Black

by K. L. Grayson

  She turns to look, and when she sees me, she rushes across the room, glancing over her shoulder once as if making sure no one is watching her. The door pushes open and she grabs my arm, pulling me inside.

  “Shae, this isn’t a good time. What are you doing here?”

  “Is anyone here?”

  She shakes her head. “No, but Sal will be coming back soon.” She glances to each side and grabs my hand. “Follow me.”

  She practically drags me to the back of the restaurant and into a room. I’m guessing it’s the same room where Rex met his father when he brought me here for dinner.

  “You lied to me,” I state, surprised at how calm I am.

  Maybe this is the end. The calm before the storm.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Rex knows who I am.”

  Her eyes widen, her brows pushing into her hairline. “What? How?”

  “That doesn’t matter. For most of my life I’ve been unable to remember the day my father was murdered. My psychiatrist believes I was suppressing the memory. She kept telling me one day I’d remember, one day a switch would flip in my head and every memory would come flooding back. That day has come. I remember everything, Isabella. I remember seeing your husband put a gun to my father’s head. I remember the sound of the shot, the lifeless look in my father’s eyes as he lay on the ground in a pool of his own blood.”

  Isabella’s starts shaking her head, her lips parted as though she doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.

  “You told me you didn’t know who killed my father.”

  “I didn’t,” she insists. “Sal never said a word to me.”

  “Your boys were there,” I hiss. “Your own children were there, and they chased after Cami and me.”

  Tears fall from her eyes, and she makes no move to brush them away. “I had no idea. I swear. You have to believe me.”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t believe you—”

  “She’s telling the truth.” The deep, unfamiliar voice breaks through the room, and I spin around. A tall man looms by the back door, and I instantly recognize Sal Ambrosi. He looks the same as he did fourteen years ago, only with more gray in his hair and a few more pounds around his middle. Also like the last time I saw him, his eyes are cold and menacing and locked on mine.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Bianca DiMarco,” he says, walking to the center of the room. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he tilts his head to the side and studies me. “Even more beautiful today than you were as a child.”

  My stomach tightens into a knot as his eyes sweep up and down my body.

  “I knew I recognized you when Rex brought you here. Couldn’t place you at first, because I’m getting old.” He laughs humorlessly, glancing between me and Isabella. “But Rex seemed to think I wouldn’t know who you are. He told me you’d just moved here.”

  “Rex has nothing to do with this,” Isabella says, taking a hesitant step toward her husband.

  “You’re right, my sweet Isa.” In an exorcist sort of way, Sal’s head swivels toward his wife. “This doesn’t appear to be about Rex at all. So why don’t you explain why it appears to be about you.”

  With each step he takes toward Isabella, she steps back until he has her pressed against the wall. Fear radiates off her in waves, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up when he presses a hand to the center of her throat.

  “Did you tell Miss DiMarco that you had a torrid affair with her father?”

  She doesn’t immediately answer, and he pushes harder, causing her face to turn red.

  “I told her,” she gasps. “She knows.”

  “Is that why you killed him?” I ask, wanting to hear him say it, hoping he’ll give me the reason I need to pull my gun out and put a bullet between his eyes.

  He laughs again, removing his hand from Isabella’s throat. She reaches for her neck and watches as her husband turns toward me.

  “Your daddy fucked my wife,” he sneers.

  “That’s not all he did,” I say.

  Sal cocks a brow. “Excuse me?”

  “Why kill Cami?” I ask. “If you were pissed that my dad had an affair with Isabella, why kill an innocent kid?”

  “I don’t think you understand how this works. I don’t give you answers, you give them to me. What else did your father do?”

  “Oh, I understand how this works. But what you don’t understand is I have nothing to lose. You want an answer? First you give me what I want.”

  His beady eyes narrow, a malicious grin tilting his mouth. “You’re a brave young woman, talking to me like that. Or stupid.”

  I blink, refusing to play his evil game.

