Page 47 of Rotten Men

“I was just thinking how cozy your home is.”

“Thank you,” she replies, her face still troubled by my features.

“I wish I could burn it to the ground,” I admit. But my confession isn’t tainted with resentment and anger as I would have thought. Instead, finally confronting the truth, all I feel is an overwhelming sadness.

“Vincent…” She sighs, placing her delicate hands on my cheeks to comfort my sudden pain. But it does little to wash away this new blooming misery.

“I wish I could burn away every last memory this house has been blessed with. Your laughs. Your cries. The good moments and the bad. These walls saw it all, and I didn’t. I would wield a wrecking ball through it if I could,” I murmur in anguish.

“I’m sure you could,” she tries to tease, but her sparkling, jeweled eyes look just as pained as the organ inside me that refuses to beat.

“I know I could, but then you would hate me even more.”

“I don’t hate you, Vincent,” she huffs out, breaking away from our contact and turning her back on me.

“Oh, no? Then why did you leave us? Leave me?” I ask, walking to her and pulling her back to me.

“Vincent—”

“I thought I knew the reason why, but now I’m not so sure,” I tell her, my nose running behind her ear, knowing this will be the last time I will be this close to her. After confronting such a reality, there is no way I can keep her. Ten years ago she left us, but now we are the ones who will have to walk away from her.

“There is a lot that you don’t know, Vincent. Just trust me when I say that lack of love was not the reason I left you,” she reveals with a melancholic tone.

“I know my uncle talked to you about us getting married, Selene,” I confess, and her spine straightens in my embrace. Before she’s able to say another word, I kiss the top of her head, to show her I’m not angry. “For years I thought you left because you were repulsed at the idea of being my wife. But now that I’m here, I finally understand why you left. It’s not that you didn’t love us. You just couldn’t love the life we were offering. The lifeIcould offer you.”

It was easier thinking Selene was incapable of love. A traitorous, spoiledprincipessawho fooled us all into believing her heart was pure. I could blame her for being a lie.

But this?

Knowing mytesororan, not from me but from a life I can never abandon, is gut-wrenching. I vowed to put the Outfit above all others; that was my choice. Selene made no such promise.The Butchertook her innocence while the syndicate did nothing. She owes them no loyalty. Why should she marry the boss of an organization, forever binding her chains to it, when she could run away and live free?

“I’m such a fool. Giovanni always told me you wanted something different than the life we had, but I didn’t want to accept it. I preferred to blame you for my desolation, instead of facing the fact I was responsible for it all along.”

Her shoulders slump, and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head. I turn her around, wanting her to confirm that this is the reason why she abandoned us, leaving me half a man.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” I beg, wishing she had just made it clear as to why she would go the lengths she did to hide from us. She mauls her lower lip, looking so uncertain, killing my composure completely.

“Selene, is that why?” I ask shaking her shoulders desperately.

“Mammà, is everything okay?” I hear a small voice behind me, and my heart starts to beat erratically at the sound of the childlike voice.

My hands fall away from Selene’s shoulders, and her green-filled eyes turn from sorrow to horror, and then swiftly back to her absolute calm facade. She pushes me to the side, bypassing me without another look, and heads toward the voice I’m frightened to face.

“Mammà?”

“It’s okay, Jude. Everything is okay,” she singsongs, trying to play off the conversation the young boy must have heard.

I stand in place, keeping my back to the child, because I may really burn this house down to the ground as I threatened once I see that his features resemble the man who got out of the car.

“Mammà, who is that?”

“A friend, kiddo. From way back when I was your age. How about you go play in your room and let us catch up?” She tries to persuade him.

“I don’t want to. I’m going to stay here and make sure you’re okay,” he replies, suspicion and protectiveness coating each word.

“I am,” Selene says reassuringly.

“You said you’d bring Dad. Where is he?”

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