Page 38 of Knuckles & Knives
I sink back into the couch, trying to process this layered betrayal. “So Jacekwasthe one to pull the trigger? And you were there for what happened next?”
“I got there just as your father was confronting Jacek. Antonio was in the shadows. I didn’t even see him until it was too late.” Dom’s reflection is ghostly in the window. “Vincent was trying to understand how Jacek could be so careless with family secrets, and Jacek was terrified, trying to explain that he’d only shared information with people he trusted, people who wanted to help the organization transition…”
“Transition to what?”
Dom turns back to me, his dark eyes filled with pain. “Your father was planning to legitimize the business, Raven. Get out of the criminal world entirely. He wanted to leave you something clean, something you could be proud of inheriting, but Antonio couldn’t let that happen. He’d spent twenty years building power in the criminal world. He wasn’t going to watch Vincent dismantle everything he’d helped create just because of a guilty conscience.”
“What happened when the confrontation started?”
“Antonio stepped out of the shadows, gun already drawn. He started talking about how Vincent had gone soft, how he was going to destroy everything they’d built together. Jacek was shocked. He finally realized he’d been manipulated.” Dom’s hands clench into fists. “Your father… God, Raven, your father didn’t even try to defend himself. He just looked at Antonio with this expression of complete betrayal and said, ‘I trusted you with everything. With my life, with my daughter’s life.’“
A sob breaks free from my chest. It echoes in the quiet room.
“I tried to get there in time,” Dom continues, his voice barely above a whisper. “I was moving the moment I saw the gun, but Antonio was too close, and your father was too shocked to react. Three shots, center mass. By the time I reached them, Vincent was already gone.”
“And Antonio?” The question comes out as a snarl.
“You don’t need revenge, Raven. I killed him.” No hesitation, no regret in his voice. “Put two bullets in his head and didn’t lose a second of sleep over it, but it was too late. Your father was already dead, and you… you were going to be next.”
I turn to face him then, tears streaming down my cheeks that I don’t bother to wipe away. “What do you mean?”
“Antonio had a contingency plan. If Vincent ever discovered his betrayal, he was going to eliminate the entire Blackwood line. He’d already sent men to your apartment, Raven. If I hadn’t called in a favor to get you evacuated…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.
He doesn’t need to.
The betrayal hits not like a wave but like a bullet I never saw coming. Not just my father’s murder but the fact that the man I’d loved like an uncle had planned to kill me too. Had seen me as nothing more than a loose end to be tied up.
“And Jacek? What happened to him?”
“He was collateral damage. Literally caught in the crossfire when I moved on Antonio.” Dom’s expression is grim. “The official story was that the Sterling Syndicate eliminated all three of them in a coordinated attack. It served everyone’s interests to let that version stand.”
“So Marcus wasn’t lying,” I say slowly. “ Jacek was involved in providing the intelligence, but he didn’t know he was setting up my father for murder.”
“No. Jacek died thinking he’d failed to protect the organization he’d served his whole life. In a way, he was as much Antonio’s victim as your father was.”
The revelation reframes everything I thought I understood about my father’s death. Instead of a simple betrayal, it was a complex manipulation that destroyed multiple lives.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I’m crying now, five years of grief and rage and misplaced hatred boiling over. “Why did you let mebelieve it was just the Sterlings? Why didn’t you tell me about Jacek’s role or Antonio’s manipulation? I hated Kieran…”
I even hated myself for kissing Kieran, but now, everything is all twisted up.
“You needed someone to blame!” Dom shouts back, his own control finally snapping. “If I’d told you the truth five years ago—that your honorary uncle murdered your father after manipulating another honorary uncle into unwittingly providing the means, you would have destroyed yourself trying to understand how people you loved could betray you like that. You needed a clear enemy, a target for your rage that would keep you focused and moving forward instead of drowning in the complexity of it all.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make!” I’m shouting now, ugly sobs that tear at my throat. “You had no right?—”
“I had every right!” His voice fills the room, commanding and absolute. “Your father made me promise to protect you no matter what. His exact words were ‘keep her alive, keep her strong, and make sure she becomes the woman she’s meant to be.’ So that’s what I did.”
The fight goes out of me all at once, leaving me hollow and shaking. I sink deeper into the couch, my legs no longer able to support me. Dom is there immediately, kneeling in front of me with those dark eyes full of pain and regret.
“So Marcus told me part of the truth,” I whisper. “To the extent of his knowledge.”
“Marcus tells people exactly what they need to know to serve his purposes,” Dom says carefully. “He’s not malicious, but he’s… strategic about information. He probably wanted to give you enough truth to build trust while keeping the more complex details for later.”
Or Marcus didn’t know all of it. I don’t like that Dom is trying to cast Marcus in a poor light.
“When were you going to tell me the rest?” I ask.
“Tonight,” Dom says simply. “I couldn’t watch you build a relationship with me based on incomplete information any longer. You deserve to know everything, even the parts that make the people you loved look like fools or victims instead of villains.”
