Page 126 of Savage Saint
The dining room follows, where I was paraded before his associates like a prized possession, forced to demonstrate my skills, my obedience, my worth.
Each room represents a different facet of my stolen childhood. Each doorway I pass through is a shackle I'm breaking.
I save the kitchen for last, where Mrs Janowska used to sneak me extra cookies and pretend not to notice when I cried into my soup. She was the only kindness in this house of horrors, and she deserved better than what happened to her.
"This is for you too," I whisper to the empty kitchen. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
Returning to the training room, I find Jerzy still clinging to life, gurgling as blood fills his lungs. His eyes follow me, hatred and disbelief warring in their depths. I don't bother to check if he's conscious as I retrieve a blowtorch from the weapons rack.
"You always said I'd set the world on fire," I tell his dying form, clicking the ignition. "Look at that, you were right about that one thing."
The blowtorch ignites with a whoosh, and I touch the flame to the gasoline trail. Fire erupts, racing along the path I've created like it's been waiting decades for this moment. The heat hits my face as the flames spread, hungrily consuming everything they touch. The wolf mural begins to blacken and curl, its painted eyes disappearing into smoke.
The irony isn't lost on me—the little girl who was afraid of the big bad wolf is now feeding one to the flames.
As the fire engulfs Jerzy's body and begins to consume the house, I walk away without looking back. The heat follows me down the corridor, but I don't hurry. Each step feels lighter than the last, as if I'm shedding weight with every metre between me and my past.
Eighteen years of conditioning. Eighteen years of fear. Eighteen years of being someone else's weapon.
All of it turning to ash behind me.
Outside, the night air tastes like freedom and smoke. I pause at the front door, finally allowing myself to look back at the place I've called home as it burns. Orange light flickers in the windows, smoke beginning to curl into the darkness like the souls of all the innocents who died here, finally being released.
Three silhouettes wait at the end of the drive, bathed in the orange glow of the burning house behind me. They're too far away to make out faces, but their posture speaks of patience. Of professionals waiting for their moment.
42
ANGELO
She emerges from the flames like something from a fever dream. An angel of death silhouetted against the burning wreckage of her past. The fire has turned the night sky orange, casting everything in hellish light, and Kasia walks through it all untouched. Her strawberry blonde hair catches the glow, making it look like she's crowned with flames, and for a moment I can't breathe.
My hand moves instinctively to my breast pocket, fingers finding the worn paper I've carried for so many years. The fortune my mother pressed into my palm with shaking hands, her last gift wrapped in cryptic words I never understood.
Flames can burn. Flames can heal. Her red flames will make you kneel.
Looking at Kasia now, wreathed in fire and smoke like some ancient goddess of vengeance, something clicks into place with devastating clarity. This moment right here. Not some abstract prophecy about love or death, but this exact moment. This woman who burns away everything false and leaves only truth in her wake.
Her red flames. The fire that's been missing from my life.
I slip the fortune back into my pocket, my heart hammering with the weight of understanding. Whatever else that paper holds, whatever other secrets it might reveal, can wait. Right now, all that matters is getting her home safely.
"Well," Luca drawls from beside the black SUV, his voice cutting through my revelation, "that's one way to clear the neighbourhood." He surveys the burning compound with something approaching admiration. "Think we'll get complaints about the property values?"
Dante steps forward, his expression unreadable in the flickering light. "Would've been cleaner without the bonfire, but what's done is done." His dark eyes assess Kasia, taking in her soot-stained clothes and the hollow look in her eyes. "Question is, what comes next?"
"Next?" Kasia's voice sounds distant, disconnected. She stares back at the flames consuming her childhood home, her prison, her hell. "I don't know. I've never had a 'next' before."
I study her face in the orange glow, noting the way her shoulders have drawn inward, how she holds herself like she's afraid she might shatter. The fierce warrior who walked out of that inferno is fracturing before my eyes, reality setting in now that the adrenaline is fading.
"Every two-bit crew in the tri-state area is going to be scrambling for Jerzy's territory by morning," Dante continues, ever the strategist. "His network, his contacts, his operations. It's all up for grabs now."
"Good," I growl, finally finding my voice. "Let them fight over scraps. They can tear each other apart for all I care."
Luca chuckles, the sound dark in the night air. "Always the optimist, our Angelo. Though I have to say, Kasia…" He turns to her with that reckless grin that's got him in trouble since childhood. "You've got style. Most people use bullets or bombs. You went for the fullInfernoapproach."
She doesn't respond to his attempt at levity. If anything, she seems to fold further into herself.
"We need to move," Dante says, checking his watch. "Fire department will be here soon, and I'd rather not explain why we were in the neighbourhood."
