Page 138 of Savage Enemy

I lifted my face. Aris’s dead eyes stared at me, accusing me, making sure I would never forget my part in his death.

The world went quiet again, kind of like someone hit a mute button. People spoke all around me, but I couldn’t hear their voices. Stefano. Bruce. Marco. Santo.

I couldn’t look away from my dead twin, the other half of me, the person who grew inside the same womb as me. Even in death, he wanted to control me, manipulate me.

I shook my head.No, I won’t let you.

A bond had never existed between us, regardless of what others might have said. We only ever shared two things. A birth date and a last name.

Not anymore. I planned to change my name immediately, and my birthday now belonged to me alone. We would share nothing. He was nothing. And I wouldn’t let his eyes haunt me.

As I looked around me, everything seemed surreal.

What had we done? Was it really over? Aris finally gone?

Still, he stared at me, his eyes open but unmoving, like a sick Halloween prop. Blood pooled on the floor around his head, coloring the white rug beneath us. None of it seemed real.

How could it be?

My hands shook and my lips trembled as reality filtered back into my brain. So much blood. And the bodies.

Aris and our father. Dead.

Overcome with relief and sadness and dread and other emotions I couldn’t even name, I began sobbing.

Stefano dipped down and wrapped his warm arms around me, my security blanket, then and always, and as he lifted me, he pressed a soft kiss on my temple.

“I’ve got you now, Angel,” he whispered. “You’re safe. He can’t ever hurt you again or come for our son. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

He looked across the room at Santo.

“I’m sure you have a family doctor. Get him here now.”

“H-her,” I said.

I didn’t know why I cried so much, so uncontrollably, but I just couldn’t stop. It felt as if I had lanced a boil to get all the infection out of my soul.

Santo nodded and tossed over a wet washcloth.

Stefano pressed his lips to my forehead.

“I’m so sorry, Val. Sorry you had to see this. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him from hurting you sooner.”

He carried me to the couch and held me, washing the blood off my mouth, dabbing at my lips ever so gently, while Bruce and my brothers moved Aris and Saul’s bodies to the cellar.

I pressed my face against Stefano’s chest, listening to his strong heart beating, and watched them go, not looking awayuntil they were gone. Part of me still feared Aris would get up, let out his maniacal laugh, and attack me again.

“He’s gone now. He’s never coming back,” Stefano whispered, addressing my fear like he’d read my mind. “They’ll throw his body into the incinerator tonight.”

“Good idea,” I whispered.

Adrenaline coated my nerves. God, when it wore off, the pain in my body and my face would roar back with a vengeance.

We stayed on the couch, just holding on to each other.

After brushing my fingertips over his cheek and scraping my nails through his beard stubble, I dropped my hand onto the cushion. My nonna had upholstered the couch herself. Dark green velvet. It was where she’d read bedtime stories to me.

“The doctor’s here,” Stefano said. “Let her tend to you. Then, if she says you can travel, we’ll go home.”

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