Actually, Siena didn’t know what she was feeling. There was a numbness, but she wasn’t numb. There was pain, but she couldn’t quite feel it. It was like the wires connecting her heart and brain and the rest of her body were suffering an electrical fault that was stopping all the components from working in harmony.
Probably for the best, she thought dazedly through the wail screeching in her head, looking slowly around the room, at the white faces of her family and the triumphant looks on the faces of the Ranieris.
But Elio wasn’t triumphant. The face still avoiding hers was holding its neutral expression.
Would he keep that expression if he turned his gun on her?
“Why are you giving us this chance?” she whispered. “Why not just kill us and be done with it?”
“You had nothing to do with the slaughter. You are guilty only of profiting from it.”
“You would leave us paupers?”
“Your father left us paupers. Now sign the document.”
Siena looked again at her mother and brothers. Had they known deep in their bones like she had that their day of reckoning was coming?
She met Rico’s stare. Elio couldn’t have taken his home from him. Rico had bought the farmhouse he and Marisa had moved into recently from his own funds. There had been nothing to transfer. Nothing to forge. “You have a baby coming,” she told him. “Sign it.”
Turning her stare to Tommaso, she looked into his blazing eyes. Gabriella still had her apartment. Elio couldn’t have taken that from her. They wouldn’t be homeless. “Think with your brain and not with your anger. You know what our father did to Gabriella. This is restitution. Sign the document.”
To her mother and oldest brother, she simply said, “There is no way out. Sign it.” There were relatives they could stay with. Relatives who’d grown fat and wealthy on the blood of Gabriella’s father and Elio’s family.
Bowing her head, Siena flicked to all the pages with a little yellow flag sticking out and signed where indicated. The notary who’d also grown fat and wealthy on the blood Siena’s fatherhad gorged on would no doubt sign his part from the comfort of his own home. He didn’t need to be here for this. There was no pretence left.
Done, she put the pen on the thick document and pushed it in front of her. Her mother and brothers were all signing theirs.
The silence in the room when they were done was absolute.
“Well done,” Elio said softly once Vincent had gathered all the documents and bustled from the room. The men with the guns followed them out, leaving the Espositos and Ranieris alone.
“What happens now?” The question came from Mattia. They were the first words he’d spoken. Her oldest brother, Siena was certain, was the only one of them who would have been completely blindsided by Elio’s actions.
“Now? You leave my home and throw yourself on the mercy of others for food and shelter.” Elio’s lips curved without any humour. “Although I am quite certain you all still retain money and assets that even I, with Vincent and Aldo’s help, was unable to discover. But don’t think I will make the same mistake your father made – I will be watching you all very closely. If I believe for even one sliver of a moment that you are trying to regroup and rebuild, I will follow my sister’s example and put a bullet in each of your heads.”
Then, before any of them could understand what he meant by that, Elvira whipped a gun out of her pocket and put it to Valeria Esposito’s temple.
Time stalled. The earth’s rotation slowed to a crawl. In a blink that seemed to stretch minutes, the horror of what was about to happen fired all of Siena’s synapses back to life. Her heart, brain and body came back together as one functioning being, and with a keening wrench that was dredged from the pit of her soul,she slipped her hand up her thigh and pulled out the gun she’d hidden in her suspender belt.
Staggering onto her feet, she placed the nozzle on her breast, directly above her heart. She could feel her family’s eyes on her, feel the horror they were experiencing as deeply as her own, but her stare was only for Elio.
Only when his silver finally locked onto hers did the slow motion of time speed back up to where it should be, but even though the earth was rotating as it should, Siena’s world had finally broken beyond repair.
Never trust me in life.
Oh, God, shehadn’t. Never had she allowed herself to trust him an inch outside of the bedroom, but that had been her head. Her heart, her foolish, foolish heart, had gift-wrapped itself to him.
She hadn’t just fallen for him, she’d fallen in love with him, and all along her instinct had been right that his vengeance could never be satisfied with marriage. What her father had done to him and everyone else was just too heinous.
His features as tight as she’d ever seen them, he stepped to her with his hand outstretched. “Give me the gun.”
Swallowing hard, trying desperately to keep her hand steady, she shook her head.
He moved even closer.
She cocked the barrel and pressed the nozzle tighter to her breast, squashing the tissue.
“Stop fucking about and give me the gun, Siena,” he dragged out in a tone she’d never heard from him before.
