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Not that I need a reminder for that. My memory is fine now. Intact from the moment I woke up after almost six years in a coma. I just can’t remember anything before. Well, apart from that night.
I set the bottle down and take out the disinfecting wipes to clean the spot on my chest where the names Diego and Angel De La Cruz are written. My reaper’s list. I will reap the lives of every single person named. I’m a little more than half-way through.
For a moment my mind wanders to what happens then. After I’m finished. I don’t see a future after that, though. I’ve never even tried to imagine one. When the last name is crossed off, I’ll be done with anything having to do with this life, this world.
Cleaning the space that will be tattooed and then cleaning the needle itself, I get to work, the little engine humming. I dip into the ink, wipe off the excess. I don’t use a mirror. Probably should.
The names themselves my brother tattooed. I remember how he’d looked at me when I’d told him my idea about the list. How he’d seemed disturbed for a moment before he’d grinned and picked up the needle to get started.
I’d sat through it without a sound, without a word. Whiskey at hand, hate in my heart and vengeance on my mind. He tattooed the names my uncle provided. We’d never even heard of most of them, but he told us their stories night after night, patiently working. Patiently preparing me, our family’s deadliest weapon. Because as the oldest surviving son, it was up to me to avenge their murders.
I think about Dante. About how he’d gone off the island at the last minute that night. How lucky he was to have been gone.
It was him who’d found me still alive the next morning. When every single person on the island lay in a pool of their own blood, I still breathed. Not a day goes by that I wish I’d been dead too.
My uncle had then taken us both into hiding. It’s the one time he and Charlie worked together. He swore Lenore to secrecy.
I guess my uncle wasn’t ever really a threat to the Rinaldi family since he wasn’t a part of the business. The only reason he’s still alive. Or maybe they just couldn’t risk killing him. He was and still is very well connected politically. To take out a mafia family is one thing. You’re almost doing a service. Two mafia families at war and toss in a Mexican Cartel too? Win-win-win.
But to kill a man like my uncle, a legitimate businessman—at least as far as the public was concerned—who rubs elbows with the elite of Europe’s high society, well, that’s something else altogether.
And so, I lived. Broken and damaged beyond repair in some ways, but alive. And Dante lived in a sort of coma too as he waited for me to wake. He was sixteen at the time of the incident and my uncle, rightfully so, wouldn’t allow him to retaliate.
Even without my uncle egging me on, it’s not only duty that drives me to avenge my family’s murders. I want it. I want the blood of their killers on my hands. I want to watch their eyes as I steal from them what they stole from me.
Not that it will ever bring back my own family. Or even my memories of my family.
That’s the worst part. This not remembering.
I’m not sure how long I’m in the study but by the time I finish and stand, the bottle is almost empty and my chest aches where I drew the lines. But my mind is on something else now. On the girl upstairs.
Fuck her and get rid of her.
I’m not committed to that last part yet though. Not sure why. Maybe it’s her eyes. Looking at them gave me back a memory.
Burnt sugar. Crème caramel.
I know it’s my imagination making me think I can smell it as I make my way through the dimly lit house up the stairs and to my room. Alec is standing guard. He’s Lenore’s nephew, and a soldier I trust.
“Did she give you any trouble?”
“Apart from asking me to let her see her brother again, no. She’s been quiet as a mouse.”
“Good. Check on the kid before you go to bed, will you? Take him what’s left of the cake.” I may not be very principled, but I always keep my promises.
“Sure thing.”
I open the door to my bedroom to find the two lamps by the bed on and Scarlett standing at the window, looking out at the water. She’s still wearing my things and doesn’t turn right away, but I see how her body stiffens when she hears me.
How far would she go for her brother? I have a feeling she’d die for him if she thought it would save him.
