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CHAPTER 25
DOMENICO
When my mother was killed, I saw the aftermath of her body. In my father’s panic to locate Sienna, I saw her lying in a pool of her own blood, a bloody hole in her chest. Her face was bruised and cut open from the trauma she sustained before being shot.
By the time we’d gotten home, she’d been dead for two hours. I’ll never forget what I saw that day. It hardened a nine-year-old boy that shouldn’t have witnessed his first death at such a young age.
But what I watched happen tonight was far worse. My mom was already gone when I saw her back then. Tonight, I experienced my father dying in my arms. The scene wasn’t as gruesome, but seeing his life drain before me and not being able to do a damn thing to save him hurt. It hurt so goddamn bad that there isn’t a word fitting for the level of pain that sliced through me like a jagged, rusty blade.
Fire swept through my body, burning any ounce of good I had inside of me. It forever changed me, and I’d be lying if I said it was for the better. There is so much darkness and hatred festering within me that I cannot and will not be able to contain it as I have in the past.
My conflicting feelings about Ciera being my wife made me hesitate when I saw Cormac’s weapon aimed at his daughter. I wasted seconds, or maybe minutes, I don’t know, and now my dad, my hero, the best fucking human I know is gone. He’s dead.
Because ofher.
Antonio Caputo’s life ended tonight because Ciera Fitzgerald was there. If I’d pushed harder, refused to go along with his flawed plan for someone else’s revenge, he’d still be here. I swore to myself years ago as I watched my mother’s coffin being lowered into the ground that I’d never marry and look at me now with a ring on my left hand.
In what world does she get to live when he no longer breathes? Not one in which I control. She won’t for one second longer than it takes me to reach Krishna’s apartment near Brighton Beach.
I wasn’t ready to become the boss, but that’s the role I was forced to assume the second my father ceased living. I became the judge, the jury, and the executioner. I judged and sentenced Ciera in the same breath. All that’s left is to watch her life drain from her eyes the same as I did my dad’s. Hers is a choice; his wasn’t.
I took off within ten minutes of K leaving the house with Ciera. I left Ren and Si to deal with the cops and the mess I should be cleaning up. We have cameras mounted all over the property. Video footage will show the authorities that Fitzgerald came there with the intent to kill. We were in our rights to fire back. I don’t think the police commissioner wants his relationship with the Fitzgeralds exposed, but I’ll use that if I need to. For now, it’s a card I keep in my back pocket.
I sat in my SUV for over fifteen minutes after I arrived. I’m stalling, and I don’t know why. It should be like a Band-Aid. Just rip the fucker off. Be done in one quick movement. Is it that I want to know why Cormac sought to execute his own daughter knowing he would be doing it among people that would give any reason to take his life? It doesn’t make sense unless he was betting on my father saving her life. And that would have been a huge gamble.
If I could think clearly for a minute without seeing a flashback of my father dying, his dark, lifeless eyes staring up into the night sky, then maybe I could see what I’m missing. But I can’t. It doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or closed. The images still pounding against my skull are more gruesome, more distorted than the original memory.
My head and my chest are warring with each other. One wants me to go into K’s home and strangle every ounce of life housed within her beautiful being. The other wants me to feel her lips on mine again, have her arms wrapped around me so tightly that the bad shit vanishes. That part also wants to get her as far away from us as possible.
My heart has never been the strongest of my emotions. It’s a losing battle when it’s against my mind. That fucker wants retribution in any form it can get it, which is why I forced myself into the elevator that took me to his floor less than a minute ago, and the reason I’m walking out of it now.
When I near, I see the door open wide. That’s impossible. Krishna is more meticulous than I am. He would never leave his door open longer than the length of time it takes to enter and close it. For Christ’s sake, he has a keypad with a fingerprint scanner. To my knowledge, there are only three people that can gain access.
Removing my handgun from where I stuck it between the waistband of my pants and my dress shirt after exiting my vehicle, I lift the weapon in front of me, holding it with both hands. After I screwed the suppressor into the barrel, I couldn’t holster the gun under my jacket.
As I slowly approach the opening, I don’t hear any noise. That could be good or bad, but it doesn’t give me any warning as to what I’m about to walk into.
When I’m a couple of steps from the front door, I have a direct line of sight into one-half of K’s open kitchen. That’s when I see a body sitting on the stool at the end of the counter, but not just any body. It’s Ciera, and she’s slumped over the counter, unmoving.
Forgetting everything before right now, I run to her without regard for anyone else or checking my surroundings first. Stopping next to her, I place the gun on the counter, seeing a bloody towel on the ground next to her chair. Liquid drips from the ends of her wet curls, splashing her bare right thigh.
Grabbing her into my arms, I pull her off the stool where she was seconds from falling to the floor, and then I gently lay her on the hardwood to assess her. “Ciera,” I call out. “Are you with me?”
Her face is pale and her cheeks are cold to the touch. That’s when I notice the river of blood running from behind her neck on the right side and down the column of her porcelain skin, disappearing beneath the black material of the T-shirt donning her curvy figure.
“Ciera,” I call out again with more vigor than when I spoke her name the first time.
“Jesus.” I look up, seeing Krishna freshly showered and standing in the opening between his hallway and living room, dressed in dark denim blue jeans and a navy T-shirt paired with combat boots.
“What the fuck did you do to my wife?” I accuse as disbelief rolls off my tongue.
“What did I do?” he echoes. “That’s all on you. I had nothing to do with this except bring her here to await her execution.”
“I didn’t do this,” I spit out, disgusted he thinks I’d hurt her even if that’s exactly what I was set on before I walked into his apartment before I saw her as lifeless as my father was an hour ago. “I found her fucking slumped over your laptop with the goddamn door wide fucking open.”
“That’s impossible.” His head snaps to the side, looking around the corner.
Moving her matted hair out of the way, I lift her head, seeing a deep gash at the base of her skull on her right side almost immediately. “Shit.”
