a sly little grin over his shoulder, which Vitari caught in his heart, and then they left for the bathroom, already spinning tales.
Francis would come up with some excuse for the wound, he was a fantastic liar.
Vitari eyed Sasha’s body, the blood, the gun, and sucked on his teeth. He leaned over the corpse, gripped his limp, cooling chin and peered into Sasha’s dead eyes. If there was a Hell, Sasha was surely in it. May he burn for all eternity. “Ciao, motherfucker.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vitari
The rusted chain-link fence still ringed Stanmore House like a metal noose. A few more bunches of dead flowers had been fixed to the fence. The trials were long over. People had come and wept for the horrible scandal that had been Stanmore’s dark past. News crews had stood on the same spot as Francis and Vitari now, although they likely hadn’t been holding two empty gas cans.
