Page 131 of Till Death Do Us Part

There was a man who had retribution coming to him—had been for some time—and I’d be the one doling it out.

* * *

The lights were on in the apartments above Tommaso’s. Shadows of men moved behind the curtains.

His wife answered after I knocked on the door. It was eight o'clock. She was dressed for bed in a robe and slippers. The porch light highlighted how tired she was.

She moved to the side. “Come in.”

I followed behind her to the living room, where the lights were out but the TV was on. She stopped, and I did too.

“I’ll let Tom know you’re here,” she said, shuffling toward their room.

I waited alone, confirmation that the men were upstairs.

His wife came back and told me to follow her. She motioned for me to enter their room. The door had been left open. She told Tommaso she was going to make him something warm to drink and then shut the door behind her. I took a seat next to his bed. He was dressed in pajamas, propped up against the headboard with pillows behind him.

“John.” He coughed. His chest rattled with fluid. Nature was taken its natural course, and not even Corvo was going to be able save him. “I expected you earlier.”

I nodded. “We hit some traffic.”

“Ah. What can you do?” He reached over and grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand. He wet his lips, then handed it to me to set back. Like he was too tired to do it. He studied my face. “You look tired, John. Maybe you need to hook up with Candy. She can help you with that.” He winked at me.

Candy, the aspiring porno starlet who was at my house when Roma first came looking for me. Candy had called her out in front of the neighborhood as being Miss Chicago on Halloween. Candy, the leech who Tommaso used to send my wife running from me.

“Where’s my wife?” I asked, my tone no-nonsense.

“I told you, John. She—”

“Where’s her grave?”

“I’m not sure. Emanuele—”

I ripped a pillow from behind him, sticking it over his face. He thrashed and fought, but he was too weak. He was my wife’s car when he had a more powerful one slam into it. When he calmed some, I moved it.

He gasped for breath, wheezing. He went to scream for his wife, but nothing came out but air.

“Screaming is useless. Your loyal men are upstairs. Your wife is making you a warm drink. It’s just you and me. Truth is the only thing standing between us.”

He went to grab for the water again, but I knocked it on the floor.

“Fuck you,” he rasped out. He took a minute to catch his breath, to calm himself. He held his hand over his heart, but his eyes were full of defiance. “You want to know where your wife is? She’s buried six feet under, the worms making a meal of her beautiful face.” He rattled off the cemetery and where to find her marker. “It’s over. Nothing you can do about it now.Finale.”

He’d had me in chains before because I refused to allow my wife to become a victim of my life. I’d never seen her as a weak creature, but the world was made of men like me, carnivores who thrived on blood.

I was half of her. I’d be the one standing between them and my heart.

His eyes grew wide when the pillow came at his face again. This time, I didn’t relent, and I pressed my weight down on his chest. I was stopping his lungs from inflating and blocking the incidental air.

The moment came when he went completely still. It didn’t take long. With what I did and the fluid in his lungs, it took him in less than three minutes. He’d never move again. I put the pillow back where it had been. Relaxed his fingers. Picked the glass up off the floor.

I opened the door and called for his wife.

“He stopped breathing,” I said when she appeared in the dark hallway.

She dropped the mug of whatever she had and ran to his side. “Tom!” She slapped at him. “Tom! Call an ambulance!”

I nodded, pulling out my phone. I gave them the info.

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