Page 8 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

"No! No... no..." She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, holding tight.

"We're safe. My aunt is... complicated. She lives between two worlds—white and black.

Sometimes she disappears into one, then goes to the other.

I think she went to New York to help me, to find you, and help bring you back to me.

She didn't poison anyone. It's not true. "

For the first time since he'd known her, Carmelo sensed Kathy was lying to him. The realization hit like a physical blow. Not because she wasn't entitled to secrets—God knew he had plenty of his own—but because this particular secret felt like serious, life-threatening trouble.

"Can we please not focus on that right now?" Kathy's voice broke slightly. "Let's focus on us. On being together."

He kissed her cheek tenderly and pulled out a chair for her.

Instead of letting her serve him, he insisted on doing the honors, walking around the elegant table and carefully selecting delicacies he thought she'd enjoy, piling them onto fine china plates.

Kathy giggled despite her worry and asked if he'd ever had pralines before, mentioning that her mama could make them too.

So he added plenty to his own plate as well.

For the first ten minutes, they could barely speak, both famished from their respective journeys. They ate as if they were starving, savoring rich flavors and tender textures. It took several deep swallows before Carmelo finally came up for air.

"I can't tell you how incredible this is," he grinned, some of the earlier tension melting away.

Kathy giggled, her natural joy surfacing. "I know! Aunt Janey always did everything in grand style."

Carmelo's expression grew serious. "I really have missed you, Kat. Letters aren't enough anymore."

"Me too," she said sadly, reaching across the table. "Tell me what really happened. You barely write about it, and I don't trust Debbie's version. She always blames you and praises Matteo,” she said with an eye roll. “Did you actually shoot your father?"

Carmelo froze at the question, then slowly lowered his gaze to his plate.

“Melo? Please tell me?" she pleaded, offering her hand for support across the polished table.

He managed a weak smile but refused to take her hand. He wasn't that same boy anymore. Eight months had changed him in ways that showed in the new hardness around his eyes, the careful way he held himself.

"Yes. I shot him," he finally admitted—an answer he'd refused to give in all their previous conversations.

"Why?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"For Madre. For you. For my brothers. For me. In that exact order." His jaw tightened with remembered pain. "He just kept destroying everything and everyone I loved. But he didn't die. He won’t die, unfortunately. Not unless he takes me with him,” Carmelo mumbled. “He doesn’t deserve to live.”

"What happened after he survived?" she pressed gently.

"When he came back home…” Carmelo paused, struggling with the words. "He saved my life."

Kathy frowned in confusion.

"How could he save your life after you shot him?"

" La Cosa Nostra doesn't forgive patricide," Carmelo explained quietly.

"Killing my father couldn't be overlooked, but wounding him and being forgiven by him.

.. that gave me my stripes. Gained me respect among killers.

And kept his men and his enemies from making an example out of me.

A life for a life, as they say. Matteo was in a bad way, vulnerable.

My father was at his weakest point. So I made a deal with the devil—we both agreed on a truce.

Mama Stewart helped make the terms for my father, which he hated but agreed to.

Boxing, Matteo, was given a rank when he was ready.

Money of our own, and territory. Now we. .. wait."

"Wait for what?" Kathy asked, though she feared the answer.

"For our chance to be kings," he said. “It may not be our gun that ends the life of the devil, but the devil in this thing that we do, doesn’t live long.”

“Assassination?” she asked in horror.

“The fate of all the powerful men that have come before my father,” Carmelo said bitterly. “If you are Don, your ending is already written.”

“Just promise me. You can't go up against your father again. Promise me you won't ever try to replace him or be him,” she pleaded, gripping his hand tightly.

"I'll make you that promise," he said slowly, "but first, tell me the truth about Janey. Did she kill DeMarco? Did she kill King Redmond? I've confessed my darkest secret to you. Now tell me yours."

Kathy sat back in her chair, shaking her head as if she couldn't—or wouldn't—answer.

“Don’t you trust me, Kat?” he asked.

“I do but—” she began.

“No secrets. Remember? Not for us,” he said.

She nodded. Her gaze lowered then, in a voice so quiet he had to lean forward to hear: "She didn't kill King Redmond, Carmelo. I did."

Carmelo blinked, certain he'd misheard. But Kathy's tortured expression told him everything.

In halting, painful words, she confessed the entire story.

The threats against her father and mother.

King Redmond's attempt to assault her mother escalated to the point that he wanted to take down her father next. The family secret of revenge was passed down through generations of Elliot Wynn’s daughters.

Each of the girls was renamed the Elliott women, daughters born from their parents’ violent war of dominance and submission, taught to fight back with sweets and trickery.

“Daughters?” he repeated.

“Far as I know, only girls. Maybe a boy here or there, but mostly all girls were born to the sisters.”

“I’m a daughter of one of the eight sisters," she mumbled, “My Gran was a woman barely out of slavery who became a forced mistress. Every daughter was from rape.”

“I’m sorry, Kathy,” he said.

She shrugged. “Her only act of rebellion, she taught each girl the art of herbs, those that can heal and those that can kill—how to use them to make someone fall in love, cure sickness, or to make them disappear forever. The knowledge was passed down to my mother, to Aunt Janey, and then to me."

She told him about the special recipe, mixed with cherries, the poison made King Redmond's death look like some strange blood disease. How she'd baked it into a cupcake with her own hands, delivered it with a smile, and watched justice be served when Redmond took the first bite.

“A killer cupcake took down King Redmond?” he frowned.

"I've tried to repent, to ask for forgiveness," she whispered, tears streaming down her beautiful face. "But I know in my heart I don't mean it. I'll never be able to escape what I've done. Not truly."

Where she saw shame and sin, Carmelo saw nothing but courage and fierce devotion. These women didn't cower—they fought back against monsters who thought they were untouchable. How could he ever blame her for that?

Carmelo pushed up from his chair and went to her, pulling Kathy from her seat and into his arms. She went to him, letting his strength support her.

"I guess we're not the innocent people we pretended to be," she said softly against his chest.

"We never were innocent, Kat," he murmured into her hair. "Maybe that's why we understand each other so completely."

"I can't escape what I am, what I've done," she whispered.

"Maybe someday you'll forgive yourself," he said gently, "because you're the only person in this world who's blaming you."

She looked up at him with eyes full of love and gratitude, seeing acceptance instead of judgment, protection instead of condemnation.

"Want to go upstairs?" she asked with a soft smile that held promises and healing.

His answering grin was filled with eight months of longing. "Yes."

Kathy took his hand and led him out of the parlor toward their shared future, two damaged souls who'd found perfect understanding in each other's arms. They'd both did what they could to protect the people they loved, and somehow that terrible bond made their love even stronger, more precious, and absolutely unbreakable.