Page 154 of His Hell Girl

"Michele is my contact," she breathes out.

"Really," I drawl, not entirely surprised that someone as slimy as Michele would be involved in this.

"Good. See, we can talk civilly." I give her a smile. "And now for the winning question. Where is the transplant center?"

She tries to back further into the table even though her bonds don't allow her much movement. She shakes her head as she looks between Vlad and I, almost pondering if more pain is worth keeping the secret.

"Ellis Island," she eventually replies, her voice barely above a whisper.

I turn to Vlad to see the wheels turn in his head.

"There's an abandoned hospital there, but it's federal ground." He frowns, closing his eyes and exhaling. "This is so much bigger than we realized, hell girl."

"We'll tackle it. One person at a time. At least now we know about Michele too," I add with a sneer.

I'd met the man only once, but it had been enough to firmly put him on my shit list. He's a bigoted cretin who seemed to enjoy making those weaker than him suffer.

"No, you can't…" Mother Superior starts moving, wincing in pain as the rope cuts into her wrists. "You can't harm him," she continues and I frown.

"Why is that?" Vlad stoops low in front of her, snapping his fingers at her when she blanks out.

"He's your brother." She raises her gaze at me, and for the first time I see pure fear there. "You can't kill your own brother," she continues, her voice broken.

"What? That's impossible." I turn to Vlad and he has the same expression of disbelief.

"It's not," her voice trembles as she continues. "Nicolo… he," she audibly gulps down. "When he was younger, Michele had leukemia. Nicolo came to me with an idea, saying that he could get well if we found a match." The moment she utters those words I already know where she's going.

My entire body stiffens, but I can only listen to her as she recounts everything.

"He knew Michele was his son," she gives a dry laugh, "just like Benedicto knew he wasn't his. From the beginning Nicolo had been trying to quietly find a match, and he'd gone through all their relatives with no success. Until he came to me and told me there might be another possibility," she stops, raising her gaze to mine, "you."

"I don't understand."

"Nicolo said there was a possibility you might be his daughter, and by that point you were the last option. Michele was almost dead and getting worse by the day. And so we did the tests," she pauses, her eyes glinting to something akin to… pity? "And they came back positive. Not only were you his sister, but you were a match too," she says, and there's an unusual cadence to her voice, as if she had a personal stake in this.

"So you did the transplant," I continue and she just nods.

Vlad is there to cup my shoulders when I feel myself getting lightheaded.

Nicolo is—was my biological father. Just like Michele is my biological half-brother. My hands start trembling from anger as I realize Nicolo had known all along, and yet he'd been too willing to sacrifice me for Michele.

"Sisi," Vlad whispers in my hair, but I put a hand up.

"Why?' I address Mother Superior. "Why go through all this trouble to help him?"

Her mouth presses in a hard line as she turns her head away.

"Why?" I repeat, taking hold of another candle.

She reacts immediately, thrusting her body backwards.

"He's my nephew," she whispers, "from his mother's side," she finally admits and for a moment I feel sorry for her, because all she did was for the sake of her family.

But at the same time, how many other people have to suffer for that? Why didIhave to suffer for it?

I break free from Vlad's embrace, my fingers tightening over the small oil container.

Snatching her jaw open, I pour the entire liquid down her throat, enjoying the gurgling sound when she chokes on it as she tries to spit it out. When all of it has been ingested, I simply grip the hilt of the knife as I plunge it into her stomach, years of pain and humiliation coming to the surface and making me drown in the memories.

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