Page 90 of A Game So Reckless

And then, Dario gets flung.

Even though I know it’s coming, just like when it happened in front of me the first time, I can’t stop my accompanying gasp.

But it’s worse now. Because this time, instead of Dario just disappearing over the edge of the roof, I can actually see most of his fall before he’s out of frame.

I keep watching, just like Papà ordered me to. Keep watching as Darragh turns away from the edge of the roof.

And freezes.

That was when he first saw me. I’m not in the video, but Papà knows I was there.

Papà presses a button on the side of his phone with his thumb and the screen goes black. His driver takes a turn that sends me sliding in my seat. I didn’t even realize the car had started moving again.

“So,” Papà says with a vicious sort of calm. “He jumped?”

The lie, and every lie I’ve told since then, clog up my throat. I can’t speak.

I can’t even breath.

What if I choke again?

What if I choke, and he isn’t here to save me this time?

I take too long to reply.

Papà’s slap is swift and dizzying. Stars jump in my vision. I taste blood. Touching my cheek, I expect it to be swollen to twice its size already, but it isn’t.

“You lied to me,” Papa hisses into my face, shaking his phone.

“Where… Where did you get that?” I ask, my words slurring through my trembling lips.

“Don’t fucking speak to me unless you’re about to get down on your knees to beg forgiveness!” His bellow fills the car, my ears, my skull. The driver continues calmly on. “It doesn’t matter who sent it to me!”

He slides his phone into an inner pocket on his suit jacket.

The same sort of pocket Darragh pulled the ring from.

“The source material of this video has been dealt with,” he says, a little more calmly now. “The police case remains closed. The records show Dario jumped. Just like you fucking told us that he did.”

“I-”

“Shut up. Shut your mouth before you let another lie fall out of it,ragazza.” He leans back against the leather, his eyes calculating, his jaw set. “I’m sick of dealing with your shit. It’s time I let your husband deal with it instead.”

Husband.

“You mean Darragh?”

And he actually laughs. A merciless shout of sound.

“Darragh? You think I’m going to let that Irish fuck have my daughter after what he did? He lied to me. Same as you. You’ve both betrayed our family.”

My stomach turns to stone.

“No, I have another match lined up for you now,” he goes on. “One of my capos in Montréal. His wife just died and now he wants another. And I want to shore up support around the port area as much as possible.”

“Darragh will never let this happen.”

It comes to me as an instantaneous thought. It shapes itself into a shaking whisper.

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