Page 13 of Cara
That’s how badly they’ve destroyed me.
“X.”
My eyes open, her ring of promise to me pressed against my mouth. Any tears I could produce are forced back before I turn, pushing my devastated limbs towards the door.
One foot in front of the other.
One minute at a time.
That’s how you survive something like this.
Dario props the door open, letting the sunlight seep into the room onto my unnaturally pale skin.
The heat of the summer months caresses my skin.
As gentle as it is, the slightest breeze is painful.
Stepping out of the warehouse is when it becomes real.
My father’s men have gathered by the docks.
Their eyes narrow and fixate on one another while stalking my path through the shipyard, a palpable tension in the air. His most trusted, of all ranks. I grab the door to the family car that’s been taken off our grounds without Arturo’s knowledge and slide inside, looking at Dante.
After tonight, our lives are going to change.
Death in the Mafia is typically a silent affair.
It’s rare someone admits what atrocities they’re about to carry out… because it’s never personal, it’s business. It’s calculated—orchestrated ahead of time.
A bullet to the head, a wire to the throat. It’s usually quick business.
The rare occurrence is this.
Where a betrayal awakens the monster that secretly lives within all human beings.
The moon casts a shadow over the estate tonight. Guards have made themselves scarce. My mother has been moved to the Manhattan apartment, still in the dark as to what’s occurring. In our private underground, this will follow me, what I'm about to do.
My name forever tied to his.
Some men will never find it in them to understand.
The Family is life. It iseverything.
Engrained in my head from birth, I once believed that, too. I did as my father bid me to, desperate to earn his respect, his love. My childhood was stolen, my soul corrupted. Everything I could have been turned to ash the moment he thrusted a gun into my grasp.
Standing in the shadows, under tree cover, my eyes remain fixed on the prison door.
He’s where you wanted him,the soldier said.
By now, the media is reporting his death.
By now, my mother is wailing in despair.
By now, every man in the city’s radius is planning a counterattack on this family.
As I approach the door, memories of escaping this place with Sophie in my arms make my insides recoil.
Sweating through a vicious fever, I vomit onto the grass,my heart pounding through my chest.
