Page 47 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

WHAT DEATH OF LOVE LOOKS LIKE

" T hank you for everything." Kathy accepted the bus ticket from Carmine's weathered hand. He gave her a nod that held more weariness than respect.

"You should be fine. Matteo will stall until your bus is well on the road before he gives Carmelo your letter."

She tucked the ticket into her purse, avoiding his eyes.

"I suppose I owe you an explanation." His voice carried the weight of confessions he'd rather not make. "About Willa. Why is she with us, carrying my child?”

"I don't think I want to know." Kathy's voice was hollow. "These past two years have shown me enough darkness, enough deception. I don't expect truth from anyone anymore."

Carmine sighed, leaning heavier on his cane.

"Janey didn't take Pinkie leaving well after Elmer died two months later. She started coming apart. Then Willa's tragedy. The girl had done the impossible and turned a Thibodeaux against a Thibodeaux. The two of them had moved into their own place and gotten married. She was pregnant, and JB was different. Then she lost the baby. That’s when all things in their love started to crumble. He left her to go back home like a coward, and she was out there in the wind, surviving on scraps. While he came in and out of her life and she believed that she could win him back.” He paused, choosing his words like a man navigating broken glass.

"I thought Janey was trying to help the girl.

Should've seen the poison coming. Should've stopped it before the Thibodeauxs tasted her sweet candies.

But I'm old, Kathy. Tired. Can't catch Janey every time she falls anymore. "

Despite herself, Kathy listened.

"Willa was broken after JB died. That's her story to tell, not mine. All I can say is—I came home one night, found them in the parlor together. Janey invited me to dinner, sat me down like it was any other evening. Turns out JB was trying to get into the family to access the money to run with Willa. And Willa was once again pregnant. That’s when they told me what they'd decided.

" His laugh was bitter. "Janey believes a child will save her, keep her from losing what's left of her mind. And Willa... she can’t let the Thibodeauxs know she is carrying JB’s child. Janey decided that Willa join the family, and we let everyone know it was my baby. Just needed my compliance for the lie.”

"And you agreed?" The judgment in her voice surprised them both.

"My time's running out." He straightened slightly, dignified even in his confession.

"I'm taking them to Vegas. Away from the Thibodeauxs' vengeance, to protect the child, and away from the Marcellos' grasp.

Away from all this blood and lies. Then I'll close my eyes for good, and maybe—maybe—this baby is my son or daughter, and my heir.

That agreement means this child can heal what I couldn't in my Janey,” He touched his hat brim.

"So yes, I agreed. And this is goodbye."

Before he could turn away, Kathy stepped forward and embraced him. His body went rigid with surprise before he carefully returned the gesture, his arms uncertain around her.

"I don't understand Aunt Janey or Willa,” she whispered against his shoulder. "May never understand them. But thank you for saving their lives all these times. For protecting them both."

She stepped back, composing herself. "Goodbye, Mr. Bonanno."

His smile was ghost-thin. "Safe travels, Kathy. Find yourself some peace."

She gathered her bag and climbed aboard the bus, choosing a window seat near the back. Through the smudged glass, she watched Carmine make his slow way to his car, each step measured against his cane. A man returning to his beautiful hell. Another man living a lie.

Kathy closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the seat. The engine rumbled to life beneath her, carrying her away from Memphis, from Carmelo, from all of them. She tried to empty her mind, to forget their faces, their lies, their twisted love.

But some poisons, she was learning, had no antidote.

Two hours. Two fucking hours of handshakes and flashbulbs while she waited.

He'd posed with every politician and wise guy who'd traveled in for the fight, his split lip screaming with each forced smile.

Signed contracts with hands still swollen from the gloves and endured some newspaper hack who kept circling back to his mother's suicide until Matteo finally snapped and threw the bastard out by his collar.

Through it all, Carmelo's eyes stayed locked on the door. Kathy couldn't enter the white press rooms—Memphis rules—but he kept expecting her face to appear somehow, that smile that said she was proud of him.

When the last photographer finally packed up, Carmelo was already moving.

He shoved past the lingering reporters and ignored the promoter calling his name.

His ribs screamed with each step, but he didn't care.

She was waiting. In twenty minutes, they'd be on the road.

By dawn, they'd be halfway to nowhere, just him and Kathy and the future they'd always dreamed of.

"Melo, wait up!" Matteo's voice was behind him.

"Can't. Kathy's waiting." He walked faster, his body singing with adrenaline despite the beating he'd taken.

He burst through the dressing room door, already grinning, already reaching for her?—

Empty.

The room yawned back at him, silent except for the drip of a leaky pipe. The champagne Carmine had sent sat unopened in its bucket, ice long melted.

"Where is she?" He spun as Matteo appeared in the doorway, breathing hard. "She go back to the hotel? She said she'd wait here. Said she'd?—"

"Here." Matteo held out an envelope, his face carved from stone. "She left you this."

Carmelo stared at the letter like it might bite him. "What the fuck is that?"

"Read it." Matteo turned and walked out, closing the door with terrible finality.

Alone now, Carmelo opened the envelope—her handwriting, careful and precise. The paper smelled faintly of her perfume.

His legs gave out before he'd finished the first paragraph.

Carmelo,

By the time Matteo gives you this, I'll be gone. And I’m sure in this moment you know why.

I know about Maria. I know about your beautiful children. Twins? How nice. I know about the house in Queens where you play family while I rotted in Mississippi, counting days. I know it all.

