28. Simone
SIMONE
I wake up in Tristan's arms as the morning sun filters through the curtains, and for a moment, I forget everything that happened yesterday. I'm just a woman waking up next to the man she loves, warm and safe and content.
Then I remember the abandoned house, the handcuffs, the doctor, and my hand instinctively moves to my stomach. But there's no pain, no cramping, no sign that anything is wrong. The baby is safe. We're both safe.
"How are you feeling?" Tristan asks, his voice rough with sleep. He's already awake, watching me with those green eyes that I didn’t realize how much I’d missed until I thought I’d never see them again.
"Better. Sore, but better." I turn in his arms to face him properly. "How long have you been awake?"
"A while. I couldn't sleep."
"Bad dreams?"
He doesn’t say anything at first, only presses a kiss to my forehead. “It could have gone wrong. So very wrong.”
I reach up to touch his face, feeling the stubble on his cheek rough against my palm. "But it didn't. We're here. We're together. We're safe."
Tristan nods. “We are.”
“What about Sal?” I broach the question carefully, seeing his eyes darken when I say the man’s name.
Tristan’s jaw tightens. "Damian has been questioning him. We need to find out if he had other allies, other plans, anyone else who might come after us." He lets out a sharp breath. “I wanted to do it myself, but right now…” he presses another kiss to my temple. “Right now I’d rather be here than spilling blood, even if it’s his.”
"And after that?" My stomach twists.
"After that, he dies."
The certainty in his voice should disturb me, but it doesn't. If anything, it makes me feel safer. Sal Envio tried to hurt me, tried to kill my child. He deserves whatever's coming to him.
"I want to see him," I say quickly, before I can second-guess myself.
Tristan's eyes widen. "What?"
I take a deep breath. "I want to see Sal. I want to talk to him."
"Absolutely not." Tristan shakes his head. “No.”
"Tristan—"
"No." He sits up, running a hand through his hair. "You're not going anywhere near that bastard. You've been through enough."
"That's not your decision to make." I can feel anger starting to burn in the pit of my stomach. Tristan said he’d rather fight with me than be without me, so we might as well put that to the test.
A muscle twitches in Tristan’s cheek. "Like hell it isn't. I'm your husband, and I'm not going to let you put yourself in danger again."
I sit up too, pulling the sheet around myself. "He's captured. He's restrained. Probably half-dead after Damian has been at him. How is that dangerous?"
"He's a psychopath who spent yesterday trying to kill our child. Being in the same room with him is dangerous." Tristan’s voice is hard, sharp-edged. “Simone?—”
"I'm not some delicate flower who needs to be protected from harsh realities, Tristan. I'm a mafia heiress. This is my world too." I swallow hard, tilting my chin up.
"That doesn't mean you need to?—"
"Yes, it does." I turn to face him fully, and I can see the moment he recognizes the steel in my voice. "You want me to be your partner? You say you love me? You say you understand that I’m strong? That you want to earn me, to earn this? Then prove it.”
Tristan lets out a sharp breath. "This isn't about business. This is about revenge."
"Exactly. And who has more right to revenge than the person he tried to hurt?"
Tristan stares at me for a long moment, and I can see the conflict in his eyes. Part of him wants to keep me safe, to handle this himself. But another part of him understands what I'm saying. And I think he meant what he said last night.
"What do you want to say to him?" he asks finally.
"I want to look him in the eye and tell him exactly what I think of him. I want him to know that he failed, that he'll never have what he wanted, that he's going to die knowing he lost everything." I feel a cruel smile tugging at the “I want to be the one to say all of that.”
The words hang in the air between us, and I can see the surprise in Tristan's eyes. "Simone..."
"He tried to kill my child, Tristan. He chained me to a bed, stripped me naked, and brought a doctor to hurt me in the worst possible way." My voice is getting stronger, more certain. "This isn't just about the territory or the power. This is personal."
"You don't have to do this. I can handle it…"
"I know you can. But I need to do this myself. I need to look him in the eye and show him that I'm not the weak little princess he thought I was." My voice doesn’t waver. I look Tristan in the eye, and I let him see how serious I am. That I’m not backing down on this.
Tristan studies my face for a long moment, and I can see him weighing his options. Finally, he nods. "Okay. But we do this my way. You stay behind me, you don't get too close, and if I say we're leaving, we're leaving."
"Fine." I tilt my chin up.
"And Damian and Vitto will be there the whole time."
"Fine."
"Good." He gets out of bed and starts getting dressed. "We'll go after breakfast. I want to check in with my men first, make sure there haven't been any developments overnight."
An hour later, we're driving through Miami toward the warehouse district. Tristan has armed guards in the car behind us, which feels like overkill, but I understand his caution.
"Are you sure about this?" he asks as we pull up to a warehouse on the far side of the docks.
"I'm sure." I take a breath. “I need to see him. I need to say my piece.”
I see that muscle tick in Tristan’s jaw again, see his uncertainty, but I’m sure. I’m not going to back down from this, and I know he sees that.