  “You want answers? Fine. You and your sister were collateral damage. You got lucky because Rex was a fat fucker and couldn’t catch you.”

  Everything cell inside of me burns with hate for this man. “Don’t talk about your son like that.”

  “Aww, look at that, Isa,” he taunts. “She’s in love with our son.”

  I grit my teeth, refusing to respond.

  “Don’t worry, relationships can withstand just about anything, if you want it bad enough. Look at me and Isabella. We came to an understanding after her affair.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Isabella look away, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that she was forced—or maybe threatened—to stay married to Sal. Either that or risk her own life.

  And all this talk about relationships and Rex is making me second-guess coming here. I can practically hear him begging me not to do this, and I wonder… If I walked away now, could we move past this? Could we forgive and forget? I’m not sure. And then Sal opens his evil fucking mouth and the weakness dissipates, making room for a new wave of anger, and I know I’ve lost that opportunity—if it ever existed—because there’s no way in hell he’s letting me walk out of here.

  “I never told Isabella I killed Luca. I didn’t even tell her I killed your mother.” His words are spoken with malice, his cruel eyes watching for my reaction, and he gets it.

  My mouth falls open, and I jerk back as his words rip through my heart like a jagged knife. “Wh-what?” I stammer. “You…” I shake my head, unable to find words. “It was you? You killed my mother, you sick fucker?” I scream, bending at the waist. Bile rushes up my throat and I heave, but nothing comes out.

  “Sal, no,” Isabella gasps.

  “I wanted your father to feel the sort of pain I felt when I saw him fucking my wife. Isabella may think Luca loved her, but he didn’t. Luca’s loyalty was with your mother, so I hit him where it hurt the most. I took the most important person in his life—aside from you girls. But that backfired, didn’t it, Isabella? Because you two started seeing each other again. You just couldn’t get enough of him, could you? It’s your fault I killed her family,” he seethes.

  Isabella shakes her head.

  “There was one way to get Luca out of your life, and, well, you know how that story ends.”

  Coldness washes over me, consuming my body, filtering through my veins, and settling around my heart as his words repeat in my head.

  Hit him where it hurt.

  Sal was obviously bothered by his wife’s indiscretions. What man wouldn’t be? For Sal it was worse because he was the head of the Salamanca crime family. How embarrassing that his wife screwed around with the head of the DiMarco crime family.

  I can’t imagine how he’s going to react to the news that he’s been raising my father’s son as his own.

  It’ll destroy him.

  Hit him where it’ll hurt.

  “Tell him, Isabella.”

  Isabella’s breath catches as Sal’s eyes narrow on mine.

  “Please, Shae, don’t do this,” she pleads.

  “You don’t want to tell him? Fine, I will.”

  Lips pinched in a tight line, I turn a malicious smile toward Sal. Isabella is screaming at me to keep my mouth shut, but I refuse to let her influence me. This is my time. My moment
to exact revenge on the man who killed my family, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pass it up.

  “My father didn’t just fuck your wife.” I say the words nice and slow, watching as the vein in Sal’s neck starts to bulge, his fingers clenching into tight fists at his sides. “He also fathered a child with her. A son to be exact. A son you raised as your own.”

  “You’re lying.”

  I shake my head, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Rex and Dante come barreling into the room. But the words are already falling from my mouth.

  “I’m not. That little affair they had resulted in a baby. Turns out Dante isn’t your son at all.”

  “What did you say?” Dante growls, his nostrils flared as he strides across the room, shouldering past his father. He fists the front of my shirt, backing me against the wall. “Say it again,” he seethes, jerking my body so he can shove me again, only this time my hip hits the side of a table, and I wince.

  “You’re my brother. Sal isn’t your father. Luca was.”

  “You’re lying.”

  I shake my head. Looking over Dante’s shoulder, my eyes scan the room to find Rex. His lips are in a thin line, his nostrils flaring, and I wonder if it’s because of how rough Dante is being with me or because of the bomb I just dropped.

