Page 102 of Dreadful

“I’ve known it was you all along.”

The pieces thunder into place in my head.

Delivering desserts and fliers to the barbershop beneath my apartment. Spying on the shop and my comings and goings. Her shocked and standoffish behavior at the bakery when I caught her off guard. Her hesitation to help me when I was bleeding out. She stalked me, watched me, studied me. She used me, too, but not in the way that I assumed. I’m not a stepping stone to the top. I’m another rat in her trap. Another monster she needs to cut from her world.

But I won’t run from her.

I’ve suffered my own shame over what happened that night, leaving her behind, not being able to do anything when she was attacked, not fighting my father more to go after Claudio. If she’s suffered even a fraction of that pain because of me, I deserve whatever she has in store. If she needs to do this to ease her tortured mind, I’ll do whatever it takes to atone for my sins.

When I let her go, I grab my cane from its resting spot on the wall and turn to face her again.

“Love makes a man weak.”

My own words echo in my head. I fall to my knees and raise my cane in offering.

If kneeling for her is weakness, then I’ll gladly hand over all my strength to help her heal. The woman I love deserves nothing less.

Scene 29

DARKNESS IN FORGIVENESS

Talia

My heart races as Severino Luciano kneels in front of me. His movements so sudden, every thought and feeling in my body stalled out. My knife gleams on the cart in my periphery, but I won’t chance looking away from him. I confessed that he’s on my kill list. I brace for whatever is coming next.

His head bows as he raises the cane into the air…presenting it to me.

“Ever since I failed you, I’ve needed justice. Retribution. It haunts me in my waking hours and in my nightmares. I deserve my recompense, just like the rest of your list. Do what you think is best, Talia. My life is yours.”

“Sever, what is this?”

He jerks his weapon toward me, insisting I take it. “I’m the last on your list, Talia. I hurt you…unforgivably, irrevocably. I left you behind instead of going back in there. I should have fought harder for you, but I failed you. I’m ready for whatever punishment you need to give me to make this right.”

His voice is thick with emotion. When I told him he was the last name on my list, I don’t know how I expected him to react, but it wasn’t like this.

What are you doing? Get up. Don’t kneel for me. Don’t let me hurt you, too.

“Sever…”

But this is your chance…

The final voice is dark, twisted, tempting, and what ultimately leads me to take the cane from him.

I’ve wanted revenge againstthe boysince he left me to die at his uncle’s house. But now that I have the opportunity, unease churns my stomach.

“You’ll accept any punishment?” I ask. When he nods, I gulp. “Even if I…even if I kill you?”

In answer, he grabs the back of his Henley with one hand and tugs it over his head. His muscles flex and relax as he drops the shirt to the side, and his tulip tattoos along his ribs roll with every movement. My needy core clenches at the thought of my tongue sliding up the inked flower stems. If I could, I’d taste every muscle’s hill and valley from the Adonis belt peeking out of his jeans all the way up to his pec…

…just below the wound I tended only a few nights ago.

I saved him then, but now I’m willing to take his life?

When I saw Sev suffering in my hallway, the thought of not helping him had flitted through my mind. It’d disappeared almost as soon as I acknowledged it, and I didn’t question my decision until I saw him at the theater with his uncle.

He’s on the list, he’s been on it as long as the rest of them. It’s the only way to get the voices, the nightmares, the anger to stop.

But my thoughts are calm around him. There’s no song raging in my skull. And he’s the one that chased my nightmare away the other night, holding me through it.