Chapter 29
Bella
I storm out of my father’s lab. Kaiser’s waiting there. He probably followed our shouting down the stairs. “Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say in a flat voice.
My father followed me out. I turn my back on him as if he doesn’t matter.
“I’ll see you at the engagement party,” he says.
“Don’t fucking bother,” I toss over my shoulder and walk out. Fuck him.
Fuck everything.
I thought talking to my father would help, but it never does. My father stands there like a rock and lets my rage wash over him, and in the end, he’s not moved.
I hate it so much.
I hate him. He’s my only family, and I love him, but I hate how he is. I hate that I want him to be proud of me.
Well, he made it clear today that he’ll never be proud of me.
If that’s true, then I have nothing to lose.
It’s time to fully enter my supervillain era.
By the time I get to the car, all my emotion is spent, and I feel like curling into a ball under an oak tree and hibernating until the leaves cover me. I could do it, too. Kaiser would protect me.
He’s the one who watches over me, not my father. What I said was true. Everything my father told me was probably true, too. We’ve laid out the brutal facts between us, and nothing is solved.
I’m so tired.
“What happened?” Kaiser asks.
I don’t answer. I don’t look at him. He might as well be a chauffeur.
“Do you want to go to the bookstore?” He’s offering an olive branch. He’s being so sweet, and of course, he is. I drugged him to want to take care of me. “Or to Pane P’s? You wanted to try those new muffin things.”
“Cruffins.” I try to force a smile, but it doesn’t work. “Just take me home.”
My father’s voice plays over and over in my head.
You don’t live in the real world.
If you were capable of strategy…
I will spare you the details of everything they did to her…
Kaiser is merging onto the highway toward Metropolis when I sit up. “Wait. Take me to the city morgue.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“There’s something I have to do.” My breath comes faster, remembering what my father said. Livia’s body is unclaimed. It will go to a pauper’s grave as a message to everyone who would mess with the family.
I fucked up. I want to make it right. But then I realize this is nuts. What am I going to do, walk in and claim a body? I’m no relation to Livia.
I need to start thinking things through.
I slump in my seat. “Never mind.”
Kaiser hesitates. He’s doing all the right things and trying to make me feel better. All because I made him love me.
I don’t deserve him. I should tell him everything now and let him put me out of my misery.
But no. The pain I’m feeling—that’s what I deserve.
I deserve all this misery, and more.
At dusk, Kaiser finds me in the greenhouse.
“I made some calls,” he says. “Pulled some strings. Here.” He sets a plain white urn on the work table.
I stare at it, not understanding until he says, “Livia Vesuvio’s ashes. St. James called in a favor at the Metropolis morgue.”
“You were listening,” I say.
“Yes.”
I close my eyes, feeling very tired. “Cameras?”
“Yes.”
I nod. My father was right to be circumspect.
I wait until the moon rises and head out the back door of the greenhouse.
Kaiser follows me at a distance, into the forest and the orchard beyond. I don’t try to lead him into a trap. I avoid all poisonous things. I’m poisonous enough, just by myself.
I don’t want to spread the ashes; it doesn’t feel right. One day, her children will be found, and they’ll want them.
Where do I put her?
The wind picks up, rustling the leaves of the hazel tree above me. It’s a big tree—bigger than any hazel tree I’ve ever seen—with a hollow at the base of its largest branches. Someone’s hammered toe holds up the trunk.
I climb up and place the urn there. I wrapped it in a plastic bag to keep it safe from the elements or a curious squirrel. Livia will be safe up there.
When I climb back down, I lean against the tree. I feel Kaiser’s presence; he’s close, but he’s in stalker mode. Giving me space.
He’s here for me, but I have to do this alone.
You never think of the consequences, my father told me. And he’s right. I didn’t think of what would happen when Livia sought me out and begged me to sell her a poison to end her abusive husband’s life.
I couldn’t have predicted this. Would I have done it if I’d known what would happen?
I don’t know, but I think so. Because sometimes doing something right leads to bad things happening.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m so sorry.”
And then I’m sobbing and can’t stop. For all the mothers who do their best to stand up to evil men but die anyway. For their children who will grow up without their love.
For my own mother and my childhood self.
You need to grow up, my father said.
He’s right.
Kaiser picks me up and carries me back to our bedroom. He handles me like a child, washing my face and putting me to bed, but I don’t fall asleep.
It’s midnight when I sit up. Kaiser is sleeping deeply when I slip out of bed. He frowns but doesn’t stir.
I head back down to my greenhouse. To the small dark room beside it, where I keep the most potent poisons. Some I use to kill weeds. Some I use to kill pests.
