Page 126 of Ruthless Vengeance
I press a hand to my belly, knowing the little one inside is being rocked by the slow rhythmic thump of my heartbeat. I already love the little life growing inside me, this whole other heartbeat depending on me to be strong.
If I ever doubt my decision, I need to remember that they are the reason I made this call.
My children deserve to feel safe, and a world where my brother is still living is not a safe one.
After looking in on Rosa and Holly, I head downstairs to make a cup of tea just to keep my hands busy.
I take it through to the living room and settle on the couch, throwing a blanket over my legs as I stare at the wall of family photographs.
I think of my own version of these pictures, with Ben and me running through sprinklers during the summer or standing on the front porch on his first day of middle school. My mind keeps trying to pull me backward through the years, but that version of us no longer exists.
Ben made sure to destroy any chance of us ever being family again. He chose this path over and over again, and yet I kept letting him back in. I clung to hope because he was the only family I had left, until Marco and Zoe.
They gave me something much greater to fight for.
I sit there, waiting, and as the tea goes cold, I listen for the sound of Marco’s car.
What if taking my brother’s life changes him? What if he comes back, and I can’t look at him the same way even though I was the one to tell him it was okay to do it?
The moment the front door opens, my heart starts hammering in my chest.
I stand slowly and walk out of the living room.
I don’t speak. Instead, I just stand there in the hallway, barefoot, with my arms folded tightly around myself as Marco steps inside.
He closes the door gently behind him so as not to wake the rest of the house, and when finally, he turns to me, I find his expression is unreadable.
My eyes roam over him, lingering on the dried blood on his knuckles.
When I look back at his face, his eyes lock with mine and for a second, neither of us moves.
The space between us fills with everything we didn’t say before he left, until finally I take one step forward in a silent question.
Marco still doesn’t speak. He just holds out a hand, and that’s all it takes for me to wrap myself in his arms.
His touch is hesitant at first, as if he can’t quite believe I’m real, that I’m still here at his side.
That I’mhis.
“I took care of it,” he murmurs against my hair.
I nod, my throat thickening with emotion.
It’s over.
I feel everything but also nothing at all. It’s as if grief and guilt are fighting for a place in my heart but neither can hold on.
Marco’s arms tighten around me.
“Come with me.” He laces his fingers through mine.
He leads me upstairs and into our bedroom, but he doesn’t stop there. He takes me into the private bathroom, where the soft orange light glow from the single light above the mirror illuminates the space.
Marco doesn’t drop my hand once, even when he reaches into the shower to turn the water on. Only when the steam starts to fog the glass does he let me go, but his eyes never leave mine.
He takes the hem of my blood-soaked shirt and lifts it over my head.
His hands move with such tenderness that each brush of his calloused fingers against my skin has tears brimming in my eyes.
