Page 68 of Brutal Union
Dante signs again, more urgently, and this time I look. "You're becoming the monster she was afraid you were."
"I was always that monster. She just made me forget for a while." I pause, the truth cutting deeper. "No, she made me want to be something else. Made me believe I could be. That's the real cruelty."
Nico's phone buzzes. He checks it, and something shifts in his expression. "Boss, you need to hear this."
"If it's not about burning more of their territory…"
"Our contact at the O'Brien compound just confirmed." The words drop like stones. "She's still there. Been there since she walked in two hours ago. They're preparing something."
The crystal decanter stays in my hand this time, whiskey burning down my throat instead of decorating the wall. Still there. Two hours at the O'Brien compound, doing what? Planning what? The thought of Liam's hands on her, his mouth where mine was just yesterday, his cock inside what belongs to me. The images tear through my brain like bullets. I can still taste her on my tongue, still feel her pussy clenching around me as she screamed my name. And now she's giving that to him.
My fist goes through the antique mirror, then the wall behind it. Again. Again. Until the plaster gives way to studs, until my knuckles are hamburger, until the pain in my hands might match the thing tearing apart my chest.
"This is what Father wanted," I hear myself say, voice hollow. "A son who could destroy without feeling. Who could be the monster the family needed."
"Marco…" Alex starts.
"He won. Even dead, he fucking won." I stare at my ruined hands. "Made me into this thing that even she couldn't love."
The phone call comes as I'm washing blood from my hands. Intelligence, breathless: "Alonzo Bernardi. Spotted at his mistress's old apartment on Halsted."
I don't tell my brothers. Don't want their questions or their concern. This is between the Bernardis and me now.
The apartment building is run-down, trying to hide its decay under fresh paint that fools no one. Third floor, corner unit. The door splinters under my boot.
Alonzo scrambles for a gun, but I'm already on him. The weapon skitters across cracked linoleum as I drive him into the wall. Fake passports scatter from his hands. He was running. The coward was running while his daughters pay for his sins. The smell of his sweat mixes with cheap cologne, making my stomach turn.
I don't speak. Words are for men who still pretend to be human. The knife appears in my hand, and I start with his fingers. Methodical. Precise. Each joint separated with surgical care. Blood makes the handle slippery, but my grip never falters.
His screams fill the small apartment, but no one in this building will call for help. They know better than to interfere with Rosetti business.
"Your daughter asked about her mother," I finally say between his sobs. "At the cemetery. Standing on her grave."
"Please…"
"The truth, Bernardi." The blade finds new flesh. "All of it. Or I'll make this last for days."
He breaks faster than expected. Weak men always do.
"Your father wanted her dead! Offered me fifty thousand! I have the wire transfer, the proof!" The words pour out mixed with blood and snot, desperate and panicked. "She knew about the shipments, the routes. She was going to testify."
"And you killed her for him."
"No!" His eyes wild with pain and desperation. "I refused! She was the mother of my children. Killing her would have been too messy, too many questions."
The knife stills against his throat.
"Pietro came to me," Alonzo continues, words tumbling over each other. "Offered fifty thousand for the job. But I refused to do it. Too messy, I told him. You don't kill the mother of your children like that."
"But she died anyway."
"Yeah." He laughs, bitter and broken. "But it wasn't me who set it up. I can't deny it was convenient. No more threats of testimony. No more fights over the children."
I process this. My father lied. Valentina thinks I knew about a murder that never happened the way she believes. She thinksI touched her knowing my family killed her mother, when the truth is even more twisted.
"Doesn't matter now," Alonzo wheezes through blood. "She's marrying Liam. Tonight. Moved everything up."
The knife drops from nerveless fingers. "What?"
