Page 177 of Hexed
I drop to the floor, my knees cracking against the marble, and then Jessica moves over me with a grin on her face. “Oh, I’msogoing to enjoy this.”
Then she shoots me with another dart, and I see nothing but black.
FORTY-EIGHT
ENZO
I haven’t beento Peppino’s grave since his funeral three years ago, but right now, it feels fitting that this is where I head first after walking out and leaving Venesa in my kitchen.
I’m angry.
Frustrated.
Blindsided.
Like there’s nothing I know anymore, twists and turns continually being thrown in my face and showing me that things I knew as fact—astruth, things I felt soul deep to the marrow of my bones and beyond—are all bullshit.
I searched for my brother’s murderer for years. Always assumed it was one of the other families. Ikilledpeople for information.
And this whole time it was her.
The fact Peppino and I were never close, never saw eye to eye, doesn’t diminish the fact he was stillmybrother, and the woman I opened my life to, my heart to, myhometo, is the person I’ve been searching for during these three years. How can I believe anything she says now?
Steps sound behind me, the freshly cut grass of the cemetery crunching underneath their feet.
I should turn around and see who it is, but I don’t because I already know without looking that it’s Gio. I called him in a panic, my words not flowing and my chest feeling like it was physically ripping apart into a thousand broken pieces.He’s the only one I can trust.
He says nothing at first, just comes to stand at my side, his hands in his pockets and a look of consternation on his face as he stares down at Peppino’s tombstone.
“You remember when we were kids and used to fuck around on the corner outside Max’s shop?” he asks.
I don’t reply beyond a quick jerk of the head because I don’t think I physically can push words out right now. My chest aches so badly, it’s taking everything in me to not reach up and try to rub away the pain.
“We were so stupid back then, yeah?” He chuckles. “Always making dumb mistakes. I don’t know if I ever told you this, but one time, I was fucking around out there, on a brand-new bike I saved up all summer to get. You remember the one, with the?—”
“Cherry-red frame and black accents. Yeah, I remember.”
Gio loved that bike, had been talking about it for months and doing odds and ends like mowing lawns and getting groceries for the ol’ biddies around town.
“That’s right. And one day, I was picking up groceries for that Mrs. Greenfield lady who lived three apartments down from you, and your brother stopped me and told me if I wanted to keep the groceries, I had to hand over the bike.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” he confirms.
“What’d you do?”
He shrugs. “What was Isupposedto do? I was a kid being paid to deliver the goods, and your brother was older. The son of Carlos Marino. I gave him the bike.”
I shake my head. “Peppino was always a fucking prick.”
Silence for a few minutes, and then Gio speaks again. “Hewasa fucking prick, and he never deserved your loyalty. He never loved you the way you loved him. The way you’ve honored him.” Another pause, and then: “There’s only been one person I’ve ever seen love you the way you deserve.”
My mouth goes dry, but somehow I manage to unstick my tongue from the roof of it to speak. “She lied to me, Gio. Shekilledhim.”
“Yeah, I know.” He rocks back slightly on his heels. “But she alsosavedyou.”
My stomach feels like an overturned ship in a storm. “I’m done feeling like I owe people for that.”
