Page 133 of Till Death Do Us Part

Alfonso pulled a gun on me. “Come any closer, I’ll blow a hole in your chest big enough to see through. I know who you met with in Sicily. Now that Russo’s dead, our agreement has expired.”

It was, but I had no plans to touch Alfonso and his son again, unless they physically touched me or mine. The game was over. They won. They could take whatever monetary prize and move the fuck on. Even before Roma ran, I’d hurt her because of it. I didn’t see the truth of it until she pointed it out. I was threatening Jack for using her, but I’d done the same fucking thing.

I turned my back on Alfonso and Jack, facing Corvo. He pulled a gun on me.

“Get out of my house,” he said. There was no bite to his tone. No heat. No coldness. It was void of anything.

He sounded like me.

I lifted my hands. “Check me, Jack.”

“Hell if he will,” Alfonso said.

Dr. Sala set his glass on Corvo’s desk and patted me down. He nodded. “He is clean.”

Corvo still held his gun. It was aimed at my heart. I’d hurt his, and his finger itched to retaliate, to send me out of his world for good.Finale.But it was only wishful dreaming. We would always be linked to each other through my wife and his daughter. He loathed it.

My hands were still up, and I dropped to my knees in front of Corvo. It was done on purpose and not. After finding out my wife was still alive, I didn’t have control of my legs when the truth truly hit me.

A gasp came from outside of the office. The dog’s ears raised at the noise.

“Get up!” Corvo ordered. Something in his voice then. That hate he was too numb to feel before.

He’d been going through the stages of grief after I married his daughter, like our marriage had killed her. But like me, he was the only thing standing between him and her.

“Get up!” he repeated, throwing a stone at me from his desk. It hit me in the forehead. “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to fool my family, like you tricked my innocent daughter. You used her. You used her to kill me. To get back at Alfonso. You don’t love her. You don’t know what love is, unless the color of it is green.”

I said nothing, keeping my hands and eyes up. I might be down, but I’d still look him in the eyes. He tore around the desk, stopping in front of me, sticking the gun to the center of my head.

“I let your worthless father die.” Satisfaction laced his words. “I could have saved him, but I didn’t.”

“Babbo!”

“Quiet,” he snapped at Lolita in Italian, but our eyes never broke. “The mighty Sal Maggio was foaming from the mouth, pissing and shitting himself. I sat there and watched it. I didn’t lift a finger to stop the devil from claiming him. How do you like that, boy?”

When I didn’t answer, he pressed the gun even harder against my head. He went off at the mouth, sounding like he was talking to his wife’s ex-husband instead of me. He didn’t see me as an individual man, but as the sins of another. He wasn’t yelling, but his voice had grown hoarse, like he was straining to get the words out. But that was all they were. Words.

The only thing that could hurt me in this world was my wife.

“Emanuele.Enough!” Dr. Sala moved the gun and held it down. “If he were going to do something, he would have done it by now. I would have. I would have knocked your lights out. And I have never,never, put my hands on a woman in malice.”

Emanuele staggered to his chair, almost falling into it. He swiveled to where he had a bottle of whiskey and a glass, setting the gun down. He poured some and shot it back. “What do you want, John?” He sighed.

“My wife,” I said.

Emanuele shrugged. “She came here before she left, but when she left, she left us both. None of us know where she is. I’ve looked.”

I stood, and Corvo pointed the gun at me again, but he was looking behind me.

“Put it down, Alfonso,” Corvo ordered.

I stepped to the side. Alfonso’s gun moved with me.

“He’s not fooling me with his grand show.” Alfonso took a closer step toward me. He was so mad, the gun trembled in his hand. “He’s not getting another thing from me! Do you hear me, Corvo? We had an agreement. Roma is promised to Jack, even if she’s ruined.”

The blast from the gun made the dog duck under the desk. Screams came from the hall and cries from somewhere deeper in the house. Alfonso stumbled into Jack, grabbing for his shoulder where the bullet had struck.

“Next time I’ll aim lower and more to the center,” I said, my ears ringing. I was probably shouting. “Take my warning and run with it.”

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