Page 164 of The Ache That Stayed

(I trusted you. You were family… and you betrayed me.)

He didn’t deny it. Didn’t look away.

“You forgot the code we live by,” I continued, my voice dropping further. “Loyalty. Devotion.”

“I didn’t forget,” he said.

I hit him again. The words came sharper this time.

“And yet you touched her. I should kill you for that.”

A pause stretched between us, heavy and unrelenting.

“I should have killed you the moment you came back.”

Blood coated his lip now, but he didn’t wipe it. Didn’t defend himself.

“Do it. I accept my fate,” he said finally, steady despite everything.

And then, almost like a final strike—

“If I had to do it again, I would.”

Silence followed. Because he meant it.

My hand went to my gun. I pulled it out and pressed it against his forehead, right between his eyes. The weight of it sat easily in my grip, familiar, final.

“La lealtà nun s’avissi a tradiri,” I said through clenched teeth.

(Loyalty shouldn’t be betrayed)

His eyes closed, not in fear but almost in relief. Like a man who had already made peace with whatever came next.

“Tell her—” he started.

I cocked the gun. “Don’t.”

His eyes opened again, steady despite the blood, despite everything.

“…I love her.”

My finger pressed on the trigger. The shot rang through the room. I turned and walked out without looking back even as I heard him hit the floor with a heavy thud.

For a second, another version of him flashed through my mind. Younger. Grinning through split knuckles and bloodied teeth after a fight neither of us should have survived. Standing at my side like he always would. Family.

I kept walking.

I didn’t stop until I reached the driveway, the cold air hitting my lungs harder than it should have. It didn’t help. Nothing did. The anger didn’t dissipate. It didn’t cool. It stayed—low, constant, burning through everything it touched.

I paused in front of his bike and kicked it hard enough to send it crashing onto the ground. The sound of metal against concrete split through the silence, violent and sharp, but it didn’t touch what sat inside me. It didn’t fix anything. Nothing would.

The drive from the cottage to the airport passed without memory. I didn’t think. Didn’t process. Didn’t allow anything to settle.

By the time I reached Palma, the night had quieted into a deceptive calm. The Leopardi estate lit in warm pools of light that had no business existing after what I had just done. Kyra was the first to see me.

She ran toward me before I had even stepped fully out of the car, Romano stumbling behind her with determined, uneven steps. I bent automatically, lifting him into my arms, his small body warm and solid against my chest.

“Where’s mamma?” Kyra asked.