The tears hadn’t stopped streaming from my eyes.
‘Papa never wanted to do that, Daisy-Bear.I would have given anything to avoid making that decision, but we can’t always do what’s right, and sometimes, to get to what’s right, you have to do what’s wrong. Maybe papa is a monster, but he’ll never love you any less.’
The words from so many years ago came back to me. The guilt that had weighed on my father whenever he had to do something terrible.
I focused on the image where the skull-faced man had made a point of pausing the video. Camillo standing at the door of the child’s room, the baby soaking the crib in blood, and the woman's mangled form at his feet. And I rememberedthe pictures of the villa. Of his family. The parents, the grandparents, the uncles, the brother, and the cousin.
‘Their car fell off a bridge.’Fabiano Mancuso’s words reverberated inside my brain.‘Signor Camillo’s wife was to blame.’
I thought of my family and my best friend, and the tears dried on my face as I realized how rotten I was inside. Because now, as I stared at the screen, I understood him.
What would I do if I stood before my Papa’s murderers? If I had the chance to discover their identity and whereabouts? No. I wouldn’t forgive them. No matter how much I believed in God, no matter how much I knew He wanted anything but that—anything but death, violence, suffering—I wouldn’t show any forgiveness to those responsible for the loss of my Papa.
In Camillo’s place? If I had married a man and he ended up destroying my entire family? I would have done the same thing he did to his wife, or worse. If I got pregnant? I would get rid of the child, because it was better than bringing into the world someone I couldn’t love. But he didn't have a say in it. That child had been born, and Camillo hadn’t been able to stop it.
Death, perhaps, was a mercy in that situation. Camillo, on the other hand, would have to carry forever the burden of having taken the life of an innocent, and, one way or another, he would end up paying the price for the blood he’d shed. Just as my Papa paid.
I saw that very thing the other night.
His remorse. His night terror.‘I am a monster, Daisy.’His cry echoed in my mind and vibrated through every fiber of my being.‘If you knew what I did, you’d run far away.’No. Now that I knew who Marcello was, I knew I wouldn't run from Camillo. Worse. I realized that I didn’t care about what he did.
It wasn't because I knew he regretted it.
Or because I could put myself in his shoes.
Or because I had my father’s example.
No.
I was indifferent to that crime because that child—Marcello—was another woman’s son. The son of a traitor.
Maybe I wasn’t a good person. No. In fact, I wasn’t. Because the only thing that video made me feel was relief. Relief that I didn’t have to share Camillo with anyone else.
I blinked very slowly. A thought crystallizing in my mind and overshadowing everything else.
Camillo Vicari wouldn’t leave proof of his crimes.
He left no evidence and spared no witnesses, and that was why I was in Italy. He was meticulous. Senator Jones’s death had revealed this to me, the way he staged it all to look like a simple suicide, how he waited for and seized the opportunity that presented itself. However, that skull-faced man was showing me all-too-concrete evidence of a horrific crime that, if uncovered, would bring down the remnants of the Vicari family and could even send Camillo to death row.
The man who left no evidence had allowed one of his henchmen to keep recordings of that crime and expose them to me and the other men present. The same man who had guaranteed that no one, besides me and Luca, knew about Senator Jones’s true end.
I raised my gaze very slowly, fixing it on the skull-faced man.
“What is your name?” I asked in a whisper, as the pieces fell into place in my mind.
He flashed a smile that seemed to drip with venom. “Cissio Accorinti, Signorina.”
“Very well, Cissio.” If that was even the real name of that abomination. I raised my hand carefully and pointed at the camera. “Does the camera have sound? I’d like to send a message to Don Vicari.”
The skull-faced man puffed out his chest, the pits where his nose should have been twitched in a manner that reeked of victory. “Of course it has sound, Signorina. Don Vicari insists on hearing your screams.” A shiver ran down my spine, but I forced myself not to show the slightest fear. Cissio Accorinti stepped back a little and motioned to me. “Come closer to the camera, Signorina, and tell Don Vicari what you think. Tell him what you thought when you saw those images.”
I stood up very slowly and obeyed, walking toward the camera, my eyes fixed on its lens.
I didn’t know who this Cissio Accorinti was, why he was lying to me, or what he intended with all of this, but of one thing I had no doubt. He was an enemy of Camillo’s. Most likely, the reasonwhy security had been tight in recent days, which meant that Martino Accuri had betrayed the Vicari.
The motherfucker...
I stopped right in front of the camera, watching its little red light blinking.
