Page 20

The Beginning of the End.

D isillusion crowds her face as she presses the heels I gifted her into my chest, and the molten lava inside me bubbles. I don’t hold onto them, so when she lets go, they hit the marble floor. Before she can storm off, I grasp her elbow, reminding me of the very first time she saw me again after those years apart.

“Don’t fucking walk out on me,” I warn her, and she blinks slowly, ripping her arm out of my hold.

“Don’t ever touch me again.” She gets in my face, her perfume like a warm, comforting hug. “You will never touch me again.” A tear rolls down her cheek and a lump forms in my throat at the reality of our situation.

She pads slowly to the open door, and I forget where I am. It takes two steps for me to get to her and when I do, she’s pressed against the glass doors.

“I said don’t touch me,” she says through gritted teeth, but I don’t listen because I need to touch her, to be around her, smothered by her.

“Whatever he’s been filling your head with is a lie.”

“Don’t fucking insult me,” she spits.

“Nera!” My hand curls around her delicate neck, the urge to squeeze, strong. “Don’t make me take your breath away again. This time, it won’t be so pleasurable.”

She laughs loudly. “This is more like it.”

Confused, I release her.

“Look at us, fighting like brother and sister.”

“Shut up, Nera.”

“Why? Are you scared of the truth?” She pushes me hard, and I falter. “Does it haunt you at night, knowing that your cock has been inside me, that you know what I taste like?”

She pushes further, trying to get under my skin.

“Do you look at yourself in the mirror and feel proud of the big brother that you are?”

There’s a silence that lingers in the air, and I let her words sink in before eating up the distance between us.

“This is not over, and it will never be. Not while I’m still fucking breathing.”

Dante releases his bow tie and unbuttons the first few buttons on his dress shirt. The dim light from the sunrise begins to shine through the office window as he leans back in his chair, clearly exhausted from the night.

“The Casellas are leaving this morning.” He picks up his phone to text someone, then locks it, placing it on the desk again as I flick the lighter in my hand and scoff.

“Well, they got their revenge, why would they want to stay any longer?”

He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he stares into the distance and opens his mouth, almost like he’s about to tell me something, when Nera walks in with fury.

“Tell me,” she demands, still dressed in the outfit she wore last night. “I deserve to know everything! ” she yells.

Dante looks to me, and I wait for his answer.

“It’s dawn, Nera. We will talk about this later when we are level-headed,” Dante tries to explain, but she pushes.

Taking the medium-sized Jesus statue in the corner of the room with both hands, she hurls it at him. The statue hits the oak desk and shatters into a million pieces. “I want to hear you say whatever you have to say to me right fucking now, otherwise I leave. I don’t care if I have to swim off this island, I will.”

“Fuck,” Dante murmurs to himself, pressing his fists to his forehead.

Her eyes find mine and I stand.

“Raf, can you give us a second?”

I brush past her, intentionally grazing the back of my hand against hers. Reluctantly, I exit and wait by the door. Everything in this house is old, making the doors heavier than the ones manufactured these days, and the walls are thick, built from bricks. Sound doesn’t travel through this house much, and it’s always creeped me out a little.

The silence.

The heavy silence, continuously there as a reminder of the sinister things we do. The purity long gone, leaving only the imminent darkness that awaits us. Being in bed with Frances might be a great substitute for not going without, but for our souls, it’s damning.

Voices are raised from within the room as I flick the lighter open and closed, absently running my thumb over the letter. It’s been years since I’ve thought about him, of all the things he’s done for me and everything I’ve done for them. I don’t regret it. Any of it. Dante helped me become what I am today. The ruthless, rogue killer. Unafraid.

But it wasn’t until she came back here that everything changed. She’s made me take another look at myself. A long hard look into how much I’ve changed from the boy who stole that egg, to the man who’s willing to burn down an entire empire to be with her.

If she asked me to, I’d kill anyone. I’d do anything she wanted.

My ears perk up when a loud crash comes from the room. I go to open the door, but Nera’s already storming out with tears in her eyes.

“Nera!” I call out after her and grab her hand. Fuck the rest of them. I don’t care if they see. “What happened?”

She looks at me, streams of tears on her cheeks as she shakes her head, her brows crossed. “How could you?”

“What?” I turn my head to see Dante with his head buried in his hands. “How could I what!?”

“This whole time. This entire time, you knew what was happening and you still didn’t tell me. Do you derive some sick pleasure from it? Huh?”

She tears her hand out of mine and lands a blow on my cheek, the sting making me grit my teeth in anger and frustration.

“How can I fucking know what you’re talking about if you don’t tell me!?”

“Look at you! Still acting like you have no idea what’s going on! I am so fucking done with you. With all of you!”

She storms past the main entry and out the door, taking my heart with her, and I have two choices I can make right now. Follow her and get to the bottom of what’s making her feel this way and risk Dante questioning my intense actions toward her, or try to probe the answers out of Dante.

Either one, I fear, won’t get me what I want.