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I froze at his words, unable to comprehend their full meaning. My father? A chill ran down my spine, and I tightened my grip on the hospital sheets. "What are you talking about?" My voice came out as a rasp, betraying the panic slowly spreading through me.
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Your father and I, we grew up together. We were...friends, of sorts." His words lingered in the air, heavy with unspoken truths and hidden meanings.
A knot formed in my stomach. I hadn't expected him to bring my father into this. Memories of the old man rushed in, forcing me to swallow hard against the sudden lump in my throat. "What does my father have to do with any of this?"
The Everglades Viper looked at me, his eyes shadowed by the dim hospital lights. "Everything, Teo,” he said, sighing and leaning back on the chair dramatically. “We were on the same path when we were coming up but your father didn’t appreciate some of my more…recreational pursuits. He was practical. I thought, why not add a little zest to the job?”
“By zest, you mean killing people?”
He sighed. “Well, not at first,” he tapped his long fingers against the arm of the chair. “But yeah. I mean, he got in the way. I didn’t mean to kill him. It just happened.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. "You killed my father?" The words fell from my mouth in a whisper, as if saying them any louder would make them true.
He winced slightly at my words. Was that remorse? No, it couldn't be. Not from him. "It wasn't that straightforward," he hedged, his eyes sliding away from mine.
“You murdered my father?” I asked. “I thought it was gang related.”
“Well, it was. It was gang related. We were in the same gang.”
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut, leaving me gasping for breath. "You are a fucking monster," I spat out, my hands balling into fists on the sterile white sheets.
"I did you a favor. I saw how he treated you and your mother. You were better off without him. I couldn’t have accounted for your mother’s death a few years later.”
"Enough," I gritted out, my chest heaving with the effort of controlling my rising anger. My mind was swirling, a chaotic mess of memories, old hurts and shocking revelations.
"I came here to explain, Teo. Not to twist the knife." His voice was eerily calm as he continued, "I wanted you to understand why things turned out the way they did."
"There's no understanding this," I muttered, turning my gaze to the window. The sky outside was gradually darkening, its somber hues reflecting my swirling emotions.
He chuckled in an odd sort of way, a sound devoid of any real humor. "I guess not. But at least let me give you the full picture,” he said. “I might have killed your father, but he was savvy, and he got in the way of my business dealings before he died. He made sure to secure your future while fucking mine over. While fucking my children over. And then I saw that you had turned into quite the businessman yourself, and through my association with Archer, I thought I had quite the opportunity. He wanted to get rid of the gangs running the street, and I…I wanted to get rid of you.”
A shiver of terror went down my spine. "Are you telling me this whole kidnapping scenario was just a ploy to...to kill me?" My voice wavered at the end, my pulse quickening.
"More like get you out of the way and take back what should've been mine to begin with," he shrugged nonchalantly. "But things didn't go exactly as planned. And the kidnapping had nothing to do with it. The murders, framing you, that was my idea. What happened with Sofia…well, that was kind of an accident.”
“What does that mean?”
“I never accounted for Sofia getting involved. She normally doesn’t mingle in her brother’s business like that. I didn’t expect Archer to try to hurt her, but when I realized she was involved with you, I thought that was the perfect way to finally get my revenge. I thought that the easiest thing to do was to hurt your operation but you fell in love with her, didn’t you?”
My blood ran cold at his words. "I don't know what you're talking about," I managed to stammer out, but my voice was thin and weak, and I knew he could see right through me.
He tutted. “C’mon, Teo. We’re past all that now.”
“And what about you?” I spat back, baring my teeth as the icy tendrils of dread crept further into my chest. “You’re so concerned with your revenge that you let your own daughter be kidnapped so what? I would take the fall for your crimes?”
He raised an eyebrow at me, his expression unreadable. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he drawled. "The last thing I wanted was for Sofia to get involved in this mess. But she did. And that was unfortunate."
“Unfortunate?” I repeated, incredulous. “Your daughter, your flesh and blood ends up as a pawn in your sick game and all you can say is it’s unfortunate?”
“Well, you have to understand. It provided an opportunity. A tactical advantage,” his gaze hardened as he spoke. “It’s a cruel world, Costa.”
“And you,” I spat out, my voice shaking with rage, “you are the cruelest of all.”
He just smiled, a cold, icy smile that sent chills down my spine. "Maybe," he conceded casually, "But sometimes cruelty is necessary."
I wanted to leap across the room, to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze. I wanted to watch the light in his eyes flicker out, just as he had done to my father. But I was bound by wires and tubes, my body weak from the attack. There was a bitter irony in that; incapacitated when I needed my strength the most.
Suddenly, I felt weariness wash over me like a wave, extinguishing my rage for a moment. "So that's it?" I spat, my voice barely above a whisper as I pressed back into the hospital pillows. "This was all about revenge? You killed my father, you destroyed lives, all for what? A petty grudge?"
