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Blood gouts up all over me. “You fucking murderer. You piece of fucking shit. I knew I’d kill you one day.”
I can’t stop shouting, and I can’t stop stabbing. The knife sticks in his sternum and my hand slips on the bloody handle of the knife.
I stay where I am, watching the handle moving slowly up and down as De Luca struggles to breathe. His face is filled with rage.
“It’s me. Salvatore fucking Fiore. I’ve killed you, you worthless piece of shit.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but I don’t give a fuck what he has to say. I pull the knife out of his chest and slash it across his throat with a roar. Blood gouts all over me. Hot, viscous blood. The blood of my worst enemy.
It feels like victory.
It tastes like vengeance.
And he’s dying. This piece of shit is dying before my eyes.
I rip his shirt open, take the knife in my hand and carve a word into his chest as his blood gurgles in his throat.
KILLER.
I grab a fistful of his hair and yank his face up to mine. “Everyone’s going to know what you are. You know who found you out? Romano’s daughter. She would have liked you to stand trial, but I couldn’t wait to send you straight to fucking hell. Say hello to the devil, courtesy of the Coldlake Syndicate.”
With the last of his strength, he glares at me. Then the light leaves his eyes and he goes limp.
Distantly, I’m aware that my phone is ringing. I take it out of my pocket and see that it’s Vinicius. “What’s happening? Where are Chiara and the others?”
Vinicius gives a weak laugh. “I’m still on the freeway. The neighbors noticed the fire as soon as it started and called it in. I’ve just been talking to Chiara. She’s fine. The baby is fine. They’re all fine. The firefighters got them out of the basement.”
I close my eyes in sheer relief. Oh, thank fucking Christ.
“Here’s the kicker,” Vinicius adds. “Do you know who the neighbor is that called 911?”
“Of course I don’t. Who is it?”
“Christian Galloway.”
The man we suspected of being the Black Orchid Killer. Coldlake’s running corpse-fucker joke. “You’re fucking kidding me. Christian ‘corpse-fucker’ Galloway for mayor.”
“He gets my vote.”
I can’t help myself. I laugh, feeling like a maniac with this knife in my hand but too happy to care. “De Luca’s dead. I just killed him. I’ve got to go and I don’t know, sort myself out? I’m covered in blood.”
Vinicius breathes in sharply. “He’s dead? He’s really dead?”
I stare at all the blood covering me, the walls, the carpet. De Luca’s thin chest with the word KILLER scored across it. “He’s so fucking dead. Go get our girl, okay?”
I hear the determination in Vinicius’ voice. “On my way.”
I hang up and take myself into the kitchen and wash the worst of the blood from my face and hands. I could take De Luca’s body with me, wrapped in a rug. I could burn the house to the ground to cover up the evidence, but I think of all those other brothers, sisters, and parents of young women who this bastard killed. I killed him for all of them. They should get closure too.
I wipe my fingerprints from everything I’ve touched, take the knife and walk out of the house.
It doesn’t feel right to go back to the compound and face Nicole and her mother wearing the remnants of De Luca’s blood. It doesn’t feel right to go home, either. Instead, I find myself driving into the heart of Coldlake and past all the casinos I own. I keep driving to a hotel with a casino that I don’t own, one with a beautiful marble fountain out front. The place I took Chiara after our first date and she was too tipsy and grief-stricken to deliver back to her father.
The last place I saw Ophelia alive.
The last place I saw my sister smile.
I park and head over to the fountain. It’s dark now, but some people give my bloodstained shirt strange looks as the colored lights wash over me. The water sprays high in the air in a beautiful display.
