AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dima frowns. “How?”
“Archie gave us three other locations that Benedict might’ve used.”His last contributions to the Bratva,I think bitterly. “Split the men. Send a contingent to each one. I’m not wasting any more time. We finish this today.”
62
TAYLOR
“It’s not the most luxurious of accommodations,” Benedict says with a regretful little sigh. “But it’s kept me hidden all these years. A little palace in the wilderness, so to speak. I had a room prepared for you. I hope it’s big enough; I was only expecting one guest.”
“I wasn’t about to leave my sister behind,” says Celine.
“Of course not,” Benedict says with a simpering smile. “And the boy?”
I try not to stiffen, but his words have my spine terse with pain. “My son,” I say. Adam clings tighter to my shoulders and buries his face in my neck. I’m happy about that; I don’t want Benedict looking too closely at Adam and connecting the dots. It’s bad enough that he thinks he has Ilarion’s wife. If he knows he has Ilarion’s son, too…
“Celine,” I whisper to her as I sidle up to her side, “we shouldn’t be here.”
Benedict’s eyes narrow. “I assure you, you’re safe here. I simply wanted you to see who the real villain was. And if you didn’t already believe that, you wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re not innocent in any of this, Benedict,” Celine says coldly.
“Maybe not. But I’m not one who murdered your father,” he tuts. “Now, come. Let me show you to your room.”
Adam is slipping from my hip, so I hoist him up a little higher and follow Celine into the grungy motel. The inside is just as depressing as the outside, funky with the scent of rotting flowers. Everything is crumbling and either dying or already dead.
Benedict gestures ahead of us. “Take the second door on the left.”
Celine hesitates for only a moment before she walks through the door, leaving me with no choice but to follow.
“Mama,” Adam whispers, “what’s going on?”
“Shh, baby. Keep your head down.”
“I don’t like him.”
“I know,” I whisper back to him. “I’ll tell you when the coast is clear.”
It’s not as easy to carry Adam as it used to be. He’s skinny but tall and the full force of his weight is nestled against my chest. But I’ll be damned if I let him go while Benedict is anywhere near us.
The room on the other side of the door isn’t as decrepit as the rest of the motel. The tile floors are clean, if nothing else, and the furniture doesn’t look like it recently housed corpses. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.
“My brother loved this room,” Benedict explains as he circles the space with pride. “Of course, it’s free now. Your husband made sure of that.”
He turns his gaze on Celine, but she doesn’t so much as flinch. “What do you want from me, Benedict?”
“I offered you a different kind of life once, if you remember.”
“I do remember,” she retorts. “And then you tried to kill me. Twice.”
He has the gall to smile at her. The gap of a missing tooth is eerily unsettling, though it fits with the yellowed, cracked tombstones of the rest of his leering grin. The years he’s spent in exile haven’t been kind to Benedict Bellasio. Like the rest of this place, he looks like he has one foot in the grave.
Strange, because the man I remembered was trim and fit, and above all,vain.To see him crumbling like this makes me wary.
Bad things happen when vain men let themselves fall to pieces.
“I was angry. I would go so far as to say I was desperate,” he explains simply. “I wanted to hit him where it hurt and you were the only thing he seemed to care for. I must admit, I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. I am happy you gave me the benefit of the doubt.”
“I’ve done no such thing,” Celine says. “As you said, anger and desperation can make us do stupid things.”
