Page 357 of Vicious Saint
“This is why you married Vic, isn’t it?”
“No. I married Vic because I love him.”
“Then it’s why you two moved so fast.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Is it though?” I look at her through the corner of my eye. “Luca took out Nikolai’s only successor. Dante took over the business after Luca died. Then Nikolai found out about me, the only child of the monster that killed his son. Dante proposed a marriage to you for our protection. One which youdenied to marry Vic.” I shrug. “Maybe because you loved him, maybe because you thought he could offer us the same level of protection.”
“Oh, baby.” Mom releases a drawn out sigh, not at all expecting me to put the pieces of her betrayal together so quickly. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen…you have to believe me.”
“I can’t believe anything you say ever again. You made sure of it.”
“I was just trying to protect you. All of us were.”
If I had a nickel for every time protection was used as an excuse to hide shit from me…
Mom. Auntie. Vic. Saint. Carlo.
Oh my God…Carlo.
Like one of the bullets that just hit me, my head shoots to Dante, who looks as sympathetic as one can with a stockpile of murders on his desk.
“The car bomb,” I press him, shrugging my mother off me. “Was it really payback for the guy Carlo shot in the alley?”
Every crude surface of Dante’s face melts into a look far less dangerous and far more regretful.
If I had to guess, I’d say for refusing to listen to Mom.
Well, fuck that. He doesn’t get to show up here, call meCaterina, his family, and whatever else just flipped my world upside down, then backpedal like a little bitch.
Dante’s silence when it comes to Carlo riles a storm inside me, and I don’t even bother trying to contain it.
“Tell me!” I demand, even though the logical part of me already knows the answer. “Was the car bomb meant for Carlo?”
“No,” he says flat out, and far too similar to Carlo when he would avoid a full answer. Which tells me I’m right to believe the rest of this one won’t end well for my heart.
I press on anyway, because the truth about Carlo’s death is the only piece to this fucked up puzzle I still give a shit about.
“Who was it meant for?”
One, two, three seconds pass as Mom pleads with Dante not to answer. Four, five, six more as Vic plays his hand at convincing too.
Seven, eight, nine seconds are saved for Dante’s disregard of their wishes, leaving ten, just for his decision, and the final bullet that kills me.
“The bomb…it was meant for you.”
This time when my mouth opens, it’s with a lung shattering cry.
“Hendrix! Please just listen!” Mom begs when I push her away, but gets no further before I scream at her to leave me alone, and run out of the room to get to Saint.
My cheeks are drenched and lungs are screaming by the time I’m moving down the hallway to our rooms, where I catch Theory, dressed more for a party than for bed sneaking out of the utility closet. No doubt fresh off the old dumbwaiter she’s been using to sneak out of the mansion. At first she seems ready to hit me with some made up excuse as to why she was in there, but then takes in my gutted appearance and panics.
“Hendrix, what the hell happened?” she whispers, tiptoe rushing past Saint’s room.
My unwillingness to trust anyone but Saint has me sidestepping Theory, leaving her with no choice but to slide into her room when I twist open her brother’s door.
Doing my best to remain quiet, I click it shut, and through tears in the shadows of the doorway, watch the steady rise and fall of Saint’s chest in hopes his peace will bring me some too.
