Chapter 50
Luciano
I came back from whatever haze I’d slipped into, and it felt like my world had tilted. My father’s body was slumped forward, mouth still parted in shock. His eyes—cold, dead. Blood pooled beneath the chair like spilled ink. He was gone. Dead. At her hands. My Ava.
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Something inside me cracked wide open, a soundless scream trapped in my throat.
Saint stood behind me, his gun still smoking from the guards he’d just put down. He looked at me once and understood everything I needed from him. He nodded.
“I’ll make sure no one comes in the house. I'll call the cleanup crew. Get the story worked out in our favor,” he said.
I took Ava. I grabbed her by the wrist—rougher than I would have two hours ago. I dragged her past Saint, past the dead guards, and up the stairs. She didn’t resist. Not once. Her face was unreadable, eyes locked ahead like she was somewhere else.
I slammed the bedroom door behind us and let her go, pacing three steps before turning back.
“Explain.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Explain?”
I pointed a shaking hand at her. “Don’t play with me. How did you plan this? Was Aria involved?”
Her mouth twitched. “You think Aria helped me?”
“Didn’t she?”
“No, why would I involve a pregnant woman in this” she said indignantly. “She had nothing to do with this.”
My hands fisted at my sides. “Then who?”
She walked past me—calm, collected—and sat on the edge of the bed like we weren’t standing in the aftermath of her murdering my father.
“I finally stopped lying. I told my cousins my mother didn’t run away on our wedding night.”
My blood sped up.
“Dre came back from Cali to help me.”
I stared at her.
“He’s the reason the cars went boom,” she said. He did it when you followed Aria and I, like I knew you would. I needed a distraction to get your father alone.”
My head throbbed. “But you killed my father?” I couldn’t believe I was saying those words. I didn’t think she was capable.
“So?” she laughed, and it sounded cold. “So you can hunt down the people who killed your mother, cut off their heads, keep them in glass cases and call it vengeance, call it grief—but I have to show restraint?”
I didn’t answer. She was right.
“Fuck that,” she snapped, her voice rising. “You loved your mother? Good. I loved mine too.”
“You used what I gave you,” I said, my voice flat. “Turned it into a weapon and aimed it back at my father.”
She stood now. “Yes.”
“You asked me to train you… knowing you’d kill my father?”
“No,” she said. “I hadn’t planned on doing any of this. But your father decided he wanted to act like my mother deserved what he did to her. I was so hurt.”
She paused.
“And then I remembered what Aria told me that night I was kidnapped. That if I was going to survive this world with you, I’d have to be harder.”
I took a step back.
“Soft women get eaten alive,” she said. “You let me kill Matteo. You gave me the power. Showed me what I was capable of. And it gave me the courage to kill your father.”
"I'm like you now," she said softly, her eyes steady on mine. "I told you I wanted to be."
There was no apology in her tone. Just fact. And everything she said was factual. I understood her.
My breath stopped.
“I created this,” I muttered, more to myself than to her.
She tilted her head. “No. Your father did.”
She stared at me like she hadn’t just said the most damning sentence of her life.
She was right, though. To her, my father was like the men who created me.
Still, I hadn’t felt this much anguish in a long time.
Everything inside me felt twisted. My jaw locked. My hands twitched.
I knew what I had to do.
I pulled my gun.
Her eyes widened. “Luciano…”
I didn’t need to hear anything else.
I knew what I had to do. It was the only logical think after everything that happened.
I aimed at her—
I hadn't cried in years. Buttears ran down my cheeks today as Ipulled the trigger.