by Reilly, Cora
I looked away. I wouldn’t tell him about Nevio and Greta and certainly not about my twisted feelings for his brother either.
Adamo leaned forward, wincing, and brought our faces closer together, a risk because we were undoubtedly being watched, and my family was still eager to spill Falcone blood. His or Remo’s, it didn’t matter, as long as it was a Falcone. I met Adamo’s gaze, and realization settled on his face.
“Fuck,” he whispered hoarsely. He leaned even closer, despite the rope binding his unharmed arm to the chair. “You’re giving me the same look Remo has whenever someone mentions you.”
My chest constricted. “I need to go now.” I stood and took a step back. Adamo Falcone. Falcone, the name my children were supposed to carry.
“Goodbye,” I whispered, but deep down I wondered if this was really the last time I would see him.
I turned quickly and left the room. Samuel waited right in front of the door. He regarded me, incomprehension in his features. “Why do you take care of a fucking Falcone bastard?”
“He never hurt me. He’s a boy.”
Samuel shook his head. “He is a Made Man, Fina. You should let us handle him and Remo. We are capable of doing what needs to be done.”
We walked into the main hall where Dad, Danilo, and Dante were talking in hushed tones. They turned to us the moment we entered.
I faced Samuel. “And what is that?”
“Bring Remo to his knees. Make him beg for mercy. Beg for death. I will cut his dick off myself. Danilo will take care of his balls, and then we will keep them in a nice bag with ice so he can see them while we tear him apart. Then we’ll shove them down his throat.”
Danilo smiled grimly, and even Dad looked like he could imagine nothing better than committing the most brutal murder he could think of.
I swallowed. “He is the father of my children.”
Samuel grabbed my shoulders hard, desperately. “He broke you, Fina,” he said softly. None of them had ever asked if I considered myself broken. They had declared me as such, and all four of them made me feel like I was.
“He is a monster,” Samuel added.
“He is not the only one,” I whispered, my eyes wandering over the gathered men.
Samuel dropped his hands, face twisting as if I’d stabbed him. “I’m doing this for you. To avenge you.”
“Did any of you ever ask what I wanted? If I wanted more blood spilled? If I wanted to be avenged?” I shouted.
Dante came forward, expression tight. “Don’t you want to see Remo Falcone on his knees? Don’t you want to see him broken?”
I did, but not in the same way they wanted. “I want nothing more,” I said quietly, because they could never, would never understand.
Samuel wrapped an arm around me and kissed my temple. “Fina, let’s go home.”
“Yes, let’s go home,” I said quietly. I peered up at Samuel, realizing that for the first time in my life, we didn’t mean the same place.
REMO
Nino, Savio, and I linked arms, pressing over the tattoo of the other. “You will be a better Capo than me, Nino. You won’t kill people who might be useful to us. Your logic will make the Camorra even stronger.”
Nino didn’t say anything, only stared at me.
Savio shook his head. “Remo, let’s attack them. I’d rather die fighting than have you in their fucking hands.”
I smiled darkly. “You will have to die another day. I will pay for my sins.”
Nino made a low sound. “She didn’t return, Remo. She stayed in Minneapolis. They won’t let you anywhere near her. You will die for nothing.”
“No, I will die so she gets what she wants.”
Nino pulled away. “Damn it. Be reasonable for once.”
“I made my decision and you will accept it.”
Cars pulled up, and I moved away from my brothers who took shelter inside the car. Nino and Savio raised their guns through the open windows. I wasn’t armed as I walked toward the parked cars, my arms raised over my head. I didn’t think Dante would attack Nino or Savio. Once he’d dismembered me in the cruelest way possible, he’d send my brothers the recording and probably to Luca as well. He’d try to break my family like I had broken his, killing us all just wouldn’t do. Not yet.
Dante got out, followed by Samuel, Pietro, and Danilo, and more men I didn’t know and didn’t give a fuck about. Samuel walked around to the back of the car and pulled Adamo out.
