Page 141 of Unravel Me

Well… except when we were children.

Back then he'd come home from our uncle Tito's sick little ‘training sessions’, and whatever that man forced him to witness and do shattered another piece of him every single time. Month after month, year after year, until there was nothing left inside him that wasn't twisted, broken, or rotted.

I was a small kid then, but I still remember him lying on the floor of his bedroom, trembling and crying for hours.

But that was a lifetime ago.

He was turned into a monster, and eventually he wore that skin with pride.

I start typing because I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to think anymore.

"What new game is this, Rocco? Stop screwing with me, or I'll put a bullet through your head. This time I won't waste it on your vest."

I raise my pistol, aiming it squarely at his head, so he knows I'm not bluffing.

Rocco—or whoever this man really is—slowly lifts both hands.

"I'll explain everything," he says. "Give me five minutes, and after that… you can decide for yourself what happens next."

CHAPTER 29: JARED

Present day

I’ve been driving for maybe two hours, and I feel worse and worse, my fingers clutching the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Why is it so hard for me to get farther away… from?

From what?

Apparently, from wherever Mauro is!

There are moments when I stop and my brain just freezes.

Then I pick up my phone and, sniffling, scroll through the news about the Ferro family.

The Ferros!

Fucking Ferros!

Mauro’s one of them!

He didn’t say it himself, duh! No wonder. But Rocco called Renato Uncle, and it became obvious who they were.

I click and click, reading everything while swallowing back tears.

Photos of the two oldest brothers, Luca and Rocco, are easy to find online because they frequently attend various events, and their cousin Ennio is usually with them as well.

But photos of the two younger brothers are very, very rare. They clearly don’t like publicity.

I manage to find only pictures from their fights. Both of them are fighters in a barely legal underground fight club, so-called cage fighters.

That would certainly explain Mauro’s proficiency when sparring with Veyron.

But even those pictures are scarce because, given how hostile the law is toward this kind of underground club, the photos that make it to the surface are mostly posted on some obscure fan forums. There are probably more of them on the dark web, but I wouldn’t be able to access that from my phone.

Still, what I’ve found is more than enough. Mauro obviously isn’t a Santoro, just as Veyron rightly suspected. He’s a Ferro and is Rocco’s fucking biological brother!