Page 48 of Forgive Me, Father (Don #1)
FORTY
THE WHITE RABBIT
Camilla had given up. She stopped fighting, and I could see it in her eyes. I knew what I had to do, but I couldn’t shake the fear of leaving her behind.
Nico reassured me that Bas would stay with her, keep her safe. He would come with me, and we’d settle this, once and for all.
Her family was still living in the house. I got to know who they were. Her brother, Milo, was on seventy-three kills. Something I never would’ve thought. I doubted that Cami even knew that. He was a very private person, you had to be if you felt this amount of pressure from your family.
He just wanted revenge. To murder whoever did that to her.
He discovered very quickly that killing Kai was my revenge, not his.
Every day with Camilla felt like a battle. A battle to get her to eat, to coax her into a bath, to help her sleep—just to get her to function, to focus. Nothing seemed to work. But then again, the things I really wanted to do, they all thought I was insane for even considering them.
One thing was certain: you either fight your demons or make peace with them to survive something like this.
I made peace with mine. There was no defeating them. She was doing absolutely nothing to process hers.
I couldn’t sit here, doing nothing, feeling nothing, being nothing. I had to save her; she was the only thing that mattered to me. I couldn’t let her slip away into the darkness of her own mind.
When Camilla confirmed that Kai Castello was behind all of this, my father finally gave me the green light.
He refused to believe that Frederick was involved, until I told him that Frederick was the one who raised both of them—him and that psychopath of a daughter. It was like a switch flipped in my father’s mind, and I could see the truth sink in, the resolve hardening in his expression.
I didn’t have to beg to start with the old man, but I hadn’t gotten a chance yet.
“Get Milo and Ricci. Tell them to go and pick up Frederick. Shoot everyone in your way.”
Nico nodded and disappeared. I’m going to sort this out once and for all.
* * *
It took 48 hours to extract Kai's location from Frederick. He was lying low at a mansion in the countryside, using it as a safe house.
The fucker was into human trafficking. How many times did he tell my father that he knew nothing?
“You motherfucker. You are the worst piece of shit out there.”
He laughed as blood poured from his lips. Half his teeth were pulled out and broken. I already removed all his nails and toenails.
“You sell weapons, I sell humans.”
My fist connected hard with his face. His son was a sick fuck because of him.
I was a sick fuck because of my grandfather.
He lost consciousness as I kept hitting him. Nico and Milo pulled me off. “Easy, Alfonso, just easy.”
My brother pulled the trigger, and I roared. “It wasn’t fucking time.”
“You got what you needed from him. Stop fucking toying and let’s go get Kai.”
My nostrils flared as I locked eyes with Roberto. I wasn't ready yet.
Frederick’s foot slid underneath him and my brother shot into the old man five more times.
He looked unrecognizable.
“Let’s go get Kai.”
Roberto’s hand slammed into my chest. I paused.
“First, you need a shower and some sleep.”
I agreed.
“I’ll have men stake out the place and keep taps on him,” Nico spoke fast.
“They don’t interfere. Kai is mine, Nico. Make sure they understand it,” I ordered.
“Got it, boss,” Nico said and left with Milo.
Roberto told Ash and Lenny to get rid of Frederick’s body. Then he took me to the hotel.
We’d been on a killing spree, trying to find this fucking bastard. Wiping out the Castello’s name, one person at a time.
Milo’s seventy-three kills were now standing on eighty-one and he would get his tattoo soon at this rate.
Frederick was Ricci’s hundred. I wasn’t the only Ponticello with that one anymore.
I managed an hour of sleep before the nightmare dragged me back under—the same one every time. I saw my bride, suspended from a hook on the iron beam above her head.
My beautiful angel, beaten, bleeding, and broken. It is a vision I know I will never be able to get out of my mind.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and the moment my feet touched the carpet, I was in motion—strapping on my weapons, one by one, settling each into its place. Ready for the war that waited ahead.
A knock at my door drew my attention and I breathed deeply. “Enter.”
Milo stepped in, a deep frown etched across his face, but he stayed silent.
“What is it, Milo?” I snapped.
I didn’t have the patience for hesitation. If he had something to say, he needed to spit it out—now.
“I think I know how to fix my sister.”
“How?” My voice was hoarse on the single word.
“You’re not going to like this, but you can’t kill Kai.”
“Excuse me?” My eyebrows shot up into my hairline.
“You can’t kill Kai,” he repeated, staring straight into my eyes. “Camilla needs to take her power back, and the only way for her to do that is if she is the one who kills him.”
* * *
I was covered in blood, brain matter, and other bodily fluids that I preferred not to think about.
The men kept coming out of the rafters, attacking us and barring our way to Kai.
Anger and fear mingled as I wondered whether we would reach him before the rat could scurry away to a new hiding place once more.
Milo and Nico were beside me, guns blazing as bullets zipped past us. Ahead, I spotted Kai on the docks, running with his arm shielding his head, heading straight for the lone yacht moored at the end. I knew that if he made it on board, he’d slip through my fingers again.
As he started to climb the ladder, time seemed to slow, my entire focus narrowing onto him. What truly shocked me, though, was the figure standing over him—the one person I never thought I'd see.
My father stood with a 9mm Beretta pointed straight at Kai and my heart stopped. I didn’t hear any other shots fired around me, and I barely felt it as a bullet hit me and ripped through my shoulder.
The look on my father’s face was unmistakable. He was in a white-hot rage, seeking vengeance not only for my sister but for myself and my bride as well.
Nico said something beside me, but his words didn’t register. I took off at a sprint, needing to get to my father before he put the dog down.
“I should cut you into little pieces and feed you to my fucking dogs,” my father raged. “But I’m afraid they would die from your madness.”
“Your son drove me to this madness!”
My father trembled with barely contained rage, the weapon in his hand shaking. Gently, I placed my hand over his and guided it down, slowly lowering the gun, afraid he would accidentally kill Kai. My father looked at me, confused. I got it—usually, I was the first to call for blood.
But not this time.
“We need him alive,” I said evenly as Milo and Nico grabbed hold of Kai. “Camilla and Fiona deserve this—they need to reclaim their power if they’re ever going to heal and move forward.”
My father's expression shifted the moment he finally understood what I was really trying to do. Yes, Kai needed to die for what he did, for the way he tried to tear our family apart from the inside out—he would pay.
But not by the hands of a Don.
No, Kai would die at the hands of a wife and daughter.
And then, then, I would raze the Castellos to the ground. I would wipe them from the history of our organization and the memory of each and every living soul. When this was over, the world would remember one thing—no one fucks with the Pontisellos.
And no one touches our women.