Adamo could hardly stand as Samuel dragged him behind himself toward me. Rage boiled under my skin. Samuel shoved Adamo to the ground in front of my feet, and Adamo looked up at me with his blood covered face, cradling his broken and burned arm against his chest.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t do this. Don’t let them kill you because of me. I’m a fucking failure.”
I moved toward him and touched his head briefly. “You are the one from all of us who deserves death the least, Adamo.” I removed my hand from his head, but before I could move on, he grasped my forearm, his fingers curling over my Camorra tattoo. “It’s us against the world,” he croaked.
“Us against the world,” I said.
Samuel gripped my arm, and I shoved down the instinct to smash his face. I saw his fist coming toward my face and smiled. The first punch only blurred my vision. His kick to my balls brought me to my knees. And his gun to the back of my head finally pulled me into blackness.
SERAFINA
Samuel and Danilo dragged Remo into the safe house, his arms and legs bound, his nose busted and dripping blood, his hair sticking to the back of his head with more blood. I slowly rose from the sofa where I had been waiting for almost one hour with two bodyguards.
Dad moved toward me, trying to shield Remo from my view—or me from his. I wasn’t sure and didn’t care. “Dove, you shouldn’t be here.” His eyes narrowed on my bodyguards, harshly, cruelly. I touched his arm.
“I will stay,” I said firmly, my voice resolute.
Dante was the last to enter.
The men exchanged a look. Their word was law, not mine, but their guilt gave me power over them, more power than they’d ever held over me. I hated using it against them, but they would never allow me to possess power for any other reason.
I walked past my father, toward Danilo and Samuel holding Remo between them. His head hung down, body was slack. I tried to hide the tremor that had taken hold of me the moment I’d spotted him.
Remo Falcone.
Danilo’s expression twisted like it always did when he saw me. With guilt and a flicker of humiliation because something had been taken from him, because Remo had taken it from him. He was a strong, powerful man, and having lost me haunted him like it haunted every man in the room. I was their failure. Their pride a tattered sullied rag. Every time they had to peer into my eyes, and worse the eyes of my children, they were reminded.
They’d never let me be anything but the dove with broken wings. They couldn’t. But I wanted to fly.
“Have you come to watch the bastard die, Fina?” Samuel asked, his face cruel, eager, brutal as his blue eyes settled on Remo, who still hadn’t moved, but I noticed the almost imperceptible shift in his shoulders, his muscles twitching. He was waking up.
My heart beat faster, my palms becoming sweaty.
“I know you deserve your revenge, dove, but this is going to be more than you can stomach, trust me,” Dad said, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. His voice was soft, compelling, but his face held terrifying eagerness and cruelty as he regarded the father of my children.
“What are your plans for him?” I asked my uncle, because he was the man who would have the last word on the matter.
His cool blue eyes weren’t as controlled as usual. He, too, wanted to tear into Remo. They had waited a long time for this moment. “We will prolong his torture as long as possible without risking an attack from the Camorra.”
“He won’t die today?”
“Oh, he won’t die today,�
�� Samuel muttered. “But he might wish for it.”
I gave a nod. It was what I had expected. Remo wouldn’t experience any mercy at the hands of the Outfit, not that he’d ever ask for it.
“He’ll beg for death,” Dad said harshly.
“I don’t beg for anything, Pietro.”
I shivered at the familiar timbre, at the underlying threat, the undercurrent of power. How did he do it?
Remo lifted his head, and my brother and Danilo tightened their hold, but they blended into the background when Remo’s eyes finally met mine. Fourteen months.
The force of his gaze hit me like a tidal wave. In the time since he’d released me, I’d often wondered if I could ever forget him, if I could move on and live a new life, but now as I looked at him, I realized I had been foolish to consider that an option.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile. “Angel.”
My brother punched Remo’s face, but he only laughed darkly as blood spattered on the ground.
“This is your chance to ask for forgiveness,” Dad said.
Remo looked from each of them until his eyes finally settled on me. “Do you want me to beg for forgiveness?”
