Page 65 of Hell Hath No Fury

“You got it, Lils. I’ll call in a clean-up crew while I’m waiting.”

Antoinette, Agatha, and I head toward the doors, that deep dread in my guts alerting me to something being off.

“Lilith?” Mickey’s voice behind me has me turning back toward him. I raise my brows in question, and he says, “Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Shoot first.”

I smile, nod. Then I turn and walk out the door.

28

The Thing About Retribution

Antonio

Walkingintomyfather’soffice is like stepping back in time. Everything is the same, yet everything is different. He has identical offices in several cities, and it was just fortuitous that he happened to be in France exactly when it worked best for me.

Not that I believe in coincidences, but in this case, I am willing to overlook the likelihood that his presence in France was by design.

He’s still sitting behind his mammoth desk, his expression grim. His eyes still cold. He barely spares me a glance when I walk in, and for a moment, I wonder if he even noticed me enter.

Watching him silently, I’m suddenly overwhelmed with a wide array of emotions. Anger. Bitterness. Sadness. I’ve had many occasions throughout my life where I’ve speculated how my father would meet his end. Would it be swift? Or would he be tortured as he had tortured so many? The only question I never had to ask myself was by whose hand he would die because that was always clear.

Mine.

Stupidly, I always thought when the time came I would feel more. Something. Something more than this resigned ambivalence.

“So, you’ve come, then?”

His question is resigned, void of emotion. Those cold, pale eyes meet mine and hold, unflinching and unapologetic. Not that I would expect anything else from him. If anything, I would’ve expected smugness, but it appears he can’t even be bothered to gloat.

He opens his mouth to say something further, and I laugh, the hollow sound startling us both. He moves to speak again, and this time, I shake my head, raising a hand to stop him from attempting to speak again. There is nothing to say.

Quietly, I walk around his desk. He swivels his chair to face me, his expression blank, his hands resting on the arms of his large executive chair. I stop directly in front of him, shocked by how small and old he looks, and then we stare at each other, emotionless.

I contemplate any last words I may have for him, a running checklist in my head that I’ve been logging for decades, but somehow, I come up with nothing.

Because that’s how little he means to me at this point in life.

That hollow laugh breaks free again, and this time, his eyes widen slightly, revealing the tiniest glimmer of fear before it’s gone, quickly disguised by his standard disgusted apathy.

Leaning to the side, I open the middle drawer of his desk just far enough to retrieve the dagger he keeps there. The dagger that scarred me year after year for most of my life, a running account of every disappointment and slight of my existence.

A testament to our entire fucked-up relationship.

Straightening, I hold the dagger between us, but he’s still looking at my face, his expression neutrally scornful. “It’s badenough what you did to me and Lilith, but did you really have to target my daughter?”

Of course, he doesn’t say anything, and honestly, I didn’t expect him to. I knew when I decided to come here that if I was coming for answers, I would get none, and I best be okay with it. Which, surprisingly, I am.

His expression doesn’t even change; he just continues to stare at me like the miserable bastard he is. Pressing my palm to his forehead, I force his head back, leaning close and whispering, “I win.”

Not wanting to get my hands or clothes bloody, I step to the side as I twist his head, slashing a deep hole down his carotid artery and backing away immediately. He blinks a few times, blood gushing down his chest. His mouth opens and closes rather comically for a few moments before his head falls forward, and then he’s still.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I mutter to myself, cleaning the blade off on his unsoiled pant leg and then wiping my prints off the handle before placing it back in the desk drawer. I use my handkerchief to clean the desk where I touched it, and then I laugh because I highly doubt anyone will bother investigating the suspicious death of a notorious criminal.

I continue to stare at him for a couple of minutes, wondering if I will feel anything other than relief, and when I don’t, I shrug. Because I did win.

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