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Did Mom recognize the footsteps behind her or the scent of the man wielding the knife? On the one hand, I hope that Mom didn’t know it was Dad, but that would mean her last thoughts on this earth were that Lorenzo was killing her.
No, baby, I hear her murmur in my ear, calm and sweet.My last thoughts on this earth were of you. Only of you.
I breathe in sharply and blink to clear my eyes.I was loved, I think fiercely.
If I never feel that deep and pure kind of love ever again, at least I had it once in my life.
Even if I die today.
“When you first became Mayor of Coldlake, did you set out with good intentions, or did you let yourself become corrupted along the way?”
Boredom and impatience flash across Dad’s face, and he starts to turn away. Just like that, he knows I’m not here to marry Salvatore, and so I have no purpose to him.
Novalue.
His own daughter.
I pull the gun out of the bouquet and hold it up. Lorenzo’s gun, feeling heavy but secure in my hand. My finger over the trigger just how Vinicius taught me.
Squeeze don’t pull. Three times in the chest and once in the head. Do it quickly.That’s what Cassius would want, so I can safely return to him.
To all three of them.
But it can’t end like this, when Dad hasn’t even bothered to say a word to me.
My hand starts to tremble. “Stay right there. I want to talk, and you’re going to answer my questions.”
He’s going to talk, even if it kills me.
Women who don’t do as they’re told by men like you end up dead.
Dad turns back to me. “You can’t always get what you want, Chiara, and I’ve got better things to do.” He turns to Salvatore. “Well? I won’t blame you if you don’t want her anymore.”
Salvatore casts his eyes over me. “Did any of them fuck you?”
Any of them. If he only knew what I’d done with his ex-friends.
“Didallof them fuck you?”
I still have the gun pointed at Dad’s chest but my gaze flickers to Salvatore for just a second.
Yes, all of them.
And I liked it.
His lip curls. I’m ruined. I’ve lived past my usefulness. Dad shakes his head and starts to turn away again.
I step forward, the gun shaking in my hand. “No! You’re going to talk to me. You owe me this.”
Salvatore gazes between me and Dad, and silence stretches. Water laps at the edge of the pool.
Just do it.
Doit.
But he was supposed to beg for my forgiveness.
That’s what I wanted, I realize. Not to kill him.
