“Murder isn’t a relaxation tactic, Amelia! It’s a matter of life and death,” Zane snarls at me, his eyes glaring at me from across the room. “You told me you didn’t want to do that anymore. You wanted your brother away from it so he didn’t become so corrupt, but you showed him exactly how corrupt you are. You proved the lengths you’ll go for love.”
“Exactly! I did it because I love you. It wasn’t exactly easy for me to do,” I strive to argue my case, but it seems futile. He’s obviously been here stewing on this all day, and there is no getting through to him.
“What because throwing poison in a drink is so fucking hard! I’m surprised you’ve not done Daddy’s work on me by now!”
I shake my head in dismay and take another exhilarating breath. “Big Al taunted me with your shooting,” I remark, as if it’ll make the blindest bit of difference. “Yes, I had gone there to kill him for it, but he told me how you begged and pleaded for your life, Zane. It was too much. He had me pinned against the floor ready to rape me when he told me how you begged not to be killed. That only fueled my hate far more than seeing you in that hospital bed.”
I see recognition glimmer in his eyes, and he looks at me, but I know his decision has been made and this is our point of no return.
“I told you in the beginning I had changed, and you kept telling me I hadn’t. I so wanted that to be true, but now you know the real me,” I tell him, trying to be at my most honest. “Now, you know the true me that became of you leaving me.” I can hear in my voice how raw I have become. “But I thought there was always hope because you still loved me. Even after finding the vial and learning of what I did for my father, you still loved me with everything you had.”
“I guess I never wanted to believe you could have changed that much. I lived in denial,” he remarks, and although his voice is still hoarse, he’s calmer than before. “But I can’t be with someone who will always, always do her father’s bidding. You aren’t someone I can trust to grow old with. You aren’t even someone I can trust sleeping next to anymore. This has changed it all, and I hate that I realized a lot of things too late.” Although his voice is calm, I can tell there is a storm raging in him. “When you said we had changed since our last meeting, I was so convinced we hadn’t, but I see it now. You aren’t the girl I fell in love with. You’re a born and bred murderer who just keeps wanting that approval from her father. You have to see that.” Zane’s eyes begin to water on him, and he flares his nostrils to keep from completely breaking down. “He tore us apart once, now, along with your help, he’s done it again.”
“Please, don’t do this,” I say, begging with him. "I only ever did it for you, Zane. You have to see it my way. I had to fight to keep you safe."
"Keep me safe?" he snorts in my direction. "You keep saying that, but from who? Because the only dangerous person I see here is you, Amelia! You are manipulative and destructive, and you lie to get your own way."
"No," I gasp and shake my head viciously. "I lied about the murders because I never wanted to disappoint you, but I couldn't let those men win. I couldn't let them live after seeing you in that hospital bed. I was so betrayed that I had been underestimated and someone had chosen to kill you."
"If you remember rightly, you chose to kill me, too!" Zane's retorts are getting snappier and his face is reddening with palpable anger. "That's the only reason we got back together!"
"No, it's not," I murmur, hurt by that accusation. "I could've killed you had I never trusted you to love me! Even after the first time, after you tore my fucking heart out, I trusted you again to love me, all of me. And you did. You healed me. You knew what I was, and you still loved me. You said so yourself. Now, you've decided to turn your back on that because I did one of the only things I knew to do – protect those I love."
"This isn't you protecting those you love," he replies, laughing incredulously. "This is you exerting your need to be awarded by your father! To prove a point. To mark your territory. Anything to show your father you’re not expendable like he’s made you feel! Well, well done, Amelia! I hope his praise will keep you warm at night because I won't be!"
“Don’t do this,” I say, my tone is down to a plea now. “Don’t turn your back on what we have like this. I will tell you everything. I’ll tell you how my father wanted me to go out and kill a man with Giovanni tonight, but I couldn’t do it! Zane, I kept thinking of you and how I wanted you to run with me. I hesitated because I can’t kill anyone anymore. The last three kills were my last. They were like my swan song, I swear!”
