Page 109 of Luciano

I dragged Vito’s limp body to the chair, heaving him up with a grunt. His head lolled, blood dripping from his temple onto his thousand-dollar shirt. I tied him fast—wrists to the arms, ankles to the legs. Tight enough to bruise.

The calm I felt as I walked to the sink was odd. It was likeI was standing in the eye of a hurricane—everything around me was violence, chaos, and destruction, but all I felt was stillness. Only purpose.

The water ran cold over my fingers. I watched it swirl in the bucket I’d found until my reflection stared back at me. I finally recognized the person looking back. Not the victim. Not the survivor.

I carried the bucket back across the room and threw the contents directly into Vito’s face.

He gasped awake, sputtering, coughing, head jerking up like a man brought back from the dead. His lips curled.“What the fuck—”

His eyes widened when he saw me.

“Ava?”His voice was hoarse, disbelieving.“What the hell is this?”

I crouched in front of him, eye level. My hand trembled slightly as I brushed hair from my face—then I smiled.

“You know what this is.”

“I—no! I—”

“You killed my mother,”I interrupted, voice low. Cold.“I’ve hated you every day since.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, lips curling in disgust.“She knew what she was getting into.”

“She begged you for help,”I leaned forward.“She offered you everything. And when she made one wrong move, you buried her.”

His jaw clenched.“She disrespected me. She made me look weak, little girl.”

I stood up.“That didn’t mean you put a fucking bullet in her.”I yelled, then calmed myself with a deep breath before continuing.“But you did. And now you’re here. In the room where you judged everyone else.”

Vito laughed then. Actually laughed. Blood on his lip.“Luciano won’t let you get away with this.”

“Yes, he will.”I tilted my head.“You’re the reason Luciano is like this—empty, violent, hollowed out before he was old enough to understand what love even looked like. And when you couldn’t stomach raising him yourself, you sent him off to be brutalized by your backward family in Italy instead of loving him. All that pain, all that silence… that’s your legacy. You made a monster, and now you'll choke on your own blood—because he created me.

My mouth twisted.“I’m not worried about retaliation. Luciano would’ve killed you for me if I’d asked. Because I give him what he needs. I nurture him. I remind him he’s still human. I helped him find his voice.But I didn’t want that for him. I can kill you myself.”

Vito’s jaw tensed. Blood trickled from his temple, and still, he held my gaze like he was clinging to whatever pride he had left.

“You think it was easy?”he spat.“Looking at him after what happened to my Maria? After what they did to her in front of him? Every time I saw that boy, I saw my failure. My weakness. You think I sent him away because I didn’t love him? I did it because I couldn’t bear the look in his eyes. Because every time he flinched when when I tried to even touch him, I felt like I was being fucking shot in the heart.”

I tilted my head slowly. My voice dropped to a whisper—measured, dangerous.

“So you punished him for your guilt. Decided not to love him because you couldn’t keep him safe…”

“Cazzo! Figlio di puttana! Io amo mio figlio, fottuta stronza!”(“Fuck! Son of a bitch! I love my son, you fucking bitch!”)

His voice cracked, raw and furious. He exploded, shaking the chair.

“I fucking love my son. He won’t tell you different—he knows it! He knows!”

“He won’t tell me different, Vito,”I murmured.“Because after today, I’m going to erase you from his mind. I won’t even let him mourn you. When he gets sad, when the past or memories of you try to pull him back to that hollow place your neglect left him in—I’ll fuck it out of him.”

His mouth twitched.

I smiled.

“I’ll do filthy, depraved things to him. I’ll read his comic books and play his games. I’ll keep his nightmares quiet and the screams at bay with the sound of me moaning his name. I’ll love all over him. Give him kids. I’mma make him happy to spite you.”

He stared at me, then laughed again—this time bitter and broken.“You saying all that means nothing. You’re not built for this. You think you can take a man’s life and walk away clean?”

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