  With each labored breath, Dante’s eyes are begging me to tell the truth, so I do. My gaze is unwavering when I say, “Ask your mother.”

  He releases me as though my words physically burn him, but I don’t get far because Rex steps into his place, towering over me, preventing me from moving.

  The warmth I’m used to seeing in Rex’s eyes is long gone, replaced with ice as he looks through me. “You’ve got a death wish, Shae, because now you’re not just fucking with my father, you’re fucking with my brother, and that’s where I draw the line.”

  “You don’t believe me? Ask your mom. Or better yet, here—” I dig in my pocket, pulling out the tattered letter Isa sent to me. “See for yourself.”

  Isabella’s fingers cover her mouth as Rex rips the letter from my hand. Dante hovers over his brother’s shoulder, reading the words my dad wrote to his mother all those years ago, and I see the realization in Dante’s eyes.

  Anger.

  Disbelief.

  Shock.

  He looks at me, his gaze holding mine as chaos erupts around us.

  Sal scans the letter over Rex’s shoulder, rubbing a hand along his jaw, and then he turns his rage-filled eyes on Isabella.

  “What the fuck is this?” he roars. “Is she telling the truth?”

  Isabella sits, stunned.

  “Answer me!” Sal yells, charging across the room.

  Isabella manages the slightest nod, her sad eyes finding Dante’s. “Yes. She’s telling the truth. Luca DiMarco is Dante’s biological fath—”

  Sal cuts off her words of with a sharp slap to her face, and she falls to the ground in tears.

  Dante rushes to her side, dropping to his knees, but Rex doesn’t budge. His feet stay planted on the floor, his eyes locked on mine.

  This isn’t the man I know. There’s no way the man I grew to love would stand here after someone smacked his mom around.

  Narrowing his eyes, Rex shakes his head in disgust as he takes a step toward me. “I trusted you, and you kept this from me?”

  I want to defend myself, tell him I just recently found out, but what’s the point? Whatever we were is over.

  “What’s it matter? We were never going to work, not with the history between us. Your father destroyed my life, and now I’ve destroyed his.”

  Rex flinches, the slightest crack in his wall, but he quickly pulls himself together. “You didn’t just destroy my father’s life, you destroyed my brother’s as well.”

  “He’s my brother too,” I hiss, and in my peripheral vision, I see Dante look at me.

  Does he hate me now too?

  Who fucking gives a shit? With the part he played in Cami’s death, I’ll never be able to forgive him, much less have a relationship with him.

  “That’s all you have to say?” Rex takes a step closer, lowering his voice to an ominous level. “You’re right. We never would’ve worked, because how could I love someone as coldhearted as you? You’re no better than my father. The second I found out who you were, I wanted to come to you—once I could ensure your safety—and sit down and have an adult conversation. But you weren’t going to let that happen, were you? All you saw was an opportunity for revenge. Fuck everyone else and their feelings. Fuck their lives. Isn’t that right, Shae? Look out for number one? Well, bravo, sweetheart, because you fucking nailed that!”

  Is that how it happened?

  My mind quickly rewinds itself, replaying the last several hours, but I lose my concentration because Rex’s next words are like a knife to the gut.

  “I will never forgive you for this, and you just started a battle you cannot win.”

  “Rex.” Dante pushes up from the floor, clearly shocked at his brother’s words, but that doesn’t stop Rex.

  Oh no, he’s on a mission to tell me just how much he despises me.

  “If you think you can walk in here and deliver this sort of news and walk out unharmed, you are sorely mistaken.”

  I hold my chin high, not believing for one second that he would harm me. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “Why the fuck not? You hurt me,” he yells, pounding a fist over his heart. “You fucking hurt me the second you set out to hurt my brother, all because of something my father did. Well, fuck you, Shae. My family means more to me than anything, and you just fucked with my family.”

