Page 52 of Vicious Behaviors (The Next Vicious Generation #3)

Tears stream down my face, choking my breath, until the soft creak of footsteps in the hallway breaks through my melancholic state.

Everyone is still downstairs, lost in the party.

No one should be up here. My father always has a security detail downstairs to ensure no one ventures upstairs, especially when his children are sleeping up here.

I pull myself up from the floor, my legs moving on their own, and creep to my door. The familiar shadow of Ms. Rinaldi passes by, slipping into Stella and Anna’s room.

My throat tightens, and my heart jackhammers in my chest. Half of me wants to stay hidden in my room like the coward that I am, but the other half screams to make sure that neither of my sisters is in danger.

On feather-light feet, I push my door open and move toward theirs, finding their door cracked ajar.

Inside, I see Ms. Rinaldi cursing under her breath as she glowers at Stella, who lies asleep with her headphones clamped over her ears.

Anna’s in her bed opposite Stella’s, curled in her blanket with her own headphones on, both starkly oblivious to the looming presence in the room.

My mother must have put headphones on them to shield them from the party noise downstairs, but that only leaves Stella vulnerable to the mad woman in her room.

“Devil child… because if you, I’m as good as dead. But if the Capo dei Capi thinks he can kill me without me taking one of his own, he’s dead wrong,” the nanny mutters, eyes landing on a pillow that Stella must have pushed to the floor.

I feel my soul constrict with every move that she makes.

She’s going to kill my sister. She’s going to take Stella from me. And I’m going to watch it happen.

My hands push the door farther open, my body frozen, my heart hammering. And then I see it. One of Stella’s daggers on her dresser, Dom’s present for her eighth birthday last year.

“Let them mourn you before my family ever mourns me,” Ms. Rinaldi spits with a menacing look in her eyes.

As she walks closer to Stella’s bed, my fear rises tenfold. I feel it crippling me, freezing me in place. I want to move, but I can’t. I want to shout, but nothing comes out.

Hot tears begin to blind me as she takes another step closer to my sister—my best friend. She’s going to kill her. And I can’t move. I can’t move. Please, God, make me move. And just as my crippling fear becomes too much to bear, I hear a soothing voice whisper in my ear.

‘She’s going to kill Stella.’ I nod in reply, my entire body shaking manically. ‘I can help you. Let me help you.’

Tears burn my cheeks, watching the scene before me play in slow motion.

When I beg the voice to keep Stella safe, the world around me fades in an instant.

It all goes black. As if someone had pulled me out of this nightmare and taken over my body and mind, leaving me in the sweet darkness of an abyss.

For what feels like just a blink of an eye, I don’t feel fear anymore.

No suffering. No pain. I can breathe again. I feel safe.

When the light begins to trickle back, I force myself to open my eyes and confront an entirely different nightmare.

Only this one is of my making. Ms. Rinaldi lies at my feet, a lifeless heap, her face frozen in terror.

As my eyes take in every cut and slice all over her body, they finally drift to the dagger clutched in my blood-stained hand.

That’s when I realize that Ms. Rinaldi isn’t the only one covered in her blood—I’m drenched from head to toe in it.

Still, I don’t have time to fully process what I’ve done when the door bursts open and my father, Vincent, steps in, probably checking on the girls.

He looks at me, then to the dead nanny lying just a few inches away from me.

He doesn’t say anything as he quickly steps over the bloody corpse to check on my sisters, still asleep and safe in their beds.

Once he ensures they haven’t been harmed, he turns to focus on me.

“Marcello?” he asks, his voice taut and eyes wide as they take in the scene. “Why… why are you smiling, son?”

And that’s when I feel it, too—I am smiling, wide and unapologetic.

I’m smiling because I didn’t freeze this time.

I didn’t let fear take over me. The voice helped me.

It helped me to protect my beloved sister.

To make sure that no harm would fall on any of my siblings.

Just like I promised Jude I would. I kept my promise.

“I kept my promise,” I repeat on a strangled whisper, still kneeling at the altar long after spilling my sins, my fingers gripping the fabric of my pants to keep me anchored.

I force myself to continue, even as my chest aches, and my mind feels like a storm that won’t let up.

“Aside from my father’s bodyguard, Bruno, no one else knows what happened that night.

All I remember was sitting there on the floor watching them take a sleepy Stella and Anna to my parent’s bedroom before Bruno came back to clean the mess I left behind.

“I remember my father lifting me in his arms and walking me back to my room afterward. He then placed me in the shower and washed the blood off me, shoving my blood-soaked pajamas in a trash bag. Before he tucked me into bed, I remember promising him that I wouldn’t say a word of what happened to anyone.

To pretend it was all a bad dream. And for a while, I actually started to believe that maybe it had been.

A lucid nightmare caused by my earlier cowardice.

But then the devil spoke to me again. And again.

And again. Until all I heard was his voice instead of my own.

“That’s when I knew something viscerally changed in me that night.

That I’d never be rid of him. That he’d gotten a taste of blood and carnage and wouldn’t leave me alone until I gave more to him.

That’s when I realized I was no match for the devil.

He lives and breathes inside me. That will never change. ”

After telling Alejandro everything, he doesn’t speak immediately. He just sits beside me, letting the quiet fill the empty cathedral, the purposeful silence somehow calming my erratic mind.

