Page 90 of The Devil's Pawn

Dante squats, retrieving something from both his calves, and when he pulls them out, I realize they’re knives. I’m close enough to see the shiny metal.

I’m instantly there, when it was just Carlito and me, when he was hurting me while I begged him to stop. My pulse races and my throat closes in as I recall every detail.

My hands ball into tight fists over the top of my thighs. I want to see that man dead. As for my father? I don’t know. Because that little girl who loves him is still somewhere deep inside. I’m not ready to face his mortality, and I don’t know if I can watch the man I love take his life.

“What was it you said to me when you held that gun to her head in the van?” Dante asks, creeping closer until his sneaker bumps Carlito’s face.

He did what?

I don’t remember any of that. It must’ve been when I was knocked out.

“Let me refresh your memory.” He kicks him hard in the face. Carlito grumbles, blood spilling from his mouth. “I believe it was, let the best man win. I guess that’s not gonna be you.”

I get up, needing a better view. Wanting his blood. His pain. Wanting everything.

Dante rotates to the sound of me coming.

“You okay, baby?” Concern spirals with his darkness.

“I’m fine here. Do what you have to do.”

My eyes find Carlito, glaring into the ugliness, but he doesn’t try to lift his head.

I love you,Dante mouths before turning back around.

I want to say it back, but I want those words to come when my mind isn’t polluted. When I can solely think about us and nothing else.

“There’s one thing I don’t forgive—what neither one of my brothers forgive—and that’s when someone hurts the people we love. And that woman…” Dante gestures toward me with his head. “…was mine before she was ever handed to you like you bought her.”

His foot lowers on Carlito’s outstretched hand. Those groans would sadden me if they belonged to just about anyone else, but from him, they sound like victory.

Dante lifts his shoe in the air, and Carlito’s hand crunches when the two meet. His screams color the walls in bright revenge, and all I want is more. I want the brutality. I want the savagery to slam over every part of Carlito’s body like it did mine.

Dante meets my eyes, darkness clouding over tenderness. His breaths are harsh, but my exhales are harsher. An unspoken bond forms between us. His blood interlaced with mine. His vengeance entwined with my own.

A vow.

Unbroken.

Ours.

“Did he use a knife on you?” Disdain and compassion war for residency on his face.

I nod as my body folds into itself, protecting me from the memories.

His focus returns to his enemies, and I watch them from the side, able to see both.

“You allowed your daughter to be brutalized?” The knife in Dante’s hand crawls to my father’s throat, whose expression lacks emotion.

That’s the way the Bianchi men operate. Emotions equal weakness.

But it’s the opposite. Men who are afraid of expressing what they feel are cowards, and my father is the worst kind. I see that now.

“You had my family killed. My mother. My father. My little brother. All of them are gone because of you and your brothers, and you were about to have your daughter killed too?”

He did what?

A hand clasps over my mouth.

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