“You rammed a stiletto heel into a man’s throat,” Zane growls to me. “That’s a pretty vicious swan song to have!”
“Because he was trying to rape me,” I say, my voice losing all momentum as I remember the feel of Big Al’s hands all over me. Again, that look of concern mars his eyes, but he buries it. “He deserved it.”
“And what about the sixty-eight men before him, Amelia?” Zane asks, clearly aware of all the list of men my father has had me kill – ironically, a few have gone forgotten because my tally is a little higher than that. “I have been following the Femme Fatale case for over a year. I know your kill pattern; I know your technique. I know you have no victimology. There’s no cohesion to the men you kill.”
“Yes, there is,” I state, arguing back, and I will until I’m blue in the face. I work for my father, taking out men who pose a threat to the Abbiati name. It’s all for one reason – it’s all for family. That’s what I was brought up to know. It’s all I know. It’s my sole purpose for working so hard to keep my place and keep my family safe. Is all that a lie? I can’t believe it is, so I look back and stand a little straighter before Zane. “They all failed my father. They all threatened our lives. They threatened everything my family has built over the years.”
“See, that’s the problem, then,” Zane begins and starts a slow, thoughtful pace. “Some of them haven’t had any connection to your father at all,” he retorts, realizing he’s thrust open a can of worms. “Your father has been using you to just kill people. He used you to do the dirty work so he didn’t have to, Amelia. I just came with a convenient excuse.”
“No,” I say and begin shaking my head in dismay. My father might be the villain in all this, but there is no way he would have done this to me. “He wouldn’t do this to me.”
“And there is our biggest issue,” he speaks, this time rougher, and my reaction apparently spoke volumes. “You’re so quick to defend him!”
Zane crosses the room, bypassing me. He whacks into me as he does so, and I turn with the force of the hit as he storms out of the bedroom. I silently follow him as he crosses the entire apartment, and I halt as he opens the door.
“I think it’s best you leave, Amelia,” he comments, motioning my inevitable exit. “What we started was never destined to go anywhere.”
I say nothing, but go to the door only to fight him enough to shut it again. I stand with my back against it, looking at him with every ounce of desperation my body is fleeting with. "You can't do this to me. You can't end this again. You can’t leave me."
“You should’ve thought about that when you told me you didn’t want to do your father’s calling, but went against that behind my back.” I can see how this is eating Zane apart, but I can’t help but hate him for not seeing why I did it. “I thought we were one hundred percent honest with one another. I thought when you cried over what you’ve become the other morning it was because you were looking for an escape, not because you had a guilty conscience eating you up.”
“I did it for you,” I say feebly, falling for the weakness of my breaking heart. Its siren cry wants me to cave and fall, but the Abbiati in me keeps my feet flat, my knees a little strengthened, and my exterior nowhere near as darkened as my interior looks. “It was for you. It was only for you. I wish I hadn’t done it, but at the time, it was all I knew to do.”
“You should have come to me with names, Amelia!” Zane’s outburst is menacing, and
he throws his hands into his hair, tearing at clumps with anguish. “I can’t get past what you are anymore. Before, I was caught up in something; lust, desire, something that was beyond me. But this morning was like a wakeup call. It doesn’t matter how many ’I love yous’ there are, how many kisses, how many orgasms I force upon you, you are an Abbiati and that is your biggest fault.”
“But I don’t want to be an Abbiati at the cost of losing you!” I fight, grabbing onto his shirt.
“It’s engrained,” he tells me, and casually removes my hand, breaking our connection. Slowly, he’s shutting down on me, and that kills me more than him yelling and swearing at me. “It’s innate to you. Salvatore made sure you were almost programmed to do what he wants. He has you right where he wants and maybe, yes, I had some hand in that by leaving before, but he has always had a hold on you.”