“You were just a child, Marcello,” he says softly after a while. “A scared boy who was thrown into things too big, too cruel for his young age. For any age. That other… side of you… it’s not who you are. It’s a byproduct of your trauma. You’re still in control. You’re still you.”

I swallow hard, trying to force the storm to settle. “How can you be so sure?”

He meets my gaze, steady and calm. “Because in all these years you lived infused in such darkness, you’ve never hurt anyone you love.

Not once. And you never will. You’ve made bad choices, yes, but show me a man who hasn’t?

” he says comfortingly. “You alone are the master of your fate. Not the devil. Not that monster that whispers in your ear. All these years, he’s lied to you in making you believe that he was the one in control.

But he’s not. You’re not a puppet to it.

It serves you, not the other way around. ”

I let his words sink in, feeling them thread through the tension that has been coiled in my chest for years.

Unlike Father McDonagh, Alejandro doesn’t lecture me for confessing the very same sin.

He doesn’t scold me or condemn me. He simply offers hope when I thought there was none to be had.

And for the first time in a long time, I feel the slightest relief.

I rise to my feet, murmuring a quiet, “Thank you, Father.”

Alejandro follows my cue and stands up, placing his hands on my shoulders. “There is another lie that you’ve been telling yourself,” he says, with a sad expression on his face.

“And that is?”

“This darkness inside you has made you believe that you are all alone in the world. But I can guarantee you that you’re not.

You are loved, Marcello. Don’t hide your pain from those who seek to give you only happiness.

” His parting remark hits me harder than I expected, leaving me at a loss for words.

“Go home, Marcello. Rest. Sleep easy in the knowledge that you have people who care for you. Rest knowing that you can come here to His house and always be welcomed with open arms.”

Alejandro’s words follow me all the way home. Is he right? Am I the one in control? Do I even have a say in my own life without the devil susurrating in my ear?

However harrowing the retelling of that memory was for me, I must admit that Alejandro’s attentive and nonjudgmental ear did ease the knot in my chest. I’m just not so sure that everyone I love would take my truth as easily as Alejandro did.

As I turn the key to my house, I freeze in place, afraid of what I’ll find inside.

Two times has Izzie come close to meeting the monster in me.

Twice did I manage to stop myself from letting it loose on her.

What if I’m unable to stop him a third time?

Will there even be a third time, considering that half of me expects to find Izzie gone after the way I treated her earlier?

Not that I would blame her. However, it’s the other part of me that is still fixated on Alejandro’s words that dares to hope.

Don’t hide your pain from those who seek to give you only happiness.

If anyone has ever brought me any semblance of happiness, it’s Izzie.

I take a deep breath and step inside to find her lying on the mattress in the middle of my living room, her eyes lifted toward the ceiling as if counting the minutes for my return. The knot in my chest instantly loosens, a mix of relief and something lighter that I can’t quite name.

I strip off my clothes, my fingers trembling slightly as I lift the bedsheet and slide behind her. The warmth of her body melts into mine, and I wrap my arms around her waist as if only her heat could warm up my weary bones.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her hair, my lips brushing the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry for what I said and how badly I treated you before leaving earlier.”

“I know,” she whispers back.

“Thank you for staying. I was afraid you’d left.”

She leans into my embrace, sighing softly, the sound pulling at my heartstrings

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” she murmurs, her fingers tracing faint lines across my forearm.

I hide my face in the crook of her neck and inhale her scent. For the first time in what feels like forever, I can breathe. She’s here. I’m here. And that’s enough.

“Thank you,” I repeat.

“For what?” she asks, turning her head slightly, as to force me to look deep into her eyes.

“For not running away from this when I’ve given you so many reasons to leave me.”

She turns around in my embrace and presses her forehead to mine, breathing me in. “You’re not the only one who’s scared,” she confesses.

“Did I scare you?”

“Not knowing where you were and if you were safe scares me.”

“I know.” I nod, pulling her closer.

“Did you hurt anyone tonight?” she asks in a low whisper.

“Yes.”

“Did they deserve it?”

“Yes.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

Her muscles relax at the final statement, her arms wrapping around my neck.

“Was it him? ”

My head snaps back at the question, finding nothing but patience and tenderness in her eyes.

How does she always know?

How is she always so in tune with my misery?

“How do you—

I don’t have time to finish the question since Izzie’s lips are already on mine. I lose myself in that moment, all my anxiety and worry lifting off my shoulders with just one touch of her lips. When she breaks our kiss, her gaze is a molten golden hue.

“I’ve seen my share of darkness in my lifetime,” she explains, running the pad of her finger on my lower lip.

“I’ve seen more than a few good men be crippled by it.

Sometimes they feel so helpless that they let the darkness take over and taint every aspect of their lives.

Let it ruin all the good that surrounds them. ”

“I won’t let it ruin us. I’ll never let it hurt you,” I vow.

“I know that too.” She smiles sheepishly. “I just want to help you. Let me in, Marcello. Let me help you.”

Izzie places her head over my heart afterward, while I hug her tightly against me.

Let her in… Fuck, not only have I let her in, but my heart is hers for the taking.

Because in this moment, two things become very clear to me.

The first being that Izzie sees me in a way that I haven’t let myself be seen since I still had my innocence, and the second is that I love her.

I’m in love with her. I’m in love with the one person who should have always been off limits for me.

If this is a trap, a ploy just to confuse me enough to reveal all my secrets so one day she can lock me up for good, then my fate is in her hands. I’m too far gone to put up a fight any longer.