Page 125 of Vicious Behaviors

This beautiful man—whose touch and loving heart have awakened something in me I’ll never fully be able to thank him for—is so lost in his dark abyss that he doesn’t even see the light he casts on everyone who loves him.

“I’m tired now,” he mumbles, disengaging from his brother’s arms to fall into mine. He nestles his head in my chest, holding onto me, as if afraid I might vanish.

“Do you mind if we stay the night?” Jude asks softly, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Of course not. There are plenty of rooms upstairs.”

“Thank you,” he says, his focus still on Marcello’s lying form.

“Come, husband. Izzie will look after him. She won’t leave him. Will you, Izzie?”

“Never,” I promise.

“I thought as much. If you need us for anything, we’ll be here.”

“Always,” Jude adds to his wife’s remark.

Mina tugs a reluctant Jude away upstairs, while I cradle Marcello in my arms.

“It will all be okay, Marcello. I promise,” I repeat until he falls asleep, praying I’m not lying to him.

Chapter 27

Marcello

The man in the white straitjacket is oblivious to our presence, almost as if we didn’t even exist. His lips move in frantic murmurs, conversing with the ghosts in his head. I don’t know whether to pity him or fear him.

“This…“I whisper, my throat dry. “This is where you bring people you don’t kill?”

Vincent turns ever so slowly, his expression completely unreadable, carved from the same granite he built his empire with.

“No,” he utters cruelly. “This is where I bring the ones who don’t deserve to die.”

I swallow hard as the voice in my head curls in on itself, silent and still for the first time in my life.

Vincent doesn’t elaborate further, preferring to keep to this nightmarish stroll. We pass by more doors, glancing at the lost souls trapped behind each one, as if we were window shopping for the right one to end its misery once and for all. Every room has its own flavor of madness, voices sobbing, screaming,laughing in a high, unhinged way that claws at the base of my spine.

I realize then that this is a warning in the shape of a field trip.

“Why are you showing me this?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “Why are we here, Father?”

However, Vincent doesn’t answer me. Instead, he keeps to his pace until we both reach the end of the hall, stopping two steps away from a white door with chipped paint and yellowing at the edges. My father takes out a key from his pocket and unlocks it, swinging the door open for me to look inside.

It’s another padded room, which is sterile and empty except for a single chair bolted to the floor. No restraints. No window. Just the chair and the walls closing in. If it weren’t so blindingly white, I would have mistaken it for the room in the club’s basement.

“Come,” Vincent orders, stepping inside and gesturing for me to follow. “Get in the room, Marcello,” he repeats when I hesitate.

I take a deep breath and step inside, the door clicking shut behind me in an instant. The lock turns with such violence that I have to clap my hands over my ears, certain the loud sound alone could shatter an eardrum.

Still, Vincent doesn’t seem to be affected by it. He just stands in the middle of the room, with his back to me, a figure carved in stone, impervious to pain. Only when he turns around to face me do I see the man he truly is. Not the tailored suits. Not the patriarch. Not the calculating strategist. No. This is the monster I was born from. Bone-deep and unapologetic.

“You think you can keep secrets from me?” he says, his voice smooth like Italian silk. “You think you can lie to me? Make a fool of me?”

I stiffen, my heart jackhammering as he shoves me into the chair. He tilts his head, examining me with eyes stripped of warmth, cold and bitter, before beginning his slow orbit around me.

“You think I wouldn’t find out about Izzie? Or better yet, Special Agent Isobel Graham?” he hollers, still circling. “I taught you better than this, Marcello. You don’t let the enemy into our home, much less near your heart. You don’t let anyone near it.”

“I didn—”