Page 32 of The Seventh Circle
"And this," he said, his voice dropping to a conversational tone directed at Vito, "is for making us come all this way."
With a single, powerful wrench, he ripped the knife sideways through the man’s hand, tearing flesh and shattering bone. The man's final scream was cut short as Paolo’s other hand came up, holding the filleting knife, and drew it swiftly across his throat.
There was a final, gurgling sigh. Blood erupted in a hot, dark fountain, spraying across the cobblestones and all over the front of Paolo’s coat. The body slid down the wall, leaving a thick, wet smear of red on the bricks. The knife that had pinned his hand clattered to the ground.
Silence descended, broken only by the drip of blood and the ragged breathing of the survivors.
Paolo calmly wiped his bloody blade on the dead man's trousers, then tucked it back inside his coat. He looked at Vito, who was staring at the corpse, his face the colour of old parchment.
"Take a good look, Vito," Paolo said, his voice now booming with authority. "This is what happens when you get ambitious.This is the Benedetto family sending its regards. Take your trash and get out of our sight."
He turned and strolled toward the exit, his shoulders back, his step light. He was covered in blood, and he was beaming, utterly delighted with his morning's work.
I stood frozen for a moment, the metallic smell of death thick in my nostrils. I forced myself to look at Antonio. His face was ashen. He met my eyes, and in their depths, I saw the same revulsion, the same sickness that churned in my own gut. We had both dealt in violence. We had both taken lives. But this... this was something else. This was not the work of soldiers. It was the joy of a butcher.
Without a word, we turned and followed Paolo, leaving Vito Torrino kneeling in the filth beside one of his brutalized men and one of his dead, a tableau of our family's true power, a message written in blood and bone.
9
LORENZO
We rode back to the city in silence, Paolo humming contentedly behind the wheel, blood still drying on his cuffs. The stench of it filled the car—metallic and raw—mingling with the lingering scent of leather and tobacco. Antonio sat beside me, his body rigid, staring straight ahead through the windshield. The space between us on the seat might as well have been an ocean.
"That'll keep Torrino in line for a while," Paolo chuckled, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. "Nothing like making an example, eh, cousin?"
I said nothing, feeling bile rise in my throat again. The image of the knife tearing through the man's hand played behind my eyes like a moving picture show I couldn't shut off.
"You two look like you're attending a funeral," Paolo continued, glancing at us in the rearview mirror. "Cheer up! We solved your problem, Romano. No one will be watching your family now."
Antonio's jaw tightened, a muscle pulsing beneath the skin. "Thank you," he said, the words mechanical, empty.
We pulled up to the Benedetto compound. Paolo clapped me on the shoulder as we exited the car, his palm leaving a tacky red print on my coat.
"I'll tell your father how we handled it," he said. "He'll be pleased."
And that was what sickened me most—my father would be pleased. He would nod in approval at Paolo's butchery, seeing it as appropriate, necessary. This was the family business, stripped of all pretense. Not protection, not community service, but this: the power to destroy a human being and call it justice.
Antonio stood awkwardly by the gates. "I should get home," he said, not meeting my eyes. "Make sure my family is safe."
"Antonio," I started, but found I had nothing to say. What words could possibly bridge the chasm that had opened between us? The villa and its stolen moment of tenderness seemed to belong to another lifetime now, washed away in blood.
"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, then turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched as if bearing a great weight.
I watched him go, feeling something precious slipping through my fingers.
I stood under the scalding water, scrubbing my skin until it was raw. There was no blood on me—not physically—but I felt coated in it nonetheless. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but the filth wouldn't come off.
My father had indeed been pleased with ourhandling of Vito Torrino. "Good," he'd said when Paolo described the killing in loving detail over dinner. "Let them know the cost of crossing us." Uncle Federico had nodded sagely. Paolo had preened under the attention.
I'd excused myself before dessert was served.
Now, standing in my bedroom in a fresh shirt and trousers, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked the same—the same eyes, the same face that had gazed back at me yesterday. But something fundamental had shifted. I'd always known what my family was capable of, had participated in violence myself. But Paolo's casual sadism, his joy in another man's suffering—that was the unvarnished truth of what it meant to be a Benedetto.
And I was expected not only to accept it but to embrace it, to one day command it.
The thought made me want to tear off my own skin.
I walked to my desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. I began to write, needing to sort through the chaos in my mind.