His eyes dragged me down fiercely, mercilessly, irrevocably as they’d always done. As they always would. “I won’t give you my forgiveness,” I said quietly.
Something flickered in Remo’s eyes, but Samuel and Danilo wrenched him away from my view, down the corridor into their torture chamber.
Dad kissed my temple. “We will avenge you, make him pay for what he did.”
He walked away, leaving me with Dante, who regarded me with calm scrutiny. He touched my shoulder lightly, and I met his gaze. “He will ask for forgiveness in the end,” he promised.
I briefly touched his hand. “I don’t want him to because it would be false.”
Remo did everything with unbridled passion, with ferocious rage, without an ounce of regret.
He consumed, obliterated, ruined.
He took everything and left nothing in his wake. He was an unrepentant sinner. He was a destroyer, a murderer, a torturer.
A monster.
The father of my children.
The man who held my heart in his cruel, brutal hand.
“You will castrate him?” It was an unnecessary question. I knew they would, and it was only one of the many atrocities they’d planned. All I needed to know was when.
Dante gave a terse nod. “Tomorrow. Not today. It would speed up his death too much. Danilo and Samuel will do it. I’m not sure you should watch any of this, but maybe you need to. Today will be easier to stomach than tomorrow, so stay if it’s what you want.”
“Thanks,” I whispered. Slowly I made my way toward the screen on the table and turned it on.
My brother and Danilo were kicking Remo in the stomach, in the side, and Remo made no move to defend himself. When they finally let up, because Dante had entered, Remo rolled onto his back and looked directly into the camera, knowing I was watching.
He didn’t look away when my father took out his knife and cut his chest. Not when it was Samuel’s turn. Not when it was Danilo’s turn. Not when it was Dante’s turn.
I’d spent so many hours, day and night, wondering how it would feel to see Remo broken, to see him on his knees.
This wasn’t how I imagined things to be, my heart clenching in my chest so tightly I could hardly breathe, the tears pressing against my eyelids so fiercely I had to bite the inside of my cheek to hold them back. And even through the torture, Remo didn’t look broken because he couldn’t be broken, not with violence and pain. Maybe not at all.
I turned away from the screen and walked away. My bodyguards followed close behind, their steps slow and measured. Shadows meant to protect and save me. But I was beyond saving. My family tried to mend me, but I didn’t need it because I wasn’t broken.
Slipping behind the steering wheel of the Mercedes limousine, I revved the engine the second my bodyguards were inside. My foot pressed down on the gas. They slanted looks my way but didn’t comment. They were meant to protect not judge.
I was allowed this freedom because my family’s guilt had paid for it. They couldn’t bear keeping the dove with broken wings in a gilded cage.
The second I had the car parked in front of my family’s home, I killed the engine and got out, not waiting for them. I stepped inside and hurried upstairs, didn’t stop until I entered the nursery. Both Nevio and Greta were asleep in their shared crib, looking peaceful and painstakingly beautiful.
I stroked their heads, the thick black hair like their father’s. When my fingers brushed Nevio’s temple, his eyes peeled open with those dark brown, almost black eyes. I leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead then to Greta’s, breathed in their scent, then sank down in a chair and watched them sleep.
I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that when the door opened. Familiar steps sounded behind me, steps that had accompanied me almost all my life. A warm hand came down on my shoulder, and I covered it with mine.
Samuel pressed a kiss to the crown of my head then rested his forehead against it for a couple of moments. So gentle and caring, so very different from the man I’d seen torturing Remo. He straightened and I tilted my head back, peering up at him. His gaze rested on Greta and Nevio, but for him there was nothing beautiful about them. As always, his eyes shone with guilt and aversion when he regarded them before he noticed my scrutiny and lowered his gaze to me.
Warmth filled his expression. I wished he could spare some of it for the children I loved more than life itself. Samuel was my blood. He would always be. He was part of me as I was part of him, and I didn’t resent him for his feelings toward my children. I knew he hated their father, not them, but more than that he hated himself.
