Page 87 of The Last Vendetta

“I do. I always fucking do.”

I still couldn’t antagonize her, but I couldn’t dart to safety.

Stall her. Wait her out. I needed more time to react, to think, and to resolve this predicament. My own mother wanted to shoot me, but I supposed in light of all the violence and death she’d caused before, this was nothing.

“You’d really shoot me.” I said it as a statement rather than as a question.

Her upper lip curled. “That’s up to you. If you make a move to leave, I will.”

“Because what’s one more death, right?” I bit the inside of my cheek, wondering if I could get her to let me walk back to the balcony. The doors were open. If I leaned over the railing, could I get away like that, with the risk of broken bones?

She sneered. “One more death?”

“Yes. What’s one more death on your hands? You killed Luka, didn’t you?”

“It was supposed to be Cecilia! I intended for her to drink that sparkling water.” Her neck strained as she clenched her teeth. Wild-eyed and furious, she glowered at me as I walked back toward the balcony.

“That fucking bitch was supposed to die, and do you know why?” She growled, breathing hard as she confessed. “Because she was carrying your father’s son. His son!” The last part was a scream. Goosebumps broke out on my skin at her shout. That was how eerie she sounded.

“She was carrying his son,” she fumed. “An heir, Giulia. That Romano bitch was carrying the son, the heir. The heir I could never give him.”

It was her one job. With all the fertility issues, the miscarriages, and then, only having daughters. She’d failed epically in giving Father a son.

“All I could do was try to manage my daughters’ marriages to the best of my advantage.”

You wanted me to marry Nickolas so you could sneak into the Family too. To have Marcus’s power since Father was dead now.

“But Cecilia thwarted it all. She screwed it all up. Once she gave birth to the bastard baby, the son your father put in her, she’d already be Luka’s wife. That bastard baby would be passed as a Bernardi, and I will be fucking goddamned if Giovanni Bernardi ever got his hands on the Acardi wealth and power!”

I paced my steps backward, angling for the smooth surface of the balcony. Any second now, she could snap. She could be triggered to shoot, and at this close of a range, I’d be dead.

“I wanted to kill Cecilia.” Mother explained like I was dull. “But Luka drank the poison by accident. I had it all planned. She was only drinking the sparkling water. I slipped it in from the waitstaff area, but that idiot Bernardi had to drink it instead.” She shook her head as her eyelid twitched. “Then at his funeral, your father tried to leave. He’d asked where Cecilia was. He wanted to go to her, to be with her now that I’d accidentally gotten her husband killed.”

I narrowed my eyes, connecting the pieces of the puzzle.

“Did you…?”

She grinned evilly. “I killed Rocco. I had to when he was trying his hardest to fuck me over and start a new family elsewhere with his mistress. Then I drugged myself to throw off any suspicions.”

“You killed Father.” I tried to steady my breath through the adrenaline rush of fight or flight.

“I did.”

“But you were drugged too.”

She scoffed. “To make it believable. And if you dare to cross me, Giulia, if you even think about interfering with my plans, you’ll join that short list of kills.”

“That’s all I ever was, huh? Just something to move around and dispose of for your benefit.”

Nodding slowly, she brought her other hand up to the gun and held it firmly. “Yes. Until the very end.”

28

RENZO

Renzo

Iclimbed up the trellis and vine supports to Giulia’s balcony. It was becoming a habit, but I didn’t care. This would be the last fucking time. The next time I wanted to see her, I’d walk right up to her. No need to be stealthy and sneak close.

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