Some I’ve used to kill men, but no one knows about that.
What I have with Kaiser is new. Fragile. A fresh green sprout breaking from the soil. So easy to rip out. So easy to kill.
He’s told me we can have a life together.
But I refuse to be a pawn in this game.
They can make me marry him, but they can’t make me be anything but a wife in name only.
Whatever we have between us cannot grow, so it’s best to pull it out by the roots while it’s small. Before it’s taken hold.
I would mourn what we could’ve had, but the time for tears is over.
I need to grow up.
I open one jar filled with a thick white liquid. It’s a balm made of different compounds distilled from tansy, larkspur, and hellebore and causes blistering, pain, and nausea. I spread it over my skin.
Pain bursts through me, searing every nerve. My mouth opens in a scream.
I can’t cry out; it’ll wake Kaiser. I shake with the force of holding the sound in.
It feels like dying. It feels like everything I am is burning away.
And it feels like absolution.
I open another jar and another. I dig out all the poisons and smear them on my skin. I open the vials and gulp the tinctures down.
It hurts, but it’s necessary.
I know the mistake I made with the Vesuvios. I thought I wasn’t strong enough to take them on. I thought I needed to wait, to hone my abilities at Mafia University and build resources.
But I’m Belladonna Bosco. Poison runs in my veins.
I should’ve made sure I killed them all. Dominus, the don, and all of his sons, his capos, not just Alfredo. Instead, I waited, and Livia and her children paid the price. Her death, and possibly theirs, is on my head.
Everyone underestimates me. Fraternitas. My father. Even Kaiser. But not after this.
I will make the Vesuvios pay. It’ll mean the end of the alliance, but everyone will know what I’ve done. Kaiser will hate me forever, but I deserve that.
Those are the consequences of my actions, and I accept them.
But I refuse to be weak. I’ll prove to everyone once and for all who I am: a supervillain.
I fight through the pain raging through my body, gripping the side of the work table until I can stand without shaking. I continue to coat myself in the poisons.
It’s time for the Endgame.
Kaiser
Bella’s not beside me when I wake up in the morning. It’s not unusual, but something feels off. The house is too quiet, and the empty space next to me feels wrong. I trust my instincts.
I call her name, and when she doesn’t answer, I head down to the greenhouse.
I’m still cursing myself for taking her to her father.
I should’ve known when he asked to see her that he was going to be an asshole and upset her again.
When I listened to the conversation replay, I got why she’s so upset.
She pleaded with him for an explanation, a sign that he cared about her, and instead of listening and reassuring her, he just turned cold.
I’m tempted to order her never to see him again. She’d hate me for it, but it might be for the best.
Except, I don’t want to give her orders anymore. I don’t want to force her to do anything anymore. I don’t want to lock her in a cage.
But I never want to see that lost look on her face again.
In the car, she was a shadow of herself.
That’s why, as soon as she went to the greenhouse, I got on the phone with St. James to negotiate the release of Livia Vesuvio’s remains.
He argued with me, saying it wasn’t smart to get involved in the Vesuvio’s business like this.
He’s spent weeks trying to get them to agree to a truce.
Claiming Livia’s ashes will piss them off, but it was the right thing to do. St. James didn’t like it, but he has a soft spot for this sort of thing, and in the end, he caved and made it happen.
I thought laying the ashes to rest would help her, but Bella cried herself to sleep.
She may still be upset. I need to find her.
I open the door to the greenhouse. The thick scent of greens and flowers hangs in the humid air. “Bella?” I call. I don’t see her anywhere. She’s not standing at any work table or bending over the plants.
Did she run? My heart rate speeds up, ready to run after her. But Argos would’ve alerted me if she left the premises.
I’m about to pull out my phone and check the cameras around the perimeter when I notice her lying on the daybed under the windows.
She lies there, fast asleep, bathed in the morning light.
She’s wearing her favorite hot pink gardening gloves.
She must have been up early to garden and decided to take a nap.
I move to her side, quietly so she doesn’t wake. She looks so peaceful like this, if a little pale. I crouch by her.
“Bella. Bella, wake up.”
No response. That’s when I notice her breathing is shallow.
I touch her forehead. Her skin is clammy. Her sweat coats my fingers. I take her hand, lift it, and let go to test her reflexes. It falls limp at her side. She doesn’t flinch at all. She’s completely out.
Dread rises in my throat, choking me, and alarm bells screech in my mind. I try to wake her again, but she doesn’t respond.
I check her pulse. She still has one, but she looks like she’s on death’s door.