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“You’re not even going to try?” Nico asks.
“Would you?” I ask.
Nico shrugs. “Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never been in love, not really.”
“I fucking hate it,” I admit in a mumble, looking at the quarter-empty bottle in front of me. “It’s like your heart is walking around outside your chest.”
He whistles. “You got it bad,capo.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I complain. “It’s like all I ever do is think about her. Even before I thought about the mission, it was about her.”
“I hate to say this,capo, but maybe revenge isn’t the best thing to pin your whole future on.”
“Vincenzo’s dead,” I say flatly. “I let Luca kill him. I should have done it myself.”
“It wouldn’t have made you feel any better about Enzo’s death,” Nico says gently. “What’s done is done, and at least the person who killed your parents is gone.”
I feel empty, like there’s a void in my chest and stomach, and I don’t know if it’s because Luca killed Vincenzo or because Mia is gone. The emotions swirling around inside of me are all mixed together: guilt, rage, pain, disbelief.
“Get drunk today; go talk to her tomorrow,” Nico suggests.
I nod slowly, but I don’t know what I will even say to Mia. “Sorry I plotted to kill your father and married you under false pretenses, baby, but I love you now.”
She’ll probably shove me again, maybe hit me across the face. I deserve it.I deserve worse.
I manage to finish half the bottle of whiskey before I’m lurching to the bathroom and throwing up alcohol and all my negative emotions, flushing the toilet with a grimace before washing my face, swaying in front of the mirror.
Nico is right. I’d bet my whole future on revenge, on killing the man who killed my father, and I hadn’t even thought about what comes next.
“I decided to choose life over death. Love over hate.”
I remember Luca’s words viscerally, and it’s like I finally understand what he was talking about. Even though I was plotting to kill the man, those words had made me pause, even then, and now I understand.
He means that he chose to love someone over hate someone else. He chose his wife and daughter instead of the lifestyle.
I’ve done the opposite. I’ve chosen the life instead of Mia, over and over again, despite how I feel about her.
“Do you still need a babysitter?” Nico asks as I stumble back to the couch in the den.
I shake my head, lying down on the couch face-down. “Just gonna take a nap,” I slur, and that’s the last thing I remember.
When I wake up, I’m lying face-down on the floor instead of the couch, and my shoulder aches where I’ve fallen off the couch. I ignore it and pick myself up, holding myself up on my desk. On top of it is a wrinkled envelope. It’s the autopsy report I’d put on my jacket pocket almost a week ago. With everything going on, I’d forgot about it.
I was waiting for this to be sure, to validate my need for revenge. Now, it’s just an envelope. It means nothing. The only thing that means anything to me is gone.
I need Mia. My home. I miss her so much.
Stashing the envelope in my pocket, I decide to go to her, not even bothering to shower or wash my face. It’s nearly six in the morning and the sun is starting to rise when I go out to my car.
I need to find Mia. It’s the only thing in my hungover brain, and I need to figure it out. I need to find her before it’s too late, before she hates me forever.
I know exactly where to find her.
Luca comes to the door instead of the staff or Mia, and I swallow hard, wondering if she’s told him the whole story. I wonder if he’ll shoot me right on the doorstep.
His face is blank. “Let me go and get her,” he says gruffly, and I let out a sigh of relief.
Mia comes stalking out of the house just a moment later and she pushes me off the step. I stumble backwards, my head still spinning from all the whiskey I’ve ingested.
