Page 15 of Cara
“No, I didn’t. I sent for the Doc. I knew I took it too far, but you said—” He closes his eyes, fighting for breath. “For generations, our men have held power. We have a duty to our traditions, to those that came before us…”
“My wife is gone. The possibility of children left with her.”
He lays his head back. “That’s… not true.”
Placing a hand over a curved blade, my eye twitches. “Your generations die with me.”
“You have a child, just not one that means anything.”
Rearing back, I stare down at him, my blood slowing.
Adrenaline is the only bolster rooting my feet to thisfloor. This floor that’s stained with Thomas Ritchey’s blood… My wife’s blood. “What?”
He swallows a disbelieving laugh, as if he cannot fathom how he arrived in this predicament. A laugh that makes me think he doesn’t actually believe I’m capable of this. His thickset fingers twitch. “Rosa. Bellarosa Barbieri.”
My heart plummets to thefuckingground.
The man half-smiles, pleased to have landed another devastating blow, not needing fists. “I bet your mind is going back,farback. The wedding. The objection that girl made. Her desperation at the bridal dinner. Her father tugging her out of your sight… It’s all falling into place, isn’t it?”
My voice is a weak thing, falling from my lips with bated breath. “You’re lying.”
“You have a daughter. A little girl. Isabella. Named after her. The damn bitch refused to get rid of it.”
I gape in horror, conflicted by a torrent of emotions.
Anger.
Disbelief.
Doubt.
Confusion.
I don’t even know what I'm going to say until the words have left my mouth. “You knew… all along?”
The little boy within me is still there. Painfully still there. Somehow, this man has shocked me again, his viciousness knowing no bounds.
“It was my duty to know, but you? No. Knowing about that girl wouldn’t do you any good. You were married and planning to start a family of your own.”
“You only say that because she had a girl.”
His tongue rims his bloody bottom lip, nodding arrogantly. “You’re right. If it had been a boy, I wouldn’t have had to go as far as I have. I could have done better work with him than I’ve done on you.”
The information he just laid on me can’t be unspoken. My eyes close, imagining my wife’s lips against my shoulder as a train barreled us towards North Dakota, our doomed location.
I didn’t know you thought about children,I said.
She was still trembling, her touch full of electricity when she laid her hands on me.I didn’t at first.
What changed your mind?
Her answer filled me with hope, ignited dreams within me that I’d never dared to imagine.
You… you changed everything.
The blade in my hand seeps into his flesh without warning, my grip dragging it deeper until I hit bone. A unique crevasse that won’t drain him instantly. He wails as I’ve never heard him wail, banging his hands against the restraints. I gaze down at him, unfazed.
This man is no longer my father.
