Page 78 of The Killer Cupcake
Matteo's throat felt drier than a desert. "She's known for two days. Since the night Carmine confronted you. We talked to her. Asked her to pretend, to support you so you could?—"
"So I could what?" Carmelo's voice had gone terrifyingly quiet.
"Get in the ring. Win the fight."
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then Carmelo moved with the speed that had made him champion, launching himself at his brother with inhuman fury. His fist connected with Matteo's jaw, snapping his head back. Then another. Another.
"You knew!" Each word punctuated by bone meeting flesh. "You fucking knew!"
Matteo tried to defend himself, but grief had made Carmelo into something beyond human. He straddled his brother, fists pounding with mechanical precision, blood spattering the walls, the floor, his championship robe.
"She smiled at me!" Carmelo screamed, his voice raw. "She kissed me! And you knew it was fake!"
Matteo's nose exploded. His eye socket nearly cracked. Still the blows came.
"My brother! My blood!"
The door burst open. Men rushed in first, wrapping arms around Carmelo's chest. Two more men piled on, but grief had given him the strength of madness. He threw one against the wall, kept swinging at the others.
"Get off me! I'll kill him! I'll kill all of you motherfuckers!”
Someone brought a blackjack down hard against the back of Carmelo's skull. He swayed, still fighting, blood and spit flying from his mouth. It took two more blows before he finally dropped.
In the sudden silence, a flashbulb popped. Then another. The press had heard the commotion and pushed their way in. Tomorrow's headlines were already writing themselves: RICCI BROTHERS IN BLOODY BRAWL. CHAMPION ATTACKS CORNER MAN. THE WOLF SNAPS.
Matteo lay unconscious, his face unrecognizable. Carmelo sprawled beside him, blood pooling beneath both brothers. The letter lay forgotten in the corner, spotted with red.
Don Marcello’s man looked at the photographers, then at the disaster on the floor. "Get them out," he ordered his men. "And find a doctor who keeps his mouth shut."
But the damage was done. In every way that mattered, both Ricci brothers had died in that dressing room. What would wake up in their place would be something else entirely.
The Wolf had finally swallowed their future whole.
CHAPTER 31
QUEBEC, CANADA - 1978
Present.The room stole her heart. Her face—everywhere. Hundreds of versions covered every surface, overlapping like memories that refused to die. Kathy stood paralyzed as her eyes adjusted to thirty years of obsession rendered in pencil and charcoal.
Carmelo hunched over at his drafting table, shirtless, his back to her. Coltrane's saxophone wailed through the speakers. The sound masked her entrance. His shoulders rolled with each violent stroke, muscles shifting beneath scarred skin.
She eased the door shut and ventured deeper into his privacy. Though her face dominated the walls, she recognized others—men she'd never met, his mother's eternal disappointment, Nino's gentle smile. And Sandy. Their daughter at every age, from toddler to woman. Each drawing a stolen year, a moment he'd invented to fill the void from the constant wars they waged against each other.
One sketch stopped her cold.
Sandy, small and still in a hospital bed. Him, a shadow behind glass, barred from entering. That day rushed back to her with the force of a tsunami—their daughter hit by a car, Kathy wild with grief, screaming blame at him and then herself.Yourfault. Always your fault.She'd wielded her own internal guilt like a weapon, never letting him forget the mistakes they made.
Had she created her monster? Was his madness her?
The realization struck—they'd both been archivists of ruin. Her journals downstairs, his drawings up here. Thirty years of parallel obsession, documenting what they'd destroyed. Preserving the truth while living the lie.
She approached on silent feet, hand hovering over his bare spine. On the paper, her face surfaced with each savage stroke—captured perfectly, loved terribly.
She touched him.
Carmelo froze mid-stroke.
"Don't be angry, I'm here." Her voice was soft and calming. "Please. I just needed to find you."