“I know,” I say and sadly realize that Zane was the only man, besides a few, who could love me without care. However much my brothers see, Zane saw more sides of me than they did. "You were the only one who ever loved me for all of me. Without you, there is no one."
“There are others,” he admonishes, trying not break at hearing me say that. “I love you enough to let you go and not tell anyone it’s you killing all those men,” he counters, barely looking at me now. “I love you too much, but I can’t do this anymore. This would ultimately destroy us. I’ve sat thinking it won’t but your father has won again, Amelia. And while I’m telling myself to haul you down to the station, I can’t. I love you enough to let you escape.”
“But you don’t love me enough to help me escape with you? Not enough to love me beyond this point?” I ask him, waiting for him to look at me. “Am I right?” I ask, my voice cracking. “You can’t love me enough to think I’ll ever change anymore. You’ve lost all hope in me. I can see it written all over your face. I’ll never be that Amelia you really loved. You’ve lost all hope I’ll change and be her again.”
“You’ve proven you can’t,” he says and I realize he’s made his mind up and there is no changing. “I tried to make you the girl you were.”
He’s resigned, and I’m bitter. As much as I want to hurt him, I knew this would all fall down around me. My carefully placed house of cards was only going to sustain so much before it toppled down. There was only so much it would withstand before my facade had to drop. I should’ve guessed the hunt for the Femme Fatale would continue even without Zane’s input. I should have guessed he would find out sooner rather than later.
If this is it, I will still strive to keep him safe. That will never change.
“Run,” I tell him, not caring for how destroyed I am. I look him in the eyes, wishing I could have one last kiss, but I can see that isn’t an option. So, I wish one final bid and pray he’ll listen. “It's not safe for you anymore. You have to leave.”
“Why should I believe you?” he asks me, curiosity knitting his brows together. “Everything else has been a lie,” he starts to say.
“Not everything,” I argue, heartbrokenly. “Just trust me and run. I couldn’t save us, but I can save you.”
He nods, but I wonder if he wishes we were on the run together. He moves toward me, his hand rising to cup my face, his eyes stare at me. There’s an electric moment between us. I feel like this isn’t the end. There’s no closure. I’m waiting for him to take me back, accept my apology, kiss away the pain he’s thrusting into my heart and tell me we can just run and never come back. However, he doesn’t. His words are his final ones to me. They’re his bid at closure.
“I wish I had been enough for you to stop,” Zane utters, trying to shield his own heartbreak from surfacing.
I want to tell him he was but that would be futile. He was enough to stop, but grief drove me to do the extreme, and this is my ultimate punishment. I deserve a fate worse than death and Zane’s deliverance is that. So, instead of arguing further, I take this as my moment to leave. He’s letting me go, and I’ve warned him. But once again, we aren’t meant to be.
“Like I said before, I’m a monster,” I tell him and avert eye contact for a second. “I’ll always love you, Zane, even if you don’t believe that. Whatever wrong I had done, loving you was only ever the right thing.” I bite down on my lip before I give my final words to him. “I could only ever love you to death, Zane.”
I slip away from him quick enough to pick up my jacket and bag and then leave without looking back. As I leave, a complete victim of love, I know there's only one thing I can do. I’m playing the cards I’ve been dealt. I’m scorned, broken, vengeful, and still, stupidly, in love. They’re potent emotions alone, and together they’re nuclear. This is going to be cataclysmic. What I’m feeling now will end tragically. Zane discarded our love a second time without offering me a fighting chance. I had changed the way he felt about me by adding to my hit list. This is my downfall. I killed those men, but in the same instance, my father had a role in this – again.
I sluggishly walk down the stairs I had only just seemingly bounded up. I had this excited bubble in me, the chance of a fresh start, but now I had nothing but venomous emotions. And as I despondently leave the building, slowly walking away from the apartment building I called home, and begin the journey to hell, one thought consumes me – someone has to pay.
