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Now’s not the time Greta.
“The plan is to finish what I started with my father,” he grits, and when I don’t respond, he continues, “Torture the fucker until he gives me every piece of information he’s kept secret for over twodecades.”
I nod in understanding and ask, “Isn’the dying?”
“Yes. He would be dead by now if the doctor hadn’t kept him on a heavy dose of antibiotics per my orders. Sepsis is a painful way to die,” he says the latter with a devilish quirk ofhis lips.
A few minutes later, we pull up to a small cottage that looks like it’s seen better days, and Emil rounds the car and takes my hand in his. A warm tingle travels from our hands to my chest, where little fireworks pop with the chased touch.
The ground beneath us is cracked and uneven as we walk to the front porch. “This is a safe house? It looks like it’s about to fall apart.”
“Looks can be deceiving,mia perla,” he mumbles.
“Meaning?” I drawl, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, heshows me.
He places his palm against the window next to the door, and five little dots glow green below his fingertips, then a mechanicalsnickfrom the door that, on closer inspection, is made of solid steel. He ushers me into the main room, which looks more like a bunker in the Pentagon than a dilapidated villa with wall-to-wall concrete, no windows, and only a few vents for circulation. There’s a small kitchen, and a hall that leads to what I assume are bedrooms and bathrooms. The room has three large computer monitors on one wall with matching servers enclosed in a metal cage off tothe side.
“Wow, you weren’tkidding.”
“Come on. I want to get this shit over with.” Emil guides me down the hall, where we enter a bedroom that reeks of antiseptic and death. Emil’s father lays prone on the simple king size bed with the sheet pulled up to his chest. Bandages cover his arms, part of his face, and both hands.
Dear God, Emil doesn’t play around.
I try to find empathy for the older man but come up empty. Instead, I feel … vindicated. Though I don’t remember Idris’ crimes against me, Emil told me what he did, and he had no reason to lie.
I nearly laugh at the sick satisfaction I get from the old man’s misery. Here I am looking at a man who was tortured by the man I let inside of me––more than once––and when any normal person would be sickened at the sight of the mangled older man in front of them, I feel lucky to have someone who would go to such links to avenge the wrong that was done to me.
Who lets a man sexually assault a woman and then stick her in adog cage?
“Figlio, have you … come to finish me off?” Idris sputters through labored breaths. Emil says nothing when he retrieves the folded birth certificate from his suit jacket and tosses it on his father’s chest.
The dying man picks up the paper with trembling hands and blinks the words into focus. His one good eye scans the page, then a malevolent smile breaks the surface of his face. “So, you found out what kind of woman your mother really was? A whore.” I wince and swing expectant eyes to Emil, waiting for the explosion. But it never comes. Instead, Emil stands stock still, emotionless, his hand clutching mine painfully. But I refuse to ask him to ease up. I squeeze his hand back, letting him know I’m here with him for better or worse. It’s a heady feeling, but one I feel deep in my soul.
“Explain,” is all Emil says, and I cast my eyes back to Idris and steel myself for what he’s about to tell his son. Or rather, confirm what Emil and I already suspect.
“Gillie’s and my marriage was, as many are in the families, a way to increase our power. Her family had the fortune, but they saw the marriage for what it could be. More. More money, more power. So, my father persuaded hers to promise her to me since we had not found the Conti women. Your mother was beautiful, rich, and knew her place in our world. And she gave me an heir. It was perfect.” The older man’s eyes turn lethal before he continues, “Until she started fucking Cristian Vasile and became pregnant with his child. I was ready to kill her and the unborn bastard, but her father begged on bent knee for her life. He vowed to send the child to the Vasiles once it was born, and Gillie would never be permitted to see or even speak of the child if I would just keep her as my wife. I agreed––afterhe signed over the entirety of your mother’s inheritance to me.”
“Greedy motherfucker,” Emil spits and goes to lunge for his father, but I pull him back before he can strangle theolder man.
Emil’s blazing amber eyes swing to me, and I take his hand in both of mine. “Let him finish. We both know there’s more.”
His eyes search my face, his body vibrating with violence. I silently plead with him to listen. His jaw ticks with the amount of restraint it’s taking him to not kill Idris. Finally, he nods then turns back to his father. “What finally made you kill her?” he asks, and my heart breaks for the little boy that lost his mother so early in life.
“Ah, you figured that out too? I kept my word and stayed with the bitch.” I grasp Emil’s bicep when I feel him take a step forward. Because as much as I know his father’s words hurt, Emil needed to know the truth to findclosure.
“It was years before I learned she was plotting to take you and run away with the Vasile fucker and their bastard son. The night before she was set to execute her plan, I had my men take her to an abandoned home the Vasiles used for interrogations, and the rest is history. Her body was found by the head of the Fieraru family one evening when he went to pick up a package left there days before. It didn’t take much to convince him that the Vasiles––who had been a thorn in his side for years––were to blame. Your mother’s body was returned, and stricken with grief, her family demanded the deaths of the Vasiles. So, with great pleasure, my father obliged, and the Vasiles were wiped out … all but one,”he sneers.
When he’s done speaking, his skin is a sickly gray, and his breathing is choppy. I turn my eyes back to Emil, who stands stoically beside me, vibrating with rage. “Is Stefan VasileVipera?” he asks, and his father barely gathers enough breath to confirm.
“Yes, but don’t be fooled, my son. I wasn’t some lowly scorpion like all the rest. I pulled Vasile’s strings without him even realizing it. I enjoyed profiting off the bastard son of the whore tha––”
BANG!
The back of Idris’ head explodes from the bullet Emil fires into it. Brain matter paints the wall behind him, and his lifeless eyes stare at the ceiling.
My ears are still ringing when Emil lowers his gun, and one of his men enters the room. “The clean-up crew is on the way,signore,” the man says, then leaves.
As though he didn’t just kill his father, Emil turns, having never let go of my hand, and guides me out of the room, out the front door, and to his car. There is an eerie stillness in the air as we walk to his car, and the chill that runs along my spine has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the detached, empty look on Emil’s face.
