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That was Donnie’s style, not his.
“Why do you think I killed him?”
“It was a De Kysa hit.”
His expression smolders with unspent fury. “It wasn’t a De Kysa hit.”
He’s lying.
“I know he wasn’t a saint, but he didn’t have a depraved bone in his body, and you killed him. You were a hit man for the De Kysa. They paid you to kill him.”
“They didn’t pay me to kill him.”
“There were rumors that he did something to one of their family members—”
His dark, low voice cuts me off. “I said… it wasn’t a De Kysa hit.”
“Are you saying you didn’t kill him?”
“No, I killed him.”
My emotions explode out of me. “Then if it wasn’t a De Kysa hit, why did you take my brother from me?”
“Because he raped and murdered my girlfriend,” he yells.
I stare at him in stunned silence as his words spin around me.
He went to prison for his girlfriend’s death. He told me he was wrongfully accused. Now, he’s saying Joey was responsible for her death.
It doesn’t make any sense.
“No,” I say.
“He was a rapist and a killer, Rory. And Belle wasn’t the only one. There were others.”
I think about the boy who taught me to skim stones and how to tie my shoelaces and my anger erupts out of me like lava.
“Don’t you say that to me.” I point an angry finger at him. “Don’t you dare speak about him like that.”
“It’s the truth.”
I shove him in his chest, and because I don’t know what else to do, I start to pummel him with my fists. Not that it does anything but shoot pain up my forearms.
He grabs me by the wrists to stop me. Which, of course, I struggle against. But it’s no use, he is too big and too strong, and I’m no match for his strength.
“Listen to me…” His grasp tightens, and he speaks rapidly. “In the last couple of years of his life, Joey was involved with some pretty fucked up people. Real mean sons of bitches who did vile and depraved things. Joey trafficked young women for them… some of them who he raped and murdered. But before that, he and his over-privileged college buddies raped and murdered Belle. You might not want to hear it, but goddammit, it’s the truth.”
I struggle against his hold on me. “Stop it.”
“I did nine years because of him, Rory. Nine years. Do you know what that does to a man? It makes him mad. It makes him seethe and simmer, and the need for revenge festers. So when I took a job for the De Kysa, and Vinnie De Kysa got the names of the three men who were responsible for what happened that night, I went looking for them, and I made them pay. Do you hear me, Rory? I made them pay for what they did.”
“I said stop it!” I cry. “You’re lying. It was a hit. You killed men for the De Kysa. Joey would never do those things. They got the wrong man.”
He slams against the wall beside me. “You want honesty? Yeah, I dedicated a good portion of my freedom to ridding this world of stains like your fucking brother. I killed them all, and I don’t regret a single damn one of them, including your brother.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck me? Fuck him for what he did to those women. For what he did to my Belle.”
