Page 63 of The Last Vendetta

“You helped kill Luka?” I asked.

Now she shook her head the best she could with her neck so wounded. “No. But he took my glass.”

“What?” I felt dizzy with the adrenaline rush.

“Luka drank from my glass. I’d asked for it specifically to avoid alcohol. And he… he took it by accident and died.”

I scrambled to understand. “What are you saying?”

“I’m sorry, Renzo. I’m sorry that Luka died. That your brother is gone. Just because he drank from my glass.”

I clenched my teeth together, stunned speechless. “You’re certain?”

“Yes. I didn’t want any alcohol because of the baby. That’s why I kept track of what drinks I had. And he took mine by accident.”

Holy shit. A baby?

“Cecilia…” I shook my head, struggling to keep up.

“I won’t make it, Renzo.” She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I want to tell someone how sorry I am. For all of it.”

“Whose baby?”

“Mine.” She lowered her hand to cover her stomach and cried harder when her fingers slipped over the bloody wound. “Ours.” Her stomach was flat. She wasn’t showing the swell of carrying a baby, but I took her word for it. Deathbed confessions always seemed too starkly sincere and accurate.

“Yours and Luka’s?” I asked.

“No. I had… I fell in love before I was arranged to marry him. And I had an affair.”

I rubbed my hand over my face, bewildered and at a loss for which question to ask next. So many questions pinged in my mind, and I couldn’t think fast enough. She was dying. She was eager to tell someone her truth, and I had to listen.

“I ran to hide.”

“Did your father know?”

She sobbed. “I just wanted to hide and have my baby, but I was so scared. I didn’t know who wanted me dead, but I should’ve realized…”

“Realized what?”

No words came. She struggled with labored breaths, and I grabbed her upper arm to shake her from passing out.

“Cecilia?” Giulia stepped closer. Her face was sober, full of concern and shock. She walked closer, perhaps planning to help.

The slender woman opened her eyes. With a vacant, trancelike stare, she seemed focused on Giulia. Yet not. The hazy, slurred tone of her drowsy speech suggested she was about to fade away completely.

“You.”

She glowered at Giulia with such delusional hatred, it was as though she accused Giulia in all her woes.

“Cecilia…” Giulia stayed back, shaking her head with a sorrowful expression.

“I wish…” Cecilia gasped, closing her eyes tight before wrenching them open with an even crazier glare. “I wish this baby I carried would have lived.” She opened and closed her mouth, struggling to breathe. “I wish my baby lived just to piss you off, you filthy bitch.”

“Cecilia.” I shook her arm too, trying to dislodge her frantic attention on Giulia to answer me. “Whose baby is it?”

She closed her eyes and kept them closed.

“Who killed Luka?” I shook her arm again.

---