I go to move my arms, but they are still restrained, even tighter than before. My body feels like it was run over by a truck. I try to take a deep breath and collect my thoughts. My mind is racing almost as fast as my heart.
I try to access what the hell is covering my face, but with my hands restricted, I can’t move them to feel what I assume is some sort of gauze.
Since I have no other options, other than laying here, wherever here is, alone with my restricted body and endless thoughts, I try to process what the hell happened. I’m trying to piece together the violence I witnessed, the evil I had no choice but to succumb to.
Suddenly, the silence of wherever I am is broken. Muffled sounds, which I can only assume belong to the monsters who dragged me here, fill the room. I try to focus on what is being said, but I can’t make out a sound. My head is pounding, and with my ears covered, it is hard to find the concentration I need to distinguish the sounds happening all around me.
I feel something touch my arm. I can’t even flinch like I want to—my restraints are too tight.
“This is Carmine.” The familiar voice permeates my ears as the wraps around my face are loosened just enough that I have gained some of my hearing back.
“Son, I am proud of you. What a monumental moment this is. That girl will have no fucking idea what hit her. But I will tell you what, you fucking hit her where it hurts, you stole the last thing that she loved. Now, because of you, she will spend the rest of her days a walking corpse. Dead on the inside, paying for what her parents did to us.”
Panic sets it. I don’t let him know I heard every word he just said.
What the fuck did I do?
Chapter45
Carmine
“Now that this is behind us, you should probably go see her. She misses you,” Alex reminds me as he helps me lug the last of the bloody tarp into the incinerator. I have spoken to my aunt, Alex’s mother, throughout the years, but I haven’t been able to go see her in person.
We slam the door of the incinerator shut in unison and step back to admire the flames hard at work, burning a lifetime of backstabbing, cowardly antics. Reducing painful memories to ash. There is justice within the flames. There is immediate relief in my father’s absence from this Earth. No longer must I share any space with the man who created me. Now, I can only hope that our sins don’t lead us down a similar path and that we don’t meet again in Hell. I’ll let fate run its course and hope for the best, I suppose.
We stand a few moments more just staring, taking in the finality of my father’s monstrous life, when I turn to Alex to pick up the conversation he started. “Funny, didn’t think she missed me, since she never mentions it in our business correspondences,” I point out as Alex hands me a fresh pack of Parliaments that I snatch from his hand.
“Don’t be like that, Carmine. You know why she acts like that. Shehasto,” Alex says, defending his mother as he lights up next to me.
“Weallhave had to do a lot to survive him.” I nod in the incinerator’s direction.
I don’t regret killing my father. It had to happen, and what better man for the job than his own flesh and blood, who he betrayed time and time again? Despite it needing to happen, it doesn’t make it any easier. Especially when the man staring back at me in the mirror is arguably just as monstrous as he is. Maybe worse. Every day I live a lie. I deceive to survive. Sometimes, I believe that I belong in that incinerator. But then again, if I burn, she remains without me. I did this for Sienna; it was the only way we could be togetherfor good.
With my father out of the picture, our family war is null and void. Sienna and I can be together without the threat of war breaking out between opposing families once more. All that is left to do is to convince her that I am the one she needs, the one she craves. I will spend the rest of my life fulfilling every desire she has. I will infiltrate her heart, if I haven’t already. I will wake her soul and feed her bittersweetnightmares.
“Yea, I guess I should stop by and see her before I leave,” I concede.
“She didn’t forget about you,” Alex says, trying to tame the anger he sees boiling at my surface.
“I would fucking hope not. How could she forget feeding me to the lions?” I shudder at what I had to give up in order to be the one who stands here today, alive. What she allowed to happen to me. I know it technically worked out for the best, but still, it doesn’t hurt any fucking less.
“Oh, cut the shit. You know damn well that you don’t give a fuck about any of that. I would call you a selfish fuck, but that would require you giving a shit about yourself or anything other than her. God, that fucking girl is going to lead to your demise, if she hasn’t already,” he says as he takes a smoke from the fresh pack I just opened.
We both light up a cigarette and stand watching the flames burn what’s left of Armando Moretti. The crackling sound they make, along with the rattling of the ancient incinerator, echoes in the warehouse. It is music to my fucking ears.
We wait until the job is done, and as we go to lock up the warehouse, Alex puts his hand on my shoulder. His face looks concerned. “Just be certain, that’s all, before you leave with her. Because once you leave, that’s it,” he warns.
“Alex, I’ve been sure since the moment I met her.”
“How did you know that quickly? Shit, I didn’t even know with April until we were hooking up a couple months, and even then, she pressured me into settling down. No regrets now, of course, but man, isn’t it difficult to be sure of anyone?”
“I’m sure of no one and nothing other than what my soul tells me. My soul has been knocking at my rib cage, roaring to let it free, let it rejoin its other half. She is what my soul has always desired. I won’t stop until Sienna Ricci is mine and no one else’s.”
“Well, I guess, if you change your mind, Christian can work his magic once more and you can be off starting somewhere newagain …” he trails off.
“Where we will be, Christian’s services will not be needed. I have too many bad memories tied to his blade. I lost too much the day his scalpel tore my flesh. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Alex finally stops with his attempts to have me come to my senses. Deep down, he knows that I mean it when I say I will stop at nothing to have Sienna Ricci.All of her.
