Page 22 of Vengeful Eyes
Cane, Yakuza and Benjamin. A confusing jumble of feelings swell up inside of me as I try to focus on the words I want to deliver to Anya. She deserves my consideration and my support for everything she’s lost today.
“Hope?” Torino prompts, confused by my stillness.
“Give me a minute, all right.” Our eyes lock and for a moment, I’m not the bitch who resents his presence, and he’s not the shadow who is forced to risk his life and bite his tongue. He knows this could be him one day. And he can see, maybe for the first time, that I’m not just the mistress with a cold heart.
“Sure.” He backs away and lingers off to the side.
I walk on past and up the steps to the front door, but my hand pauses before I knock. Visions of my mother in her last days invade my mind. I would have given anything to hear, just once, how much she loved me, or that she was pleased to have me in her life. Not even on her deathbed did her opinion of me soften. I was always the burden she had to endure. Her pain was all because of me, and so she punished me.
I couldn’t have friends over to play because everyone knew my mother was a drunk. Who wanted their children to be supervised by a drunk? And what would we play with? There were no toys in our house. Not new toys. I had a couple of old Barbies when I was younger, and a teddy that was so old and rotten even I wouldn’t choose to snuggle it at night unless I had no other choice. And I didn’t.
Why she kept me, I don’t know. Foster care or social services would have been better, but she always did enough to keep them away. Another punishment.
Evil things happen in the world. I’ve endured too much to pretend otherwise, and that was before I met Benjamin. My mother named me Hope, but it’s hard to see any hope in the world when you look at it through my eyes. When you’ve suffered at the hands of everyone in your life, all because of a magical family who rule their kingdom with no concern for others.
Death might be an inevitability for the Benjamins and Tonys of the world, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have people who care about them. Who would come to tell me the news that Benjamin was dead? Would anyone even bother? Or know to? I’m not his wife, just a mistress. Nothing more than a tool he uses. As long as I keep reminding myself of that, my vengeance will seem acceptable, even if it does involve him.
My knuckles wrap on the wooden door and I wait.
Nine
Iglare out into the night from my vantage over the city, focusing on the darkness that’s coming. It’s so fucking still out there, a blank sheet ready for me to destroy if I choose to. Yakuza.
The dull throb of an unanswered call rests against my ear. Straight to voicemail. She's not here, not answering the fucking phone either. They’ve taken her, haven’t they? They think they can hold her over me, use her to force me into doing their bidding. They fucking can’t. She knew the score when she signed up for this side of my life, knew it might come for her one day.
My eyes focus further into the nothing out there, blankly letting the thoughts ride my mind and show me the way. Maybe she’s against me, too. Maybe this has all been a lie between us, one that’s caused the distraction they needed. That's a long game she's played. My cheek twitches, mypulse heavy in my neck.
Lies. It's all lies and coercion.
My fists tighten with rage, fear for her safety, and suspicion, all mingling to cause something I can’t contain. It’s been so long since this feeling overtook me, so long since real fury leveled vengeance at another party rather than intelligent manoeuvring.
I sneer at my reflection, infuriated at the arrogance that led me to this. I thought that earlier tonight, thought we should be ourselves now, try for fucking happiness somehow. Whatever that is for me. Safe? We were never safe. I was never safe, never untouchable like I thought. And now Tony’s dead and Hope’s gone, the two of them the only things I gave a damn for.
I end the call and dial again, eyes glazed at the world beyond and my body vibrating against the explosion it’s trying to hold onto.
Scum. Yakuza scum.
I lift the gun in my hand, aiming it at my own reflection and barely stopping myself from pulling the trigger. They’re here, all around me, infiltrating and pushing me into a fight they didn’t know was coming. They think they can use this fucking threat as leverage against me? What the fuck do they know about Vico business? They only know the lenient side—the one that’s used nothing but business and intellect to get here and sent a small threat back at them, his eyes gouged out of his fucking face. But they don’t know these streets like I do, don’t know the land that houses generations of us, all of it scattered around waiting to be called into use.
Voicemail. That’s all this damned phone does. It cuts straight to her barren message, her actual voice not answering it. Fuckers. I will kill every last one of them, bleed them until there’s nothing left of them on the east coast, ripping their eyes from their fucking skulls, and then watch on as they beg for mercy they’ll never get.
Not now.
I switch off the call and press in new numbers, making the call I haven’t had to make since I took over round here. Gorgio answers in three rings.
“Vico?”
He breathes quietly in the background, waiting for me, and sighs his concerns. He knows, doesn't he? Knows what's coming now. My lips sneer at the memories he must have, the years of my father making the same types of calls before me. I tilt the gun around, lining it up with my eyes, which are glazed back at me.
“Call them all in, old man,” I mutter, a deadly calm coming the moment I say it. It’ll be nothing like it was back then. No mob bosses working together to make the storm lighter. It’ll be death and crucifixion, my own men expected to die to bring the city back under my control. Just like last time with Sergio. My city. My control. And my fucking power. “Call them in for war.”
I end the call after that and stare at myself.
What to make of Cane?
Maybe it's them. Could be. Or her. It has to be one of them.
The door opens in the background. I spin, hand raised and pulse vibrating on the trigger, and find Hope making her way into the apartment. She puts her bag down, feet slipping out of her heels, and sighs before finally turning to look at me. Her mouth opens, eyes wide at the gun I’m pointing at her.
