Page 116 of Where Dark Hearts Devour
Cristiano lifts the box and tips it toward me.
It takes a few seconds for me to comprehend what I’m seeing, and even then, I can’t make sense of it. “Isn’t that?—?”
Sera leans over to look and then promptly sits back down, retching into her hand.
It’s the Di Santo crest. A dove in flight amid a tongue of fire.
Tattooed onto a slice of flesh.
I recoil slightly while my eyes catch on mundane things. Blood streaking across the bottom of the box. A piece of cloth doing a poor job of soaking it up. It’s like my awareness wishes to acknowledge anything but the thing right in front of me.
“That’s Savero’s tattoo.” My whispered words come out all dry.
Cristiano bites out his words. “Savero didn’t deserve to wear it.”
“But ...” I can’t get past the fact it’s in a box. “It was on his chest.”
I glance at the expanse of purpling ink, its flesh-colored edges curling.
“There’s only one way you could—” I look up sharply.
Cristiano looks different. He’s wearing the same suit he left the house in earlier, but he seems taller, sturdier. His features are sharper. He’s watching me not with the apologetic expression of someone who might have had a minor argument with my future husband, but as someone who shot a man twenty times over and meant every single bullet.
“You killed him.” My gaze slides down his jacket and his slacks to his shoes, and there my stunned eyes stare at the floor.
I can’t believe it.
Suddenly, he’s somehow inches from my shortened breaths, blocking out everyone else in the room. Hot breath grazes my cheek. “He almost killedyou. He didn’t deserve to bear the family crest. So I cut it off his body, the same way we denounce any undeserving member of the family.”
The fact settles in my chest like the ash from a flame.
“I don’t understand,” I mutter. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
A whisper of air brushes my arm, and he settles on his knees beside my bed. “It wasn’t his intention to poison you, Trilby,” he says. “The poison was meant for me.”
“Why?” I whisper. Poisoning anyone is nonsensical, but to poison your own brother ...?
“He found out Father wantedmeto succeed him as don, not Savero.”
My mind whirls. Now it makes sense. This is why Savero was so intent on establishing that he was the don, not his brother.
“But your father let you go ...”
“He did. He asked to come back many times, and I always said no. He never saidwhyhe wanted me back here so badly, but now I know it was because he wanted me to succeed him.”
“And you didn’t want to?”
“I didn’t want to work with Savero.”
“And now? Do you want to lead the family?”
He reaches for my hand. “I want to be honest with you, Trilby. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”
My mind feels fuzzy. I haven’t long been awake, and this is information overload. “So let me get this straight. Savero, the same brother who saved you from drowning when you were eight, has just tried to kill you because your father, who is no longer here, wanted you to succeed him?”
Cristiano bites his bottom lip. He looks almost proud of me for thinking this through. “That’s almost correct. I’ve come to learn he never saved me from drowning, Trilby. He was the one holding me under.”
A gasp makes my chest ache even harder. “So, if he wanted you dead back then, why did he wait so long to try again?”
