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I let out a long breath and look from face to face. The captains watch me with rapt attention. Mother seems distraught, but she’s doing a good job holding it back. Camille looks exhausted and sick.
This nightmare is never going to end.
Violence only brings more violence.
I kill, and I kill, and there are always more people that want to hurt those I care about.
Death isn’t an answer. It’s only an invitation for more death.
“The pair of you are banished to our home on the Upper Peninsula.” My mother’s shocked gasp is the only sound. “You will both be confined there for the rest of your lives. If I hear either of you have left the grounds, you will both die. You will both be stripped of the Kazan name. You will receive a paltry stipend to afford food. There will be no internet. There will be no phones. You will exist in limbo until your final days, and may God have mercy on your souls.”
“I don’t need mercy,” Sophia hisses and spits on my carpet. “I need your blood. I need your wife lying dead at my feet. I need—”
Lycus slams his gun into the back of her head. She grunts and topples forward, not quite knocked out, but stunned.
I nod at my men. Lycus lifts groaning Sophia, and Alonzo pulls Anissa to her feet. My aunt stares at me with an expression caught between surprise and hate but I turn my back on them and walk over to my mother.
Tears roll down her face. I take her hands in mine and hold them tightly as Anissa and Sophia are led from the room. The remaining captains are staring, not speaking. I don’t know what they’re thinking. A betrayal like what Sophia did normally that would end in an execution. I’m guessing they don’t know what to think.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Mother says and smiles sadly. “They didn’t deserve it.”
“No, they didn’t,” I say loudly enough for everyone to agree. “But I’ve killed enough members of this family. And besides, they’ll live out their days in the middle of nowhere. They’ll never be a threat to us again. That house is deep in the forest, far from civilization.”
“They could come back,” Mother says, shaking her head sadly. “They hate you enough to try it.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t. And if they try, I’ll kill them myself, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Mother hugs me tightly. “I hope not, Evander. I really hope not.”
I release her and turn to my captains. I meet their gazes, one by one. “Don’t mistake what just happened for weakness.”
“We wouldn’t dare, Lord,” Stavros says firmly. His eyes are narrowed and he nods to me with approval.
“There has been enough bloodshed in this family. Enough good Greek men and women killed in the war with the Italians. Sophia and Anissa have been lost for a long time, and now they’ve been sent away where they will be dealt with. What I did was not mercy. Death would be a kindness. They will suffer and wither away. Spread the word to the rest of the family. Tell them the Kazan family still believes in justice.”
“Yes, Lord,” my captains chorus and exit the office, one by one. My mother follows the procession out, looking lost and small.
I slump back against the desk, exhaustion falling over me like a chain around my throat.
“Are you sure you made the right voice?” Camille asks as she puts a hand on my chest and leans her head on my shoulder.
I put an arm around her waist. “I’m sure. Living out in isolation will be hell for them. I’d be shocked if they last a year.”
“Would you have done it if I weren’t still alive?”
I shake my head. “No. They’d be dead.”
“I’m glad then. I don’t think you could live with yourself if you had to kill more people in your family.”
She holds me tightly and I don’t reply.
A deep, horrible blackness sits in my stomach.
She’s very wrong about me.
I didn’t spare them because I can’t handle killing them.
I spared them because they still hold sway on some of the captains, and I can’t afford pissing anyone off at this point in the war.
