Page 356 of Vicious Saint
It’s uncomfortable, so much, I have to look away.
When I do I find Mom, eyes on me and drenched with tears, as if knowing, but unable to stop what’s about to happen.
She uses silent words to plead for my forgiveness—but by the time my attention is back on the man, I already know I won’t forgive her.
“Who are you?” I ask, like the true masochist I am…because I’m pretty sure I know the answer, and pretty sure it’s already killing me.
“My name is Dante Salvini.”
A second explosion erupts in my head, louder than the first, and it throws off my equilibrium.
Dante Salvini, the notorious gangster I couldn’t find out anything about for months, is standing in the middle of Vic’s living room, talking to me like I’m some vital extension of him.
My instincts are talking too, and I don’t want to believe what they have to say. But it’s hard to deny the truth when it’s staring at you through the same fucking eyes.
“Are you my…” The last word dies in my throat.
“No,” he says firmly. “I am not-ehyour father.”
Hearing those words is like coming up for air after nearly drowning. That is, until Dante adds, “My brother was.”
“Bro-brother?” I stammer, needing to make sure my ears are still working, but Dante mistakes it for ignorance.
“Sì…his name was Luca Salvini.”
Luca Salvini.
The deranged monster who killed hundreds of people, including Nikolai Ivanov’s only son.
My eyes dart to my mother, then to Vic, even to fucking Darla, waiting for the punchline of this sick joke.
But…the punchline never comes.
Yet still, like an idiot, I turn to my mom, clinging to hope that I’m not the product of a monster. Or at least, if I was, she’d love me too much to keep it from me.
“Mommy...please.” The naive little girl inside me whimpers, and this time when my heart breaks, it’s for her, not me.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” is all she says right before my last bit of hope turns to agony.
Like a house of cards, my knees, along with my entire world, fall to the floor. I close my eyes, hanging my head as a sob rips free from my chest.
There are hard truths, then there are merciless ones.
And right now, the pieces of the second are emptying into me like a round of bullets.
My violent impulses.
The eggshells she’s always walked on around them.
Mom wasn’t scaredforme…she was scaredofme.
Of who I could become.
Fast forward to a year ago, the bullets, they keep on coming.
When my eyes open I find my mom dropping to my side, wrapping her arms around me as I stare at the floor.
“Hendrix, listen to me…” She starts, but I cut her off.
