Page 384 of Vicious Saint
I nod, all but licking my lips as my hand squeezes around Carlo’s gun.
“Jimi, listen.” Saint grabs me by the wrist when I take my first step to them. “If you do this, there’s no going back.”
“Doubt Nikolai shared the sentiment when he had Carlo killed.”
“He didn’t. I can promise you that. But you’re better than Nikolai.” He scoffs. “Shit…you’re better than all of us.”
“And I’ll continue to be better than all of you tomorrow, after I rid these two pieces of shit from the earth.”
“I don’t want this for you.”
“I don’t either, Letterman. But what we want doesn’t trump what’s right. Carlo deserves to be avenged, and it has to be by me.”
Saint’s jaw ticks, but he nods and releases my wrist, stepping aside for me to pass. I make it five steps before being stopped again, this time by my new scary uncle.
With every word in Italian, he asks if I’m sure I want to do this, and how he’s willing to do it for me if I can’t. When I respond with a not so subtle “get the fuck out of my way” he takes the hint, and like Saint, steps aside so I can face the two pieces of shit who took Carlo from me.
Pointing the gun at Nikolai’s head, I ask him, “Was this vendetta against Luca Salvini worth your life?”
“Absolutely,” he grits out through bloody lips.
I slide the gun to Leerie. “What about you?”
She spits at my feet. “You better believe it.”
“It’s funny…” I refer back to Nikolai, keeping the gun aimed at his daughter. “Because up until two months ago, I would’ve disagreed. But then, through no fault of my own, you went and took someone I loved very much away from me.”
“Your father took my son away from me.”
My teeth grind together as I say, “I didn’t fucking know the guy…hell, up until tonight I didn’t know any of you people.”
“But your uncle knows you, princess, and he loves you very much. Therefore, I had the right to take what was owed to me, a life for a life.”
“Tell me, Nikolai. Did you have to watch your son die?”
“This doesn’t matter.”
I press the gun into Leerie’s head. “Yes it fucking does…now answer.”
Nikolai shifts his weight but continues upholding the stoic exterior. As for Leerie, well, her facade crumbles into sobs.
Good—because I made this bitch a promise—and now she knows how much I intend to keep it.
“No. I didn’t watch him die,” Nikolai mutters as his daughter begs me not to kill her.
“Then believe me when I tell you the pain of doing so is a hell-of-a-lot worse.” I pause, narrowing my eyes. “Here…let me show you what I mean.”
My finger squeezes the trigger, and a deafening crack renders the air as a bullet fires into Leerie’s skull, making her drop to the floor with a lifeless thud.
My heart skips a beat as I take in her bulging eyes and blood oozing from the hole in her head.
Nikolai screams in horror, lunging for me, but is quickly held back by one of Dante’s men.
I kneel down to meet his teary eyes. “See? It’s a lot different watching a person you love turn into a corpse in a split second.”
Nikolai sputters a bunch of stuff at me in Russian, so frenzied saliva spits from his mouth.
I press the gun to his head next. “Not to worry, Nikolai. You’ll be meeting your son and daughter in Hell soon.”