I stood, grabbed his neck, and pulled him down until his forehead rested against mine. “Please, Sam, stop blaming yourself. Please, I beg you. I’m not broken. You have no reason to feel guilty.”
He returned my gaze but I realized his guilt ran too deep. Maybe tomorrow he’d finally be free. Maybe he could let go of his guilt when he had to let go of me. “I love you,” I said, knowing it was the last time.
Samuel wrapped his arms around me. “And I love you, Fina.”
CHAPTER 27
SERAFINA
Dad and Dante didn’t come home that evening. They would spend the night in the safe house. Safe house. What a name for a house to torture enemies.
After Samuel had made sure I was okay, he drove back there as well. Maybe they were worried Remo might manage to escape or maybe they wanted to keep torturing him throughout the night. Probably the latter.
I grabbed a bag and packed a few things for Greta and Nevio. Then I walked down into the basement where we kept our weapons as well as other necessities in case of an attack. I perused the display of guns and knives. I strapped a gun holster to my chest over my T-shirt. It allowed me to strap a gun and a knife to my sides as well as another gun to my back. Just to be on the safe side, I added a knife holster to my calf. I had chosen loose linen pants for the occasion just for that purpose. After that I rummaged through the medical supplies. Samuel had explained everything to me so I was prepared if something happened, not so I could use it against them. I grabbed a syringe with adrenaline and one with a sedative. After I’d put on my thick cardigan, I stuffed the syringes into its pockets and returned upstairs.
It was quiet in the house. Sofia was probably reading in her room before bed, and Mom was most likely doing the same.
The bodyguards were in their quarters in the back of the house, and two were guarding the fence surrounding the garden. I put on comfortable sneakers then headed for the nursery.
I considered going to my mother, saying goodbye, apologizing for what I was about to do, but words would never be enough to explain my betrayal. Words were too insignificant. They would never understand. I’d try to call her later, once we were safe.
Lifting the bag over one sh
oulder, I grabbed Nevio and Greta before I made my way out of the nursery, moving quietly.
I froze when I spotted Sofia standing in her doorway in her pink nightgown, brown hair disheveled. Her eyes took in everything and a small frown drew her brows together. “Where are you going?”
I considered what to tell her, how to explain to a twelve-year-old what I had done and was about to do. “I’m leaving. I have to.”
Sofia’s eyes widened, and she padded toward me with bare feet. “Because of Greta and Nevio?”
I nodded. She was young but she wasn’t as oblivious as we all wanted to believe. She stopped right in front of me. “You’re leaving us.”
I swallowed hard. “I have to, ladybug. For my babies. I want them to be safe and happy. I need to protect them from the whispers.”
Sofia regarded my twins. She leaned forward and kissed each of them on the cheek, her eyes filling with tears as she peered up at me. My heart clenched tightly. “I know what people say about them, and I hate it. But I don’t want you to go ...” Her voice broke.
“I know.” I tried to hold back my emotions. “Give me a hug.”
She wrapped her arms around me and the twins, and we remained like that for a moment. “Don’t tell anyone, please.”
She pulled back with a knowing look. “You’re going to return to their father?”
I nodded, a half-truth, but Sofia didn’t need to know that our family and her future husband were currently torturing the man she was referring to.
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. Sofia looked confused for a moment, but then she nodded, biting her lip, more tears gathering in her eyes. “Dad won’t allow me to see you anymore, will he?”
I swallowed. “I hope one day he’ll understand.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too. I’ll try to contact you. Remember I love you.”
She nodded, tears trailing down her cheeks. I quickly turned before I lost it. I could feel Sofia’s eyes on me as I walked downstairs. The light from upstairs illuminated my path as I headed into the garage. I put Nevio and Greta into their car seats then slipped behind the steering wheel. The guns were digging uncomfortably into my back and side. The garage door slid up, and I pulled out and steered the car down the long driveway. I pressed the button for the gate and it opened.