Page 9 of Cara

The clouds have opened over the harbor, releasing rain in silver sheets. Windows spanning the length of the building reveal webs of light shattering the atmosphere, thunder rumbling the foundation beneath me.

I find solace in the violence of nature, letting it strip me of my agony.

The small, insignificant boy within me wants to cave in on himself. Beg—beg his papa to stop. Ask how he could do this. To survive my father, that boy had to hide, disappear into a crevice of my body he’d struggle to find. Something about mind-numbing torture brings him right out.

He cradled me as a child, took care of me when I was sick, cleaned my wounds when I fell. Every decision he made in his life has been with me in mind, even the decisions that would eventually destroy everything he worked so hard for.

Striking a deal with Vito Marin for his eldest daughter was one of them.

I come to the conclusion that there’s no point in remembering, in hoping for anything better from a man like Arturo Marcello.

Not when I can’t even remember the last time I saw him as a father instead of my Capo dei Capi. Not when he descends upon me every damn day as my waking nightmare.

“Sophie,” I whisper, simply to say her name.

To let the vowels and consonants ease my weary soul.

My eyes close and I see her. Tumbling black hair spilling from my grasp. Skin as pale as the moon outside. I picture her without the scars I know she carries, unable to stomach that shit right now.

Move on.

Lips. Unnaturally red… as red as the blood oozing from the gaping holes in my feet.

Move. On.

Her smile. Her laugh that harnesses goddamn sunlight.

Fucking hell.

I thought I was broken before I married Sophie. That pain was laughable compared to what I went through after they ripped her out of my arms.

But this? Knowing she’s gone? Knowing I’ll never see her again? Suspecting that this warehouse is all I’ll know for the foreseeable future makes me think death would be a mercy.

Thunder drowns out the creaking door as it opens. In this darkness, I can’t make out who has entered, nor do I care. A bolt of light reveals a face, one I hadn’t expected. I find the will to lift my head as Bo’s hands grab ahold of my neck.

Someone else slides through the doorway. Dante.

“Thatson of a bitch,” Bo seethes, releasing me to tear off the bag on hisback.

Time suspends in a place like this, but I’ve seen enough sunsets to know they should’ve been long gone by now.

My voice is barely audible, words struggling past my fractured lips. “I… told you to go.”

Dante bends down. Even in this dim light, fury corrupts his usual devil-may-care countenance. “I’ll tear them to pieces. Just give me the chance.”

Bo unscrews a lid. Only when he applies balm to my face do I appreciate the ointment. “Where else?”

I let out a weary chuckle. My body is a battlefield of scars. He’d never find them all. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bo directs his flashlight down with a single click before darkness blankets the warehouse again. Dante’s hand digs into my shoulder, concerned by whatever he’s seen. I wonder if it’s infected. It would explain why I can barely move.

“X, fuck, you couldn’t even walk out of here if you tried. Dante, you’ll need to carry him?—”

“I'm not goinganywhere.”

“You grab one side and I’ll—” Bo lurches back as if I’d just spawned a new language out of thin air, something incomprehensible to someone with a semi-normal headspace. “What?”

“If I leave now, he wins.”