Page 120 of I Would Beg For You

“Valentino, you mean. The man you absolutely hated. Because he knew the truth about what you did to my mother.”

He scoffs. “You’re not my daughter. You stopped being anything to me the day you let that fucker put a bastard in you.”

His words hit me like a forceful gale, nearly throwing me off my feet.

“You knew?” I ask, the question a murmur.

He roars with laughter. “Of course I knew. They ran your blood at that place, told me you were pregnant. If it were up to me, I would’ve told them to cut that little piece of shit out of you already.”

Things are falling into place. “But you couldn’t. It would’ve looked so bad for your political career if it were found you’d condoned an abortion, even ordered it.”

My hand drops again to my belly, cradling my unborn child from the outside.

My father’s gaze tracks the movement. His mouth distorts into a sneer so vile, I almost take a step back from the hate radiating off him.

“It’s not dead yet?”

I can’t believe he had the guts to say this. I don’t know when my feet start moving. I’m suddenly in front of him, slapping him across the face. My diamond-encrusted wedding ring leaves scratches on his cheek, a rip on his lip.

It’s not just a monster who stares back at me with an unholy gleam in his eye this up close. No, it’s the devil himself. Because of him, I could’ve died so many times. Because of him, my husband is in an ICU bed fighting for his life. Because of him, I could’ve lost my child and worse, not even known I’d carried her inside me for a while in the first place. Because of him, I also lost my mother whose only crime was to have trusted a grownup who then raped her and made her lose her mind.

There’s no hope for him, not even redemption.

I take a step back, exchange a glance with Victor. He nods softly, directing Marco for the next part of this operation.

Joel Smith is rambling away, cursing, spitting, vitriol flowing from his poisoned lips. None of us bother with him, Luciano and Franco watching with a raised brow as Marco brings a large bucket of water and places it a few paces in front of the chair. It’s only now I realize the floor is covered in thick tarp-like plastic.

I gulp. This has to be done, though. For all of us.

Victor steps over to the old man and cuts the ties holding him to the chair using a small knife. He picks Joel Smith up by the hair and then slams him onto his knees on the ground. He leaves him that way and goes to his brothers, with whom he exchanges a few words. Their eyes go wide, they glance at me, then it’s as if resignation settles onto them, lowering their shoulders in resolve. The three of them approach the other man, stopping behind his back as I come to him from the front.

I look into his crazed eyes as I speak.

“This is for Valentino.”

One by one, the Andretti brothers do their part. Victor goes first, because he had to watch this happen to Val. He plunges the knife into Joel Smith’s left side and pulls it out. Luciano is next, then Franco. Three stabs, exactly like Valentino received last night.

They pull away, blood gushing from the wounds and onto the plastic sheeting. The man’s body starts to slump, but I’m not done with him. That’s not how he dies.

I approach, grab his hair. “This is for my mother. For Aoife.”

Then, I dunk his head into the bucket of water, watching as he flails, as he drowns, as the life leaves him in a struggle between his lungs and his heart—which one will give out first?

He’s still gushing blood when the thrashing stops and his head goes limp and heavy under my grip. So, the drowning got him.Just like it killed my mother. I release him and watch him bob in the water.

“Naomi?”

I look up. It’s Marco. He’s next to me, his hands making it onto my shoulders. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the tears from my face. I hadn’t realized they were there.

I glance at Val’s three brothers. They all have blood on their hands, though their clothes don’t look marred at all.

“Let’s get you in the car,” Marco says. “We’ll take care of this.”

“Yes, Signora Andretti,” Pesci confirms. “Go.”

It’s done. The threat on all our existences is gone. It’s been dealt with. And I didn’t do it alone. I had my three brothers-in-law with me. Looking at them and catching their eye one by one, I know this is something which has bound us forever, a moment that solidified our bond, one that can never be broken now. We’re united in our love for Valentino.

I nod at the three then turn to Marco. “Take me to my husband, please.”

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