The warehouse is fairly large, but still hot and stuffy. There are guards everywhere, watching every exit and entrance like hawks, and Tristan meets Vitto at the entrance.
"Boss," he says, nodding to Tristan. "Mrs. O'Malley." He inclines his head respectfully to me. "He's in the back room. Still not talking much, but he's conscious."
"Any problems?" Tristan asks.
"None. He's secure."
"Good. We'll want some time alone with him."
Vitto nods and leads us through the warehouse to a smaller room at the back. The door is heavy metal, the kind that would muffle any sound from inside.
"He's all yours," Vitto says, opening the door. He follows us inside, guarding the door as Tristan and I step into the room together.
The room is stark and utilitarian, with a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a tarp spread out on the floor.
Sal is chained to a chair in the center of the room, his expensive suit torn and bloodied.
His face is swollen and bruised, and when he looks up at us, I can see that one of his eyes is nearly swollen shut.
A few of his teeth are gone, and his lip is split.
Damian is standing off to one side, looking at a table where I glimpse a pair of bloody pliers.
There’s a hard look on his face, and satisfaction in his eyes.
I can imagine why, and I don’t feel bad for Sal at all.
"Well, well," Sal manages thickly, his voice hoarse. "The happy couple."
"Sal." I step forward. Tristan's hand immediately goes to my arm, but I shake him off gently.
"Come to gloat?" Sal asks, spitting blood onto the floor. "Come to see the mighty Sal Envio brought low?"
"I came to tell you exactly what I think of you," I reply, my voice steady and calm.
He snorts. "By all means, princess. Enlighten me."
“Don’t call me that. I’m not a princess. I’m Tristan’s wife. I’m the other half of the head of this family. And you crossed a line yesterday."
Sal looks at me through his good eye. "Did I? Which line was that?"
My jaw clenches. "You tried to hurt my child. You chained me to a bed and tried to take my baby away from me..." I can feel my anger building, but I keep my voice controlled. "That's not business, Sal. That's not strategy. That's just evil."
"Evil?" He laughs, but it comes out as more of a wheeze. "You want to talk about evil? Let's talk about what your father did to me. Let's talk about how he used me, betrayed me, left me to rot while he tried to run and hide from Konstantin."
"My father made mistakes. But he didn't try to murder children."
Sal shakes his head, though I can see it pains him. Good . “You have no idea everything your father did.”
“You’re probably right about that,” I agree.
“But I don’t need to. I know what you’ve done.
And that’s enough for me to decide what your punishment should be.
You know what the funny thing is, Sal? I never liked you.
Even when I was a child, even when you were my father's right-hand man, I never liked you.
I always thought there was something wrong with you, something cold and calculating and cruel.
I always thought my father was wrong to trust you. As it turns out, I was right."
"Your father trusted me because he needed me. I did his dirty work, I cleaned up his messes, I?—"
"You were the help," I interrupt. "You were useful, but you were never family. You were never an heir. And if my father had wanted you to inherit, he would have made you the heir. But he didn't, did he?"
Sal's face darkens, all that rage bubbling up. "He should have. I earned it."
"You earned nothing. You were given opportunities, and you wasted them. You could have been content with your position, with the respect and power that came with it. Instead, you got greedy. You tried to rise too high."
"I tried to take what was mine."
"Nothing was yours. Nothing ever was. You were always just a tool, Sal. A weapon to be used when necessary and put away when you weren't needed."
"You little bitch?—"
"And when you tried to hurt me and my child, you sealed your fate. You chose to become a monster."
"I chose to win."
"You chose to lose. Because now you're going to die, and I'm going to be the one to kill you."
For the first time since we entered the room, Sal looks genuinely surprised. "You?"
"Me." I turn to Tristan. "I need a gun."
Tristan looks equally shocked. "Simone?—"
"I need a gun," I repeat, holding out my hand.
Tristan looks at me for a long moment. I can see him thinking, assessing what this means to me. If he should fight me on it, try to convince me otherwise.
And then he slowly reaches into his jacket and pulls out a pistol. He checks the safety, then places it in my palm.
That’s the moment that I’m sure—absolutely sure—that he loves me. That everything he said last night was the truth.
"Are you sure?" he asks quietly.
"I'm sure."
I turn back to Sal, whose face has gone pale. “You’re not a mastermind or a criminal genius. You’re just a man who lost and couldn’t handle it. A man who hurts women and children because he thinks they’re beneath him.”
A cold smile spreads across my face, one I’ve never felt before, as I raise the gun and step forward, pressing it to his forehead. “And now, a woman is going to be the one to kill you.”
I can feel the weight of the gun in my hand, can see the fear in Sal's eyes. I never pictured myself killing anyone, but in this moment, I know this is right.
This is how I put an end to all of it. What my father was, what Sal is, what my past was meant to be.
This is how I step into the future.
"Goodbye, Sal," I say, and pull the trigger.
The gunshot echoes through the room, and Sal's body jerks once before going still. Blood drips from the bullet wound in his head, and his head falls back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
It's over.