Chapter 26
DOVE
I trained for this. A long time ago.
Months spent with my father as he tortured me with his own hands to ensure that if I ever failed, I wouldn’t spill all the family secrets to the first person to press a blade to my skin.
Hours spent in the dark and cold, the bright and hot.
Beaten and tortured all in the name of love because that’s what it meant to be a Healy.
An underlying threat of a killer shadow was the only way to stay in power.
To most, my father was a kind and fair man and it was mostly true. If you respected him and treated him well then he was exactly that.
Crossing him was where things got dangerous, but there was enough threat shrouding him that no one dared.
Not until Catalina.
My father was so content in his world of criminal mystery that he was grossly unprepared for a full-on assault like Caterina levied against our family.
As skilled as I was, Caterina had the numbers and the fury to overpower everyone.
My family died that night and I swore I would never make the same mistake as my father.
So when the next fist slams into my jaw and sends my head snapping to the side, blood pools in my mouth and catches on my lower lip before trickling to the ground where it splatters against my bare feet.
And I stay silent.
“This can all end,” comes the voice attached to the nameless man who works me over today. “Just tell us where your son is hiding and I promise you, you won’t be strung up like a prized sow anymore.”
I focus on the ground, watching the blood droplets phase in and out of focus.
Hot pain throbs through my entire body.
Every inch of me is sticky with blood or sweat, and my limbs scream for respite against either being hung up from the ceiling or forced to balance on the stone floor on just my knees.
Each day passes in a hot haze, but I cling to the one certainty in my chest that will never fade.
I will never tell them where Alex is.
My silence earns me another blow to the opposite side of my face, and my head snaps once again, sending a spike of sharp pain up to my throbbing skull.
Heat blooms at the site of the blow, but I keep my gaze down and focus on how Alex is still out there, hidden and safe.
And that’s all that matters.
“Can you believe Caterina still has morals?” The voice continues.
Heavy footfalls approach. “I’m not the only one with the perfect idea on how to make you talk but every time we suggest it, she says no.
You really should be thanking her that all I can do is punch you because—.
” He sucks on his teeth, then his meaty hand seals around my throbbing jaw and forces my head up until I’m squinting at the halo of bright light around his shadowed face.
“—because we’d have you talking by the day's end once we were finished with you.”
My stomach rolls. Swiping my tongue along my throbbing gums and loose teeth, I gather the blood building in my mouth and with the last of my strength, I spit it directly into his face. It’s a momentary victory and fully worth the backhand that follows as he snarls in anger.
“You’ll pay for that you fucking—!”
“Leave us.” Another voice cuts through the man’s rage and as my head falls back down between my shoulders, warmth blooms in my chest.
I know that voice.
I love that voice.
It whispers my name like a prayer, murmurs sweet nothings in my ear and remains one of the grounding memories in my mind through the long dark nights locked up here.
That and Alex are the only things keeping me going, and for a long time, I fear Caterina had killed him for hiding me.
For someone so powerful, Felix seemed rather out of the loop on a lot of things but the last time I spoke to that bitch, she claimed he was listening.
The fact that he’s now here and calm somewhat supports that.
“I wasn’t finished,” growls the voice of my torturer.
“I don’t fucking care,” Felix snaps darkly. “Get out before I break your fucking kneecaps and drag you out.”
There’s a scuffling of feet and a deep sigh, then the clink of metal tools and those heavy footsteps retreat with a soft mutter of ‘asshole’.
Then silence.
I don’t speak. I can barely move.
If Felix is still here, I can’t sense him around me.
Maybe I dreamed his voice and whoever arrived is just next in a long line of pain.
That and more sluggishly weave around my mind until suddenly something clicks above me and the manacle around my left wrist opens.
My entire body slumps to the floor but I don’t quite reach it as the manacle around my right wrist remains closed.
The edge of the metal cuts into my skin, but the addition of pain merely melts into the cacophony of agony radiating around my body.
Another click and then that manacle opens and I collapse down onto the cold, stone floor with a pained groan.
“I can’t talk to you while you look like that.” Felix’s voice drifts around me, laced with pain and a familiar uptick of anger. “I need you to answer me.”
“Answer you?” I croak with a throat that hasn’t seen water in at least three days. “What m-makes you think I have a-anything to say… if you’re not here to help me?” Talking is exhausting and by the time I get up onto my hands and knees, then back into a seated position, I’m panting heavily.
Felix stands nearby with his thick arms crossed over his large chest, looming over me like the next threat to my life. I should be scared.
Part of me still is, instinctually.
But the rest of me is relieved to see a familiar face.
I push blood-soaked hair away from my throbbing face with both hands and gaze up at him through one slightly swollen eye. “You’re n-not here to rescue me.”
He doesn’t reply at first. His jaw works back and forth as if there’s too much he wants to say and he’s wrestling with what comes first. I’m too tired to think and far too tired to speak so I just sit there and catch my breath.
And wait.
“Is it true?” Felix asks eventually, his words clipped. “Tell me. No more lies. No more bullshit. Tell me the truth.”
“About?”
“Nico.” Saying his name appears to pain Felix by the way his brows crease. “Did you kill him?”
So he knows everything. I was a fool to think I could keep that secret forever.
