Page 143 of The Beast Who Begged Me

I don’t look beyond the two of them, because my father’s face is turned toward the doorway. Toward me. His mouth moves, but I can’t understand what he’s trying to say.

Santi rubs a trembling finger over one of the checkers. “Cesar got the knife off me right after. Thought he was going to kill me.”

The knife. I still see it in Cesario’s hand, blood running over his fingers.

“He took it from you?”

Santi nods. “I was backing up. But Vin tried to say something, and Cesar turned around. Dropped the knife. Got down there with him, right in all that blood.” Santi looks up at me, bewildered. “Held him. Wouldn’t let go. I left out the back door.”

I remember Cesario standing over my father.

But I never saw him drop the knife, or hold my father as he died, because I ran.

Out the front door. Three blocks down. And I hid behind a dumpster all night.

Caligula’s fingers curl against my back.

“He was trying to talk,” Santi says. “Vin. Something about his boy.”

I look up at him. “He said my name?”

“He loved that boy.” Santi’s mouth trembles. “I told Lou after, I couldn’t do no more for him. I was done.”

I’ve spent years imagining my vengeance, and this is what I get: a frail old man. No defiance. No enjoyment in my pain.

Two chairs away, a woman in lace-up shoes is putting pills into a little paper cup. Santi glances toward her, then back to me, suddenly anxious. “Vin?”

Old and sick doesn’t change what he did. I lean closer, trying to find the ruthless killer beneath the years. Santi stares at me. His eyes move over my face, then down to my hands, and something in his expression sharpens.

“You’re not Vin. You’re his kid.” The chair scrapes as he tries to move it back, but there’s nowhere for him to go. He knows exactly who I am now, and he’s terrified.

One of his slippers has come off, and he’s trying to find it with his foot while pushing himself farther away from me. There’s a wet shine in his eyes, and his breathing is shallow and fast.

“Mr. Santi?” The woman puts down the cup and comes over. “What’s happened?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, getting up so quickly the checkerboard shifts. I steady it without thinking. “I upset him.”

“Oh, don’t worry, hon. He doesn’t always know the year, or who’s in front of him.” She gives me a reassuring smile before turning to him. “You’re here at the club, Mr. Santi,” she says loudly. “You’re alright. You’re alright, Mr. Santi.”

I step back. Santi keeps watching me over her shoulder, waiting for whatever he thinks comes next.

“He gets a little paranoid sometimes,” his caregiver says in a loud whisper, then turns back to him. “No one’s going to hurt you,” the woman tells him soothingly.

I bend to pick up a checker that’s fallen to the floor. “No,” I tell him, placing the piece back on the table. “They’re not.”

Santi looks at me, and I can’t tell whether he understands what I’ve said. But I don’t need him to get it.

The man I’ve wanted to kill all these years has gone somewhere I can’t follow.

Caligula is beside me. He hasn’t said a word, hasn’t tried to pull me away or tell me what I should do. I turn toward him, and he lifts his face to mine.

“We’re leaving,” I say.

“Alright.”

Fontana meets us near the door. He looks at my face and doesn’t ask for an explanation. He just goes ahead to get our coats while I keep walking.

Outside, the cold hits my face hard enough to make my eyes water. A bus is pulling away from the stop, and the air smells of exhaust. I breathe it in, fill my lungs with it.