You kissed me when I was seventeen years old in my family's bakery, and I thought God himself had touched me. You wrote me letters that I memorized like scripture. You married me in Debbie's place with your brother as witness, and I believed—God help me, I believed—that meant something sacred.

Do you remember what you promised me that night?

That we'd have our own bakery, our own babies, our own life.

That my father would never have to bow to another man again.

That your mother would love me like her own daughter.

All lies, weren't they? Or maybe you believed them, too.

Maybe that's your gift—believing your own fairytales long enough to make others dream them with you.

I lost everything the day they put me on that bus alone to Butts, crying for a man who would someday build a family with someone else.

Now I’m on a bus right now as you read this letter, and I realize I lost it all for nothing.

I gave up my home, my parents, my future.

Three years, Carmelo. Three years of my life spent loving a lie.

I don't hate you. Hate would mean you still matter. I pity you—to be so empty inside that you need multiple lives, multiple women, multiple lies to feel whole. To be so careless with hearts that you don't even remember breaking them.

You were the wolf, and I was the fool who thought I could name and tame you. But wolves don't change, do they? They just learn new ways to hunt.

Don't write. Don't call. Don't send Matteo or Debbie with your apologies. Let me go, Carmelo. It's the only kindness you have left to give me.

I'm going to live the rest of my life as if you never existed. I'm going to forget the taste of pecan pie and your promises. I'm going to pretend that the seventeen-year-old girl never met a beautiful boy who taught her that love could kill you slowly.

Maybe someday you'll understand what you've done.

Maybe when your daughter is seventeen and some boy looks at her the way you looked at me in your backyard, you'll finally feel the terror my father felt when he found what we left in that attic.

Maybe then you'll know why he tried so hard to save me from you.

Maybe not. Wolves don't learn regret.

The girl you loved is dead. You killed her yourself, one lie at a time.

K.

Carmelo's knees hit the concrete floor with a crack that echoed in the empty room. The letter trembled in his hands as he read it again. Then again. Each word cutting deeper, her handwriting blurring through what couldn't be tears or was he losing his sight?

The girl you loved is dead. You killed her yourself, one lie at a time.

The silence stretched until Matteo couldn't stand it anymore. He stepped back inside, found his brother kneeling like a penitent, the letter crumpled in his fist.

When Carmelo looked up, his face was that of a drowning man who still believed in rescue. "She's confused." His voice cracked like a boy's. "She thinks I lied to her. Thinks I don't love her. How could she think that?"

"Melo, Janey told her everything."

"No." He shook his head violently, struggling to his feet.

"That's not what the letter says. It says our love is a lie.

She's just confused—you know how Kathy gets.

Too much happening, she can't process it all.

" He stood, though his knees were bruised.

He started pacing, the words tumbling faster.

"I need to explain. When I tell her about Mama, about the suicide note, about why I had to—she'll understand. She always understands."

He moved toward his clothes, hands already reaching. "Let me get dressed. Where'd she go? The Douglass?"

"Melo—"

"It's fine, Matteo. I'm fine." His movements were frantic now, yanking on his shirt. "I know my Kathy. In twenty minutes, I'll have this sorted. Then we leave. California, maybe, or?—"

"She's gone, Melo."

The words stopped him cold. He turned slowly, and Matteo saw the exact moment his brother’s mental began to fracture.

"What did you say?"

Matteo's throat felt drier than a desert. "She's known for two days. Since the night Carmine confronted you. We talked to her. Asked her to pretend, to support you so you could?—"

"So I could what?" Carmelo's voice had gone terrifyingly quiet.

"Get in the ring. Win the fight."

For a heartbeat, nothing. Then Carmelo moved with the speed that had made him champion, launching himself at his brother with inhuman fury. His fist connected with Matteo's jaw, snapping his head back. Then another. Another.

"You knew!" Each word punctuated by bone meeting flesh. "You fucking knew!"

Matteo tried to defend himself, but grief had made Carmelo into something beyond human. He straddled his brother, fists pounding with mechanical precision, blood spattering the walls, the floor, his championship robe.

"She smiled at me!" Carmelo screamed, his voice raw. "She kissed me! And you knew it was fake!"

Matteo's nose exploded. His eye socket nearly cracked. Still the blows came.

"My brother! My blood!"

The door burst open. Men rushed in first, wrapping arms around Carmelo's chest. Two more men piled on, but grief had given him the strength of madness. He threw one against the wall, kept swinging at the others.

"Get off me! I'll kill him! I'll kill all of you motherfuckers!”

Someone brought a blackjack down hard against the back of Carmelo's skull. He swayed, still fighting, blood and spit flying from his mouth. It took two more blows before he finally dropped.

In the sudden silence, a flashbulb popped. Then another. The press had heard the commotion and pushed their way in. Tomorrow's headlines were already writing themselves: RICCI brOTHERS IN BLOODY brAWL. CHAMPION ATTACKS CORNER MAN. THE WOLF SNAPS.

Matteo lay unconscious, his face unrecognizable. Carmelo sprawled beside him, blood pooling beneath both brothers. The letter lay forgotten in the corner, spotted with red.

Don Marcello’s man looked at the photographers, then at the disaster on the floor. "Get them out," he ordered his men. "And find a doctor who keeps his mouth shut."

But the damage was done. In every way that mattered, both Ricci brothers had died in that dressing room. What would wake up in their place would be something else entirely.

The Wolf had finally swallowed their future whole.