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My fists clenched and I spun toward the door. “Buonanotte, Leo. Get some rest. The doctors said you’d need it.”
“I’d always wondered when you shut down the old nursery wing and turned the very same room you built for my baby sister into a torture block, was it only theatrics, a psychological warfare to let whoever was misfortunate to be a guest of that room know their inescapable, similar destiny to those who caused her death, or were you torturing yourself as well with the reminiscences? Could the sadist, psycho capo feel guilt like anyone else? Could he be secretly punishing himself, too, over it?”
I stared at the door for a moment, my hand still on the handle. “Whatever you want to do with Il Coyote, I’ll back it up. Whatever you want to do to the Lanzas for revenge, I’ll probably double it.” Then I glanced at him over my shoulder. “But you won’t see her again, Leo. That revenge is mine.”
CHAPTER FIVE
TINO
In my office, I watched a frown contort Angel’s tear-stained face when Arancia entered the old nursery carrying a food tray.
“Not again,” Angel whispered, and I felt the fury lacing her voice through the screen.
Arancia sighed, but the disapproving twitch to her lips was clear. “Angel, you know the rules by now. I do whatever he tells me to do, and you…know better than to not play along.”
Angel jumped to her feet and paced around like a lost child. “You don’t need to hold me hostage. I’m your wife.” She darted her eyes around the wall corners and the ceiling, as if she knew I had to be watching, but she hadn’t located the cameras yet. “Just come down here and deal with me.”
Arancia set the tray down. “Sei insofferente ed insopportabile.”
“I am insufferable?” Angel scoffed.
Arancia seemed surprised that Angel understood her, but she folded her arms over her chest and cocked a brow at Angel. “Completamente. Someone like you should be grateful she’s still breathing. After what you’ve done to my nephew, and to Don Bellomo, you should have been buried deep under dirt, right where you belonged.”
“Get the fuck out and tell my husband to come down and deal with me himself, not send his bastard sister bitch to do his dirty work.”
Arancia’s face reddened, and a muscle ticked in her jaw. “Another thing you should be grateful for is that this bastard sister bitch would listen to Don Bellomo when he told her not to touch you, because if I didn’t, I’d be correcting your face and rearranging every stinky bone of yours right now that you’d be begging me to end your pathetic life and send you to your hell.”
With that, Arancia mumbled a curse as she walked away. Once she opened the door to exit, Angel asked, “When will you send Nicco to feed? Or will my sister bring him?”
Arancia chuckled bitterly and walked out of the room. Angel ran toward her, but Arancia locked the door and left without giving her an answer. Angel banged on the door, crying now. “No! My son needs me! He’s a baby! He needs me!”
Her screams bounced against the walls until her voice went hoarse. She crumbled on the floor, sobbing. “Please, Tino. Don’t punish our boy for my mistakes. He needs me. Don’t take my son away from me. As long as you’re keeping me alive, please let him have me.”
I touched the screen, stroking her hair and face. “You’re not going to die, Angel. Not now. Not until I make you feel every single pain you’ve caused to our family.”
The guards at my office door shouted, and then Nicole’s voice and Nicco’s cries rose against theirs. I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. It’d only been a day, and she was already going crazy, continuously asking about her sister.
To save myself the headache, I buzzed for the guards to let her in. She burst inside, pushing in Nicco in his stroller. “You promised you’d let me see her again.”
“Yes. When the time is right,” I said.
“And when will that be?”
“When I say so!”
Nicco cried harder, and I swore. I left my chair and carried him in my arms. “Che succede, tesoro?”
“He’s been crying all night yesterday and all morning today. He needs his mom.”
“The bottle will have to suffice. It’s not like she’s been exclusively breastfeeding him. Her weak health since the birth hasn’t tolerated it.”
“And it can tolerate whatever conditions you keep her in?”
“Nicole, per favore, stop playing these games with me. They won’t work.”
“Tell me what will and I’ll do it.”
I rocked my baby, hoping he could feel how much we both hurt over missing her. Yes, I missed her, too. Even when it’d been only one day that she hadn’t slept in my bed. Even when her betrayal set my own blood burning my veins. Even when my obsession with her had turned into a deeply darker one. An obsession to make her suffer. I still missed her. “I wonder if she had a fraction of that love you have for her, would she have done what she’d done to you?”
