Chapter 59
59
Quinn
F orty-eight hours passed in a haze of fear and broken sleep. I dozed occasionally but had never been far from the surface, a familiar hyper-vigilance spiking my nerves.
The last time I saw my husband, we were fighting. I spun up an argument intentionally, knowing it would make it easier for me to deceive him.
I’m such a fool. Carrie said trust would make or break us, and she was right. It looks like we’ll break forever because I tried to handle a situation alone, never realizing how out of my depth I was.
If I’d only told Roman, he’d have anticipated danger, even if he hadn’t envisaged Silvio being the source.
When I first arrived, he was coherent, if a little wired. Now, he’s making less and less sense, but I’ve been trying to get him to talk to me. After he spun the story of Bianca’s death, I realized how warped his thinking really was.
The tainted armchair feels part of me now; I’ve spent many hours sitting in it. Silvio brings me water and lets me use what passes for the bathroom, a bucket in the corner, but he won’t let me have any food. He tells me it’ll be easier if I’m weak; I’ll die quicker.
The man I know as Ricky—the fake cop who abducted me outside the library—has whiled away two solid days blazing through crystal and gnawing his nails to the quick.
“Silvio,” I say. “You said you’d called Roman. Did you mean it?”
He’s sitting on the floor, his back to the couch. He’s loading his gun, thumbing bullets into the chamber. “You bet I did. He’s on his way. Good news, right? You won’t have to put up with this much longer. The two of you can fuck off to the hereafter and burn for all I care.”
Roman said guilt is the most crippling emotion of all. And after what Silvio told me when I arrived here, I can see it’s guilt that is eating him inside. All his talk of vengeance, hatred, and injustice is just projection, a way of externalizing his self-loathing.
If I can get Silvio to spill about it, he might value me beyond my usefulness in his plan to destroy Roman. Then again, If I make him angry enough, maybe he’ll shoot me.
If I do a good job of messing with his head, he might shoot himself , too; he’s fraying at the edges as it is. Then Roman would be safe from this madman.
“ You murdered the woman you loved,” I say. “You and you alone.”
He glares at me. “She killed me first, bitch. My hope, my heart, everything good in me.”
“But Bianca said no. You weren’t star-crossed lovers; she wasn’t in love with you.”
“So fucking what?” he bellows, making me jump. “I did so much to clear her path to happiness. Do you think it was easy to organize a drive-by shooting to take out her stupid husband? I had to kill everyone involved in that plot to hide my tracks!”
“I don’t understand,” I say, feigning stupidity. “Tell me again. Who told Bianca that Antonio was dead?”
“I did,” he replies. “I came straight here. She was sitting exactly where you are now, and I said nothing stood between us anymore. I’d love her and raise her child as my own. How many women experience that kind of devotion?”
He kicks over an already half-broken coffee table. “I was obsessed, and she was alone. I came to her side and swore I’d protect her, and she fucking laughed .”
He’s wandering away in his mind, no longer in the room. I can see the scene—the distraught Bianca, her belly swollen with a baby whose father had been killed. The brittle, fragile laughter of a woman trying to cling to sanity as her world crumbled around her.
“You know what?” Silvio narrows his eyes. “I hated her at that moment. How dare she mock me after all I’d done for her? So I told her I’d had Antonio murdered. Seeing the smile drip off her face when she realized the trouble she was in was so good, but I didn’t want it to go down the way it did.”
“She must have been petrified,” I whisper. “I get that.”
“I’ll bet you fucking do.” He closes the barrel with a click. “You remind me of her. ‘You’ll never get away with this, Roman will kill you.’ Endless bleating about how her brother would fuck me up when he found out. I pulled my gun to frighten her into shutting her stupid mouth for one goddamn second, and she flew at me.”
God, Bianca was brave. To hurl herself at a love-sick psycho, ready to fight, at five months pregnant? I wish I could have known her.
“She was strong, but I guess that’s the fear,” Silvio continues, his expression imploring me to understand him. “I fucking loved her. I didn’t mean to do it, but she turned into a demon, all claws.
She damn near gouged my eye out, so I kicked her in the stomach, and that settled her good. Shoved her into the chair and the rest is history. Putting the gun in her hand and dressing the scene wasn’t difficult. By the time I left, there was no sign I’d been there.”
This man shot a pregnant woman in the head and made it look like suicide. No wonder he’s desperate to pin the blame elsewhere.
“Roman loved her too, Silvio.” I strive to inject some warmth into my voice. “You were both devastated by her death, but it’s time to face up to what you did.”
“He warned me to stay away from his sister.” He grits his teeth, straining against his rage. “If only he hadn’t forbidden her from loving me?—”
“Was that it?” I sit up straight, growing bolder. “I don’t think so. She fell for Antonio and married him. You don’t know what love is . If you did, you couldn’t do this, and you wouldn’t have been able to hurt Bianca.”
I take a deep breath and go for broke. “You’re at fault here. The call is coming from inside the house, and you know it, right?”
Silvio lifts his gun and presses it to his temple. Lubomski notices what’s happening and hits the deck, rolling behind the couch. Silvio throws back his head, and I watch in fascinated awe as he releases a thin, keening shriek of anguish.
Do it, you piece of shit. End this.
To my horror, he pivots to face me, raises his arm before him, and fires.
I scream, sure I’m already dead, but the bullet smashes into the wall beside me, sending up a plume of chalky dust.
“Nice try, Quinn.” He lowers the weapon and grins maniacally as I start to cry. “Let’s save the bullets for you and your husband, shall we?”