  Judging by the smug look on Sal’s face, he’s happy with Rex’s declaration and all too happy to let his son do his dirty work for him. I turn to Dante, who now stands a few feet away.

  “Don’t look at Dante.” Grabbing my chin, Rex forces me to look at him. “He can’t fucking save you. He won’t save you.”

  “I think he’s capable of making his own decisions,” I say.

  “And why the fuck would he choose to save you? You might be his blood, but so am I, and I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, watching his back, because that’s what family does.”

  Dante places a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Rex.”

  Sal has been silent for several minutes, but as soon as Dante gets involved, so does he.

  “Did you know about this, Dante?” Sal asks.

  Dante’s glacial eyes meet Sal’s. “That’s a stupid fucking question.”

  “Answer the fucking question, boy. Did you know you weren’t an Ambrosi?”

  “Of course I didn’t know,” Dante says, tossing his hands out to the side.

  But he couldn’t leave it at that. Nope, that would be too fucking easy.

  “Trust me, if I had known, you would’ve been the first one I told. I would’ve gotten immense satisfaction from telling you you no longer had a hold on me. No ties. No connection. No fucking blood. You’re nothing to me.”

  Sal pulls a gun, pointing it at Dante’s head. “You have two choices. Kill your sister and remain a part of my family. No one has to know about your mother’s little secret. Or you can die beside her,” he says, moving the gun toward me. “It’s your choice.”

  “No!” Isabella screams, propelling herself toward Sal.

  Turning the gun, he shoves it against Isabella’s head, forcing her to walk backward as the metal bites into her skin. “I will deal with you when I’m fucking ready. Say another goddamn word, and I’ll put a bullet through your fucking head.”

  She steps back, watching as Sal turns the gun back on me.

  This is it. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die hating the man I love and never getting to know the brother I’ve just learned I have. The severity of the moment crashes around me as I wait to hear Dante’s choice.

  He takes a step forward, wraps his fingers around Sal’s wrist, and pulls the gun forward, resting the barrel against his forehead.

  Oh my gosh.<
br />
  He chose me.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Rex tries to shove Dante out of the way, but Dante doesn’t budge.

  “She’s family.” Dante’s steady voice is full of emotion as his eyes move to mine.

  That’s when I see it—unwavering support, protection, and love.

  Just like that.

  Every horrible thing I said to him is set aside, because I’m his family, and this is what family does.

  Maybe there’s hope for Dante and me after all. Either way, I know what I have to do. Sal is watching Rex and Dante, so I use the moment of distraction to pull the gun from the back of my pants. Arms straight, elbows relaxed, I cock the gun, aiming it at Sal.

  The sound echoes through the room, and four heads turn toward me.

  “Pull the trigger, and I’ll end your pathetic little life,” I dare him. “You will not take another member of my family.”

  Sal laughs. “That’s cute, sweetheart, but your hand is trembling.”

  It’s not. My hand is steady, prepared to pull the trigger if he so much as moves the wrong way.

  “Go ahead. Shoot me. I dare you. I’ll even give you a clear shot.” He holds his arms out, and this is my chance. My hand tightens on the gun, my finger applying the slightest bit of pressure, but I hesitate.

  “Time’s up.” Sal straightens his arms, his gun once against pointed at Dante. “You had your chance, and you couldn’t take it because you’re a pussy, just like your father.”

  “Fuck you!” I lunge forward, but Rex throws out an arm, stopping me.

  “Stop.” Rex wrestles with me until I give up. “Put the gun down. We both know you won’t pull the trigger.”

  “You have no clue what I’ll do to save my family, and right now Dante is the only family I have left.”

  “You underestimate the lengths I’ll go to to save my family,” Rex counters. “And if you think I’m going to let you kill my father, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  “But you’ll let your father kill, Dan—”

  Rex twists my forearm, and I grunt, struggling against him. But he keeps twisting, and a sharp pain shoots up my arm. I release the gun. Before I have time to blink, he has the gun pointed at my head.