“Hey, come on now, Roxie, breathe,” Rocco says when the air in my lungs no longer feels adequate. It feels as if I’m drowning like I am being pulled into the abyss of my horrible life. My parents killed my family. All of them are dead, and I would have been next if it weren’t for the man currently torturing my mother.
How fucked is that to even consider?
I can’t comprehend it.
I also can’t breathe.
When a high-pitch wheeze I’m certain didn’t come from me breaks through the thud of my pulse in my ears, so does Rocco’s clipped tone. “I’m just offering her comfort, dickwad. If you have a problem with me touching her, you’re gonna need to tell me in person.”
Rocco stops rubbing one of my arms in a nurturing manner, so he can give a one-finger salute to the camera in the corner of the room. With how tight my chest is, his shit-stirring grin shouldn’t be comforting, but since it’s full of mirth, it is. It allows my lungs to suck down the tiniest slither of air that’s forced back out when a person bursts through the door on my left.
As Dimitri’s narrowed gaze bounces between Rocco and me, his nostrils flare like his lungs are screaming as loudly as mine. He seems torn between wanting to punish me for accepting Rocco’s comfort and taking me back to the dungeon responsible for making me an orphan.
He loses the ability to drive me to Hell’s gates when I see the blood smattered on the collar of his dress shirt. It’s so fresh, its putrid scent is stronger than the pricy aftershave he wears. It nosedives my hysteria in an instant and has me on the brink of a breakdown even quicker than that.
When a scream rips through me like a shard of glass, nicking my heart into hundreds of tiny pieces, I can’t deny it’s from me this time around. I hate what my parents did and agree they should be punished, but I still can’t wrap my head around the fact it occurred without more fight.
I should have fought harder.
I should have pleaded for mercy.
And I should have done both those things long before my parents crossed paths with Dimitri’s wife.
“I’m sorry,” I force out through the despair clutching my throat. “For what they did. For choosing me over your wife. I’m so fucking sorry. They should have taken me. They should have hurt me. It’s my fault. Everything happening to your daughter is my fault.”
Dimitri appears shocked my regret centers around his daughter instead of my parents, but it has nothing on the surprise that hammers me when he replies, “You can be angry about what they did, you can hate them for how they treated you, but you arenotto apologize for them. Do you understand me, Roxanne? You aren’t to blame for a single thing they did.”
Tears sting my eyes when I blubber out, “Fien would be here if it weren’t for me.”
I feel like he slaps me as hard as he did my mother when he shouts, “Fien would be here if I hadn’t looked away.Ifucked up.Imade a mistake. This isn’t on you.”
I want to believe him, but I can’t. “You said—”
“I made a mistake,” he repeats, more forcefully. “And I’m trying to learn from it.”
I’m so stunned by his grab of the culpability batten, I don’t realize Rocco has left the room until I’m guided past the wall his brooding frame has been holding up the past hour.
As Dimitri walks me to the window I was peering out of earlier, the hammering of his heart is as audible as mine. I think it’s because he noticed the half-empty bottle of vodka on his desk but am proven wrong when I notice a change to the scenic backdrop of his compound. The same city skyscrapers sparkle in the distance, and the same twelve SUVs line the cobbled driveway, however the lead SUV’s taillights bounce red hues off locks not quite as vibrant as my hair’s natural coloring, but undeniably similar.
After watching my mother be guided into the back seat of one of Dimitri’s fleet cars, I raise my eyes to Dimitri’s. I bombard him with an array of questions without a single word escaping my lips. I’m too stunned to talk, shocked my mother walked to her awaiting chariot instead of being slid into the back seat in a body bag. She’s the reason Dimitri’s wife is dead. There’s only one punishment for that.
Seemingly wired to my inner monologue, Dimitri says, “She hurt you first. That means only you can sentence her.” He drags the back of his finger down my wet cheek to gather up the tears there before adding, “I don’t see you having the ability to make a rational decision tonight, so we’ll wait.”
The way he says ‘we’ makes me unsure which way is up. It was possessive and hot like I’m no longer his enemy.
Although I’m loving his changeup, something still doesn’t make sense. “My father—”
“Was given a choice.” Dimitri’s interruption reveals he’s still sitting on the edge of a very steep cliff. He’s as confused as me, although not as emotional. “He either confessed to everything or took the easy way out. Although it was obvious he didn’t give a crap about you, he couldn’t shut down his feelings for your mother as easily. He thought he’d protect her by—”
“Taking the easy way out,” I interrupt.
I hardly knew my father. Not even when I lived under the same roof as him did I understand him. He was different than my friends’ fathers, and the older I became, the more I noticed that wasn’t a good thing, but his love for my mother was undeniable. He became a monster to save her, and it’s that monster that’s slowly killing her.
Furthermore, the bullet entry point wound I’ve been endeavoring to wash out of my head the past hour with vodka was at an odd angle. It would have taken Dimitri distorting his wrist to replicate its oddness, but why would he bother faking his death? He’s never hidden the fact he’s a killer, so why would he start now?
Mistaking my quiet as deliberation on his honesty, Dimitri mutters, “If you don’t believe me, Smith can show you footage.”
Some may say I’m foolish to believe him, however, I do. “I believe you.” Pretending the roaring buzz between us is from remorse instead of euphoria, I ask, “Where are they taking my mother?”