***
The more I walk, the more my mind races. I walk at a slow pace, but my mind is running at a high velocity speed. It was as I walked through Manhattan, leaving the cloistered area of the main city and heading for the rural area, my mind begins to analyze all that happened. It deduces one thing – my father is the culprit to it all.
Like before, he had been enough to make Zane let me go. This time, however, my father has left a few surprises. He deceived me in order to get me to kill. He drove this murderous stake into my heart and took full advantage of my heartbreak after Zane’s first breakup. After then, he pulled the strings on me like a puppet master would, and I got lost in the murder and the death and anything that took my mind off Zane. It makes the fact my father presented the man I loved and lost as a hit all the more confusing. Why would he be so cruel to do this to me?
As the thoughts pour into me, my feet gain speed. I’m infuriated, maddened by all that’s happened. Everything that has been building for weeks has finally taken me in its rapture, and I’m about ready to blow. No longer does my hate radiate toward Giovanni, but it lies solely on my father.
Life would run smoothly if he just wasn’t around and when my house finally comes into view, I realize it’s all going to end tonight. No more tears flow, I’m just left seeing red through bloodshot eyes.
I rush into the grounds of the house, run up the drive digging furiously through my bag to find my keys. When I do, I catapult my body up the stairs, unable to wait any longer to save my family from our own. I know what I have to do. The decision only feels more right as I go to the safe in my bedroom, punch the key code in, and fling the door open. I pull my mother’s revolver from the back of the safe and check for bullets before I stalk from the room, pushing the loaded gun down the back of the waistband of my skirt. I thud through the house barefoot, not caring for the noise. I want answers and justice for my own inhuman abuse at the hands of a man I used to idolize. I want blood for what’s occurred. I move through the house uncaringly until I’m met with my father’s office door. I hear voices behind the heavy black door, but I don’t care for that. I throw the door open and don’t hesitate to enter.
“Ahh, here she is!” my father welcomes me as I walk into the room. “Finally done trying to escape your brother’s protection?”
“I want answers,” I hiss, clenching my jaw together straight after I speak.
“So do I,” he states, sitting back in his seat, hands clasped together in his lap. “Bambina, you couldn’t kill Lenny, but you could run off and leave your brother.”
“I’m serious about wanting answers, Papà,” I state and realize I won’t be getting far without putting a little threat to my actions
. “I want you to stop lying to me.”
“I’ve not been lying to you about anything,” he remarks, looking to Giovanni with a sense of confusion.
I need to play my father at his own game. I didn’t think this would be a merry chat, but I didn’t realize this moment would spiral so quickly. But it has, and I have to take whatever’s going to happen. After all, it’s what I want – an end. I reach behind me, my finger snake around the handle of the gun and nothing ever felt more perfect. Swiftly, I pull the revolver out and into the view, pulling back to make them see how ready I am to fire this.
“You stupid bitch,” Giovanni scolds immediately, reacting to my crazed reaction.
His sentence ends with the cold press of a gun barrel to my temple. My eyes flick shut as I realize the predicament I’ve gotten myself into, and my tears only seem to run thicker. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat and steady myself enough to open my eyes.
I look at my father, who is now standing with his hands up, as he looks at his two children – both after blood – and he looks more tortured than ever before. A part of me laughs at the sight, pleased that he is caught like this.
“This is how it’s supposed to be now,” I start to say, trying to apply some mirth into my tone. “You at gunpoint, your children the same.”
“Amelia, let’s be rational here,” my father tries to start a bargain.
“What is there to be rational about, Papà?” I ask him, shakily the gun moves around before me more haphazardly, but it’s still trained on him nonetheless. “The man I love just cut a loss from me because of you! Because of what I do for you! He left me because he found out that I killed those men who attacked him. I did that because the threat you put on me was so high I was desperate, and stupidly, thought it would not only save the man I love, but would also restore your faith in me. But that was all a lie!” And now I gear myself up for the ultimate truth. “And I have to find out that a majority of the men I’ve killed for you, were nobodies!”
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