Page 106 of The Don's Deadly Assassin

"Matthiera... please," I plead, forcing myself to remain calm despite my raging emotions. "The Handler killed my mother. She was innocent, just like Vincenzo. He was lying to us all along when he said our parents died when we were babies."

"Really? Is that the truth now?" Matthiera asks, his eyes flickering between me and the Handler.

"Yes, it's true," I say, desperation creeping into my voice. "He's been lying to us this whole time, manipulating us for his own purposes. You.. you could have a family, Matthiera.”

A cold shudder runs down my spine as I watch Matthiera's face contort into a sinister smile. The change is so sudden, so unexpected, dark and twisted. I don’t know what to make of it.

"Camela," he drawls, his voice dripping with venom. "I can’t have a family. I had the Handler teach me how to kill my parents. I still remember how she screamed, my mother, when I threw that knife in her eye. But let me tell you, she was a real bitch."

My eyes widen in shock, the words hitting me like a ton of bricks. I can feel a sickening knot forming in my stomach as I try to process this new information. Vincenzo mutters out a few expletives, trying to fight against Matthiera’s grip, but it’s no use.

The world fades around me, the reality too impossible to comprehend. I remember Matthiera and I training when we were just five, six years old. “How? When? But you… you were just a child.”

“Age is just a number,” Matthiera shrugs. “Besides, I didn’t need strength to throw a blade in that bitch’s eye. The Handler did the rest.”

Chapter 42

Vincenzo

I watch Camela’s face fall at the realization that Matthiera is called the Snake for a haunting reason. Usually, being proven right is a thing of pleasure, but I seek none in watching the woman I love being proven wrong.

She stares at Matthiera with such pain in her face, her lips trembling, her hands shaking. Behind her, the Handler sits on his desk, a small smile on his lips, pleased at how Camela’s beliefs crumble around her.

“Camela,” I say, trying to get her to look at me.

The Snake wrenches my arms tighter behind my back. “Don’t you dare open your mouth,” he hisses.

“He’s never going to change, Camela,” I roar at her, despite the Snake threatening me. “You are NOT the same.”

“You bastard!” The Snake yells in my ear, twisting my hand until a small bone cracks. Camela hears it, her eyes flickering to mine. She gives me the smallest nod, telling me she believes me now. That she understands what I was trying to tell her, all along.

Slowly, she takes a step back from Matthiera, his hold on me easing slightly as he registers her movement.

The Handler chuckles softly, the sound grating on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “You see that, Camela? You believe you have this power, to see good in people. There’s no good in the world. All these years, you thought Matthiera to be a friend. Look at you two now. Are you willing to go through this heartbreak again, with Vincenzo?”

Camela turns to face him, and slams her hands on his desk. “Don’t you dare put darkness in my thoughts,” she screams, and the next thing I now, her hands are extending in two directions. From the right, she throws a jar of ink straight into the Handler’s eyes. The Handler cries out, temporarily blinded, flapping around in his chair trying to get the ink out.

As he stumbles off the chair, Camela doesn't waste a second. Her fingers on the right hand are closed around a heavy paperweight, which she pivots towards Matthiera…towards us. With a grunt, Camela hurls the paperweight at Matthiera.

"Vincenzo!" she shouts, her voice strained.

I kick back against Matthiera’s shin, his iron grip loosening around my hands and turn my neck right, opposite to the direction Camela’s makeshift weapon takes towards us.

The paperweight whirls through the air like an unstoppable projectile, flying right past my left cheek, smashing into Matthiera’s forehead with a sickening crunch. He staggers and releases me, his hands flying to his bloodied face.

“You bitch!” he cries, falling back against the wall, moaning in pain.

Camela rushes towards us. “Hold the Handler at bay,” she tells me. “Don’t kill him.

I nod, massaging my wrists, before rushing over to where the Handler is trying to wipe out the ink with a napkin and some water from a glass.

I take the glass out of his hands, smash it on the floor. “Camela. You’ll pay for this!” he tells me, rage coursing through him. He rubs his eyes over and over again, the ink only spreading further into them, all over his hands.

“It’s me,” I bend down and hiss in his ear, grabbing his neck to pull his head down towards my rising knee. I jam him in his nose, and blood sprouts everywhere as he collapses onto the floor, choking on his own blood, blinded in the eyes.

That should keep him down for a while.

I turn back, seeing Camela and Matthiera circling each other like two predators sizing up their prey. It's been years since they trained together under the Handler's cruel tutelage as brother and sister, but now, they confront each other as enemies.

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