Page 63 of The Devil's Pawn

I smell the desperation in his voice. I have no doubt they’d hurt his children after what they did to Matteo and all the other kids.

Glancing back at Victor, I give him the same opportunity.

“I can still save you,” I tell him. “If you tell me what I need to know, I’ll stop the bleeding.”

He grits his teeth, the light from his eyes slowly fading. The chuckle from his throat brings a fresh coat of rage into my veins.

“I’m glad they offed your parents. And your kid brother too.”

The blood drains from my body, like his words have sucked it out.

“What did you just say?”

The vein in my neck pounds as I repeat his words over and over in my head. Because he didn’t say father. He said they killed myparents.

No. It can’t be.

My eyes land on Enzo, and I can tell that the same exact question is spinning in his head too.

“You didn’t know?” Victor’s laughter fills the air, even brassier than before, his head falling back with amusement.

My hand snaps, grabbing the back of his neck, the knife still clenched in my other palm, ready to end this once and for all. “What do you know about my mother, you fucking piece of shit?!”

Enzo is beside me now, a nine-mil pointing at the guy’s balls. “What did they do to our mother? Talk and we’ll make this quick.”

His reserved wrath is coming undone. I can feel it, smell it, linking with mine.

The man finally looks at us—really looks, his eyes menacing as they drift between the both of us. “I’ll tell you, no matter how you decide to kill me. I want to see agony on your cunt faces before I go.”

Enzo pistol-whips him right against his mouth.

“Talk,” he fires out through clenched teeth. “Now.”

Victor grins, blood lining between his teeth, dripping out the corner of his mouth. “Your mother’s car accident wasn’t an accident. Faro was always bragging about how he arranged to have her killed when your father wouldn’t pay him the protection money everyone else in the neighborhood was paying.”

What? How the hell did we not know this? And do we believe him?

“That’s impossible,” I say. “She died because of a drunk driver.”

“Yeah,” he snickers. “That’s what the cops told your old man, but who do you think paid the cops off?” His laugh is thick with mockery as he devours the shock that must show on our faces. “I’m sure your old man figured it out or Faro told him before he popped him.”

His eyelids flutter as the blood seeps out his leg, killing him by the second.

“Once the kid they paid off did what he was supposed to do, which was hit your mom’s car, they injected her and the kid with some shit that killed them both instantly.”

The weight of his confession falls over me like stones forcing me into the ground.

“She was alive?” My world spins, despair blurring my vision.

“Yeah, very alive.” He sneers. “So alive that she saw Faro’s face as he killed her. He wanted to be the one to do it, even when Sal told him to get one of us to do it instead.” He coughs up blood. “But that’s Faro. Always wanting to be the one to call the shots.”

She was alive. We could’ve saved her. Someone could’ve helped her.

“You’d better be telling us the truth,” Enzo adds. “If you’re not, we’ll find out, and we’ll kill every member of your fucking family.”

“I have no family,” he mutters, his voice giving out as the minutes trickle by, his life slipping with it. “I’m telling you the truth. Now kill me, because I won’t tell you where those kids are. You can find them yourself.”

Pop.

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