For every day that passed where I contemplated telling him the truth to push him away, there was an equal day where I clung to the idea that he would never find out, never judge me, and we could be together forever.
But he already knows the truth. It’s crystal clear in his eyes.
“I want to hear you say it,” Felix snaps and the vein down the length of his neck bulges. “Say it.”
I remain silent.
“Say it!” Felix yells! “Tell me you killed him! Tell me you murdered my best friend, my brother, for no fucking reason! Tell me why? He was the only family I had left, hell he was your friend too! We hung out together so often that it was almost weird when he wasn’t there.
He knew our secret and he protected us, he protected me! How could you do that to him? To me?!”
Flashes of that fateful night ignite in my mind and I close my eyes, focusing on blocking them. I don’t want to remember. I don’t need to.
“How could you look me in the eye now, knowing you did that? How could you fuck me knowing that?”
I open my eyes and our gazes meet. “It was easy.”
“Easy?” he almost chokes on the word and takes a half-step back as if restraining himself from something. “It was easy?!”
I nod slowly, biting back a wince. “For a long time… I thought you killed my family. I thought you were there that night Caterina slaughtered everyone. So I hated you. It was easy to hate you because I thought you were the reason my entire family was dead.”
“Deserved,” he snarls. “For what you did.” A deep breath inflates his chest, and he tears his gaze away, his jaw working overtime as he chews over his words. “I wasn’t there.”
“I know. I didn’t know that then but… at dinner, you let slip about when you heard what happened to my family. That’s when I knew you weren’t there but part of me thought you still knew about Nico and you were just playing a game. A game I played along with to keep myself and Alex safe.”
His head lowers and our eyes meet. “So it’s true. You murdered him.”
Exhaustion makes my shoulders sag and I nod weakly. “I did.”
“Why?” Felix blinks quickly. “How much did they pay you, huh? What was the life of your friend worth? Would you have killed me next if they asked you to? Would you have sliced my throat open for the right fucking paycheck? All this time, I was sleeping with the Nightingale; was it just for show? Did you use me to get close to him?!”
So many questions yelled at me in increasing volume that they’re hard to track.
Felix has questions and part of me wants to answer them all but if I tell him the truth, I’ll only hurt him more.
Despite being in this sorrowful state, I don’t want to do that.
I’ve hurt him enough and the thought of adding to that, even now, sickens me. Hurting him won’t save me.
Telling him the truth won’t save me. I just need him to stay away.
“You don’t know anything,” I whisper, painfully drawing my bare knees up to my bare chest. “I h-have nothing more to say.”
“No!” Felix yells. Ssuddenly he’s in front of me, dragging me onto unstable feet with his hands gripping my upper arms, then he shakes me back and forth. “Tell me the damn truth, Dove! Tell me how could you do it? Tell me what his life was worth!”
I shakily meet his gaze and swallow hard. “Nothing.”
“What?” Felix’s eyes widen.
“I s-said, nothing.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I wasn’t paid. His life had no worth.”
Felix’s grip tightens painfully on my arms, and pain flashes through his eyes. “So he was worthless to you?”
I nod.
“You’re fucking twisted, you know that? What, did you just kill him for free? For the fun of it?”
“No, it wasn’t—.”
“And then you fucking ran away! Left your dead family in the dust, left me without an explanation! How fucking cold can you be?”
“Felix, i-it wasn’t—.”
“Don’t lie to me!” He yells in my face and a wet sheen builds in his eyes. “You broke my heart! You almost killed me and poor Caterina! She lost her only fucking son for nothing, according to you!”
“Fuck Caterina.” Anger curls hot in my aching gut. “I don’t g-give a shit about her.”
“Well I do! But then that’s on par with you, isn’t it? Hurting the people I care about?”
“No, I—.”
“You destroyed me,” Felix continues in rage. “You destroyed me and then you left and shacked up with another fucking man. Went on to live your perfect little life with your son like nothing ever happened!”
He’s wrong. He’s so wrong but he’s so deep in his hurt and his anger that nothing I say will derail him.
“Let go—.”
“Tell me why! Was none of it real? Was I just a fucking joke to you?”
“Let me go—!”
“Was it all some twisted game? I bet you don’t even have a heart in there, do you? Just cold emptiness like a fucking void because who else kills people for fun, huh? No wonder Alex was so angry at you!”
The anger in me turns into an inferno and energy surges through me. I jerk away from him, wrestling against his hold. “Don’t you dare talk about my son.”
“I bet he hates you! I bet he knows exactly what kind of cold, heartless woman you are because only monsters can destroy people and leave carnage in their wake and then fuck off a perfect life without a thought to those she left behind!”
I slap him as hard as I can, barely feeling the pain it ignites in my shoulder or wrist. The impact is strong enough to send Felix stumbling back slightly and his grip releases my arms.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” I yell back, my voice cracking. “I loved you. I loved you with all my fucking heart but that bastard friend of yours wasn’t a friend! Nico was a monster!”
“Shut up!”
“He was a fucking psychopath, okay? He was a twisted fucking bastard and he tried to rape me, okay? He tried to rape me and I killed him for it and I’d do it again, you hear me! I’d do it again!”
Felix’s advancement toward me pauses and his eyes widen. “What did you just say?”