Page 247 of The Consequences of Love and Vengeance

My sister gasps and more hurt mounts across her beautiful, innocent features. “He asked...” She pauses, stepping away from us and back out the door. “You mean...” She stops again and just stares at Summers.

It tells me everything I wanted to know. I don’t know how far he took things with my sister, but I certainly never meant for him to get personal with her. I’m livid, yet I don’t have the time or the energy to beat his stupid ass. I have too many other things mounting on my plate and time is running out. I’ll deal with Summers and my sister later.

“No.” The word comes out hard and forceful, his jaw tightening to steel. “Don’t for a minute—”

“No!” she counters back, interrupting him. “You don’t,” she barks, and coming from my sister, her words sting even me. She isn’t harsh or mean by nature. She’s soft and sweet. Her eyes snap to mine, and I know what she’s about to do before it happens. In the next flash of my eyelids, she turns and runs from my office, and I almost miss the tears in her big, brown eyes.

Fuck.

The front door makes a loud bang, echoing off the silence of the house.

Luca and Justin both start to go after her at the same time, but Bri steps in front of them, blocking the door. I, too, round my desk needing to get to her.

“All of you stop. Just stop.” Bri raises her palms. “I’ll go after her. She isn’t going to go to your father’s house. She’s smarter than that, but I’ll find her. She isn’t going to want to speak to any of you men. I know none of you want to hear that, but maybe I can explain and help her understand. Right now, she’s hurt, and she doesn’t see that all of you were just trying to protect her in your own way.”

Summers is the first to nod, his body seeming to deflate.

“Bri’s right. Caprice is pissed, and she’ll only get more upset if one of us follows her. Bri, you go on. Text me when you have her.” Bri nods, but pivots, not waiting any longer to go find my sister. She wouldn’t have gotten far, so I know Bri won’t have a problem finding her. She’s a cop, so even if she does, she has people she can call to put out an APB. Not that it’ll be needed, she can simply log into the GPS app I placed on her phone a week ago. I gave her access to my account on the off-chance that she would need to find Caprice, Luca, or even me. Now I’m glad I thought to do that.

“I should have never kept that from her.” My brother berates himself, and although I disagree, I don’t have the luxury of time to make him see otherwise.

“Luca, why don’t you go check on the girls.” I turn to face my best friend and the soon-to-be asshole on the other end of my fist. Summers just doesn’t know that tidbit yet. “Can the two of you check out the shipment at the docks? If E is right about him shipping dope inside the wine bottles, they are going to be buried inside the crates. Not every box is going to reveal the same thing. It’s going to be one or even a handful of boxes. We may have to go through them all to be sure.”

“And what if we find nothing?” Eric asks.

“Then I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“I just need to drop Tori off at her mom’s, then I’ll meet you down there,” J tells Eric, standing, and then they exit my office without further instructions.

Right now, all I have left is this Hail Mary, and I’m praying to God we find something, anything to nail that motherfucker. Because if we don’t, I’m going to have to become the very person my father tried to force me to become all those years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t see his terrified eyes connected with mine.

* * *

“Please don’t do this,”he begs. He’s staring at me, his muddy eyes pleading with me not to pull the trigger of the weapon in my hand.

There’s so much blood already pooled around him and the other two lifeless bodies are slumped over in the back from where they tried to run. The coppery metallic smells permeating the room are drowning me, causing my stomach to roll as sickness turns over and over, coating every inch inside of me.

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to witness this or even be a part of it.

Why is he making me do this?

“Pull the trigger, Drago.” The order falls from my father’s lips. “End this stupid motherfucker’s life. He stole from me. He stole from you. Thieves are almost as bad as rats, son. No one crosses an Acerbi and gets to live. Kill. Him,” he barks, the eyes of the devil waiting for me to do as I’m told.

I can’t do this. It’s not who I am.

But it is who he is—my father, a murderer.

Someone, somewhere, please help me. God, please help me. I don’t want to do this.

My outstretched hand starts to shake uncontrollably.

From the moment I could walk, I followed my father around. I wanted to be like him: strong, in charge, powerful. When he said something, it was law. When he wanted something, it was made his. Who wouldn’t want that kind of respect?

Only now, I know it was never respect that anyone harbored toward him. It was fear. Now that I’m seventeen, I see it. I see a lot of things clearer now. He isn’t the man I want to be like. He never was...

A blast sounds off, piercing and ringing in my ears. The scared eyes staring back at me fade, the life draining out just as quickly as the blood oozes from the hole in the center of his forehead.

It's now that I feel my father's large hand unwrapping from around mine. The trigger was pulled without me knowing what was happening. He did this, but so did I. It was my finger on the trigger. Does it really matter that I'm not the one who controlled the muscle that pulled it, releasing the chamber? Murder is still murder. Sin is still sin.

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