She doesn’t deserve to live. You should have killed them both that day.
“For a whole year, I’ve been blaming myself for hurting you. I was totally convinced it was the worst mistake I’d ever made. The only thought I was obsessed with as much as I was obsessed with you was how to correct my mistake if I ever got out, how to save you, how to protect the wife I’ve failed to protect the first time.” I leaned forward. “Now, I see I’ve never been more fucking wrong in my life. That innocent girl I thought I loved and should have saved, that girl that stood next to me in white like a fucking angel never existed. It was all in my head.” I stared at her with all my might because in my mind I was murdering her. “You should have died that day. I should have pulled that fucking trigger again.”
Silent tears fell down her cheeks. In my peripheral vision, the Lanza dog was pouncing toward me. I headbutted him in the abdomen, and my knee smacked his balls. He barreled backward for a moment before he lunged at me one more time. He was notorious for his pain intolerance, but I wasn’t afraid to go the extra mile when it came to this motherfucker. I kneed him twice more. Three times in the balls would bring any man, no matter how tough he was, to his knees. As he bent in pain, I headbutted him again, in his injured head this time.
“Enough!” Enzio growled.
“Get your dog back to his place if you want to keep him.” I ground the words under my teeth.I won’t let this fucker come anywhere near me ever again.
“Get back here, Dom. Remember what we’re here for.”
“Where is my wife, you son of a bitch?” Domenico bellowed.
With a smirk, I looked him in the eye. “Bitch? My mom wasn’t the one who got knocked up by a guy who let his brother marry her for him.”
His face puffed in flames as his fist swooped toward my jaw. I ducked, Enzio flying off his chair, grabbing Domenico and dragging him away.
“I’ll kill him! I’ll fucking kill him!” Domenico yapped.
“Get him out of here,” Enzio ordered his men.
“I’m not leaving until I know where the fuck my wife is.”
“I’ll take care of it. Get the fuck out. Now.”
Domenico spat another threat at me as the men held him by the arms and pulled him away. I waved goodbye and blew him a kiss on his way out.
“This child’s play ends now,” Enzio said.
“Everything ends whenIsay it ends. You don’t have the upper hand here, Enzio,” I said.
“Where. Is. Nicole?”
“Where. Is. My. Brother?”
Lina sighed heavily. “You can’t possibly expect that I’d put my son in danger and just—”
“When capos speak, you shut the fuck up,” I interrupted. I literally couldn’t stand hearing her voice ever again that I was seriously considering cutting her tongue out. “Or hasn’t yours taught you that?”
She glared at me and then at Enzio. He nodded at one of his men. The guy lowered his gun and went upstairs. Then he came back with a baby.Mybaby brother.
My heart sped as I got to my feet. The seconds until the man reached the last step seemed like forever. I shuffled toward him, but two other soldiers blocked me.
“That’s close enough,” Enzio said.
I shot a dirty glance at him. “That’smybrother right there. You won’t care about him more than I do.”
“You tried to kill both his parents. What makes you think we can trust you with him?”
“I’d never hurt a baby, and you know that.” I switched my glare toward Lina. “Youknow that.”
Her eyes glistened as she studied my face for a few moments. Then she rose to her feet and took the baby. He cooed in her arms, and I almost cried at the sight of them both. This should have been my life. This was what I gave up everything for only to never have it.
How was I supposed to control the rage boiling under my skin when I came face to face to everything I’d ever wanted and lost? How was I supposed to fucking move on and live or let them live?
Before I knew for sure Lina was the one behind my misery, before Ravenna carved a place for her inside my soul, I’d planned to get Lina and my brother, kill everybody else and run away with them, where I could finally live with the people I loved. Now, the plan was almost the same, except Lina’s forehead would be the first to have a hole in it.
Carefully, she walked past the guards and approached me. She lifted the baby and cradled him in her arms in a position that allowed me to see his face.
