Page 3 of Blood and Lies (A Twisted Duet 1)

“Tatum. You do not get to die yet, do you understand me? Not yet. Tatum?” I grabbed her cheeks with both hands and lifted her face toward mine. “Tatum, wake up. Wake up, goddammit.”

Finally, her eyes started to flutter open, her blue irises dark and glazed over. There was no color on her cheeks, and her chapped lips were starting to turn blue.

I wiped away some hair that stuck to her forehead, hanging over her eyes. The smell of vomit on her breath was horrid, and I tried my best to avoid the stench by not breathing too much.

“Tatum, look at me.”

No response.

I tightened my grip on her cheeks. “Fucking look at me!”

Her eyes opened, and the moment her gaze locked onto mine, it was like new life suddenly got blasted into the color of her irises. For a second, she just stared at me as if she was looking right through me, seeing all my darkest secrets. The moment was so unnerving, I didn’t even notice her moving her hand toward my face.

A cold, soft palm pressed against my cheek, and she leaned closer.

“You,” she whispered, like she knew me. But she didn’t. No one fucking knew me.

I took her hand in mine and slowly pulled it away from my face.

She narrowed her eyes, studying my face. “How?”

Vico came rushing into the room with Doc shortly on his heels, and I pressed her back onto the mattress, her eyes never leaving mine.

While Doc was busy checking her pulse, her temperature, and setting up some meds, I lifted myself back up and stared down at the fragile, helpless young woman. I felt nothing. No remorse, no regret. There was nothing inside me that even remotely resembled any kind of sympathy or emotion—only complete emptiness.

I took a step back while smiling wickedly at her. “Welcome to Hell,donna.”

The fear and confusion on her face sent a flurry of sensations down my spine. It was downright euphoric. All the time I spent preparing myself for this day, embracing the darkness that has now become my soul, I never could have imagined that it would feel…good. But it did. It felt liberating, like I finally had the means and the reason to set free the darkness I knew had been hidden inside me all these years. I was not the least bit surprised it felt so fucking good. Something like this should feel good to a person without a soul, without a heart—to someone who was already dead and rotten inside.

Doc pierced her ivory skin, pushing a needle into the vein in her arm. She didn’t flinch, and she didn’t fight. She just continued to stare at me like she had seen a ghost.

If only she knew that, from today, this face would haunt her every second of her miserable life—or at least what was left of it. But no matter how much she suffered, it still wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be enough to fill the emptiness that now consumed every part of me.

As Doc pulled the needle out of her arm, her body instantly relaxed into the mattress, but her gaze remained etched on my face.

“Why?” she whispered, her eyes blinking as she struggled to keep them from closing.

I smiled. “Today is the start of your penance,donna.”

“Penance for what?” She breathed out as her eyelids grew heavy.

Vico and Doc exited the room, and as I stepped out the door, I turned back to look at her. “For murdering my brother.”

With the push of a button, the steel door closed with a loud thud, separating us from the person I hated the most in this world—the person whose pain would feed the monster that stirred in the darkest pits of my being.

“That was close,” Doc said behind me. “Luckily, you stuck to the regular dose, or her heart would have given in with the amount of alcohol in her system.”

I turned around to face him and straightened my suit jacket and then remembered I was covered in vomit.

“Thanks, Doc. Don’t go too far in case we need you again.”

“Of course, Castello.”

Doc walked out, and I glowered at Vico, making my disapproval known by a single fucking glance. “Our entire plan almost got ruined because you screwed up.”

“Like I said, I didn’t know.” He took an intimidating step forward, his eyes just as dark as mine. But he knew nothing about him intimidated me, never had. At twenty-five, he was three years younger than I was. And just like him, I once was what our family called a Capo.

It was a mere four-point-two minutes that catapulted my twin brother into the role as Underboss. Four-point-two minutes made my brother the successor instead of me. Carlo, who now lay six feet underground wearing a morbid headstone as a crown, was the one destined to take my father’s place as head of our family.

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