Page 80 of Dreadful
Plenty of people have reasons to hate Claudio. If Claudio killed Tallie’s parents, then she had better reasons than most, even before he started threatening her grandfathers. I would have no problem with that, except for the question that aches in my chest. Has she been using me to get to him?
I’ve been manipulated so many times in my life by people who want to either settle a score with Claudio or get on his good side. My father, my mother…it’s infuriating. Now, yet another person has pulled the wool over my eyes.
Fury flows through me like a raging river and out my fingertips. My hands sweep across the desk, sending paperwork, keyboard, and laptop crashing to the ground. It’s still not enough, though, and I punch the desk before I can stop myself. The sudden burst of violence cracks the mirrored glass surface into a spiderweb. My reflection catches my eye, and I stare down at myself in the debris.
Anger reddens my face, my jaw is hard as stone, and my eyes are dark and full of an emotion so strong that I don’t have a word for it.
No. I do.
Betrayal.
And I promised myself long ago that I’d never feel it again.
A deep breath rises and falls in my chest. My lungs expand, but my heart hardens behind my sternum. It’s painful and heavy, a burden lodged like a boulder weighing me down.
My fingers carve into my hair. The newest piece for my collection glares at me from the windowsill.
I haven’t added it to the display in the corner of my room yet. When I took the life, I’d felt righteous defending someone I thought had deserved it. But was Tallie lying then, too? It felt like she’d been telling the truth, but being faced with this one huge fucking lie makes me question everything she’s ever said to me.
Tallie—no,Talia—slithered behind my defenses, making me believe she needed saving. She drew me in with what I thought had been her vulnerability and trust. I killed for her. The remnants of the body are in the Charles right now, and the skull’s accusing, sardonic grin and fresh, empty sockets bore holes into my own eyes right now.
My fingers ball up again, and I fight the urge to hurl the skull into the wall.
But even as I overthink every interaction with her, a memory of that night in the dressing room flashes through my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight of Tallie trembling as she stood toe-to-toe with the man who dared to touch her without permission.
Fuck, I’m so confused. I have to get to the bottom of this. I have to draw her out of the darkness she clings to and force her to give me the answers. She’s stubborn at her core, and I know she’ll never willingly give me the information. At this point, I need punishment. I need justice, and I’ll do anything to get it.
My mind is already working on a plan, something that’s guaranteed me information in the past but is more delicious and exactly what she deserves. I let the ideas simmer as I turn my attention back on the screens.
I expect them to be blank since I tossed my laptop to the ground. But my backup computer has engaged, and present-day Fleet Street still flickers across my monitors. An ambulance stops in front of the bakery, and the emotions I just tried to purge flare up again. There is someone who is truly innocent in all this, caught in the crossfire of whatever battles are being waged between me, Claudio, Judge Blunt, and Tallie. Just as the paramedics hop out, I catch movement on the monitor behind the bakery, where the pretty little traitor flees out the back.
Why? To ensure the cops won’t discover what she’s been doing in the shadows?
I glare at the screen and watch as the viper escapes her den. She shoves her hands into her long, puffy jacket, and I squint to see her newest disguise.
The hem of a black dress nearly reaches her feet and drifts above simple shoes. She wears another white cap—wait, no.
I huff in disbelief as the whole ensemble finally clicks for me, and I shake my head. She’s wearing a goddamn nun’s habit.
“Do you have no shame,vipera?”
There’s no telling what she’s going to do in that outfit, but I’m going to find out.
I study the screens to figure out which direction she’s going. When she gets to the end of the block, she stops at the corner and takes a breath so big that I can see her shoulders move on the CCTV. Then she heads toward St. Catherine’s Cathedral.
I flip my razor in the air, snatch it as it falls, and feel a vicious smile curl my face. “La verità è bella, vipera.”
Act 4
Scene 23
THE SEVENTH DEVIL
Talia
Claudio Vincelli only let me out of my room to go to his garden or to St. Catherine’s for confession. Gardening was my escape. Confessing was torture.
Antonella taught me how to plant every flower she loved and how to uproot the ones she didn’t. Apparently, her sister-in-law liked to order the gardener around and tell him what flowers should go where. We plucked up enough foxglove to kill a horse, but Antonella explained that we had to keep a few because she didn’t want to make Claudio mad. I didn’t know what she meant at the time, so I just figured she hated the flowers. I didn’t realize she hated the woman who planted them.
