Page 95 of Hateful Vows
“Are you sure you don’t need us?” Aleksei asks, and I shake my head.
“Okay, we’ll be here. Whatever you need.” Irina’s fingers lace with mine and she kisses the back of my hand. She’d never have been caught doing any sort of public display of affection, but down here, with only a few men who are loyal to me, she shows once more that she is a queen at my side, supporting my choices. No matter what they are.
I enter the cell and close the door behind me.
It’s much more than he offered me.
A mattress is laid down on the cement floor, a toilet right next to it. The chains locked around Gio’s wrists and ankles are just long enough to allow him to sit on the bed, lay down for sleep and relieve himself. His cheeks are gaunt and hiscomplexion has turned ashen. He looks even more like me like this, two ends of a snake that keeps eating itself up.
“I wondered when you’d finally show up,” he says, voice raspy and underused.
His fucking voice.
It’s Pavlovian. I shiver, my mind playing memories without conscious thought. Flashes of my bound body, of clear liquid in a syringe assault me. I can even smell the stench of my own filth, though the room is clean and probably disinfected with detergent daily.
Irina and Aleksei have given him more dignity than he afforded me.
I don’t know how to feel about that. I want the man who hurt me to suffer but I want my brother, the man I missed so much, to be treated with respect. It’s confusing. I wait for anger to take over but it doesn’t come. I’m just so tired. Exhausted with the abuse and the confusion, with love melding with betrayal.
Under Gio’s assessing gaze, I take hold of my gun and unlock the safety. The sound is ominous.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you like a dog,” I demand, raising to aim at his head.
Hate is written on his features, but he doesn’t cower. This is a man who has come close to death and worse, and lived, unaware that he might not survive this time.
“You won’t shoot me.”
“Tell me why,” I yell, the walls absorbing my pain.
“I don’t care if I live or die, Dante. But you do,” he says like he’s not being held at gunpoint. “You said you grieved for me, but I know the truth. Now you get to have your empire and have your brother. What a little happy family we make.”
He stands and the chains rattle. They keep him at a safe distance from me, and I’m grateful. I still don’t know if I can pull the trigger, but I know what he is capable of and I’m not takingany unnecessary risks. I have so many reasons to live. The two people I love most, just outside of this room, Lucie, my mother, Lorenzo. My men. Like Gio said, I have an Empire. And he has nothing.
My arm drops but I keep a finger over the trigger.
“I know what you did,” Gio spits.
“I told you already, Gio. I thought you were dead.”
“Liar!”
“The church burnt and we found your tee-shirt, we thought you burnt with it.”
“But you never found my corpse, did you? I saw the photos. You laughed at my funeral. You laughed with Tino. Fucking Tino. You had a life. You had everything. Misha showed me how happy you were without me. Don’t lie to me. I know you.”
“You know nothing about me, Gio. I love you.” My voice breaks but I force myself to breathe. He won’t ever listen to me. And even if he does, he’ll always be a step away from hurting the people I love.
I raise my arm again.
“You won’t shoot me,” he repeats, then shakes his head and sits back down like our conversation bores him.
“I’ve loved a ghost. For years, I grieved for you. For years, I looked at mamma grieving for you. I kept the memory of you alive. And I’ll continue to do so. You died that day. As far as I’m concerned, you stayed dead.”
His eyes shine with renewed hatred.
“Goodbye, brother.”
Then, I pull the trigger, the bullet hitting him between his eyes.
