Chapter Six #3
“Three years,” I echoed, my throat tight with useless emotions.
Amelia pressed her small palms against my bare back in silent reassurance, and I relaxed slightly.
I swallowed down the pain and sorrow to glare at my cousin.
“Do you know what I went through these last three years while you were free to join a revolution?”
Niccolo’s eyes scanned my naked torso. “I can guess.”
I shook my head. These scars didn’t even tell half the story. They didn’t show the many ways in which Lamorgese and his men had humiliated me and made me feel less than human. Sometimes I still tasted the vileness of everything they forced me to eat in my mouth.
“Come, Nestore. Remo will give you a great future.”
Niccolo moved backward but kept his eyes on me.
Maybe he realized the danger he was in. I glanced back at Amelia, who watched me with huge, anxious eyes.
I wanted her to be safe, but for that to happen, I had to become powerful, more powerful than Lamorgese, more powerful than my father even. I couldn’t do this alone.
I squeezed her hand and tugged her along as I followed Niccolo into the ballroom.
It was littered with dead guards, but several of them were alive and kneeling on the floor with guns pointed at them by Remo’s men. Their eyes flitted to me, shock and revulsion twisting their faces, before they looked away.
Remo and the other Falcone brother waited in the middle of the vast room. I wondered where his two youngest brothers were. If he were anything like Benedetto, he’d probably have killed them.
Remo looked like he considered himself the king of this place. As Capo, he technically was, but I wanted to become the master of these walls again.
“You decided to join us,” Remo said with a twisted smile.
I didn’t return the smile. I allowed my eyes to take in the splendor of the ballroom. This room used to be filled with good memories for me, but now all I could think of as I scanned the hardwood floor was how father’s blood and bowels had spilled on it.
“You are both injured,” Remo’s brother said.
Amelia’s wrist was swollen. Nobody had treated it. I worried it had been broken two weeks ago.
Remo’s brother stalked toward us and reached for Amelia, so I lunged.
He blocked my weakened body and stepped back, palms raised in a way that erased most of my rage.
“Nobody touches her,” I growled. Amelia cast a terrified look up at my face.
She didn’t have to be afraid. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her ever again. I had failed her for too long.
His cool gray eyes took me in with a calm I couldn’t fathom. “She’s yours.”
“Mine,” I exhaled. Mine. Nobody would ever hurt Amelia again. I had been powerless for too long, unable to help my dove. Never again. I tucked Amelia closer. She was mute, shaking in my hold, her cheek pressed against my sternum. Too much had happened.
The brother exchanged a look with Remo. While they shared facial features and dark hair, the calm gray in the brother’s eyes was replaced with dark irises that reflected the same feverish rage and hunger for destruction that ravaged my broken body. The same blood, but so different.
“My brother Nino can tend to your wounds. And hers,” he said, eyes firm on mine, cautious but not hostile.
“Why are you here?” My voice lacked the gratefulness I felt for the freedom he had given me, but a savior could be a new enemy in disguise. With Amelia’s safety on the line, I couldn’t risk being trusting. Trust was a luxury I would never risk again.
“I am Remo Falcone, the man who’ll rule over the entire Camorra once all the rats are off the ship. And you, Nestore, can rule as Underboss under my rule. The Romanos were loyal.”
“Loyalty got my father killed by your father. Loyalty turned me into a prisoner of a monster.”
“You were loyal to a man who never understood what that phrase means. My father was a monster.”
“And you’re not?” I narrowed my eyes at the blood covering his clothes and skin. He carried it like a badge of honor. Blood was his friend, but it was mine too.
He laughed, a rough sound that made Amelia flinch in my hold. I tightened my arm around her, my muscles tautening. “Oh, make no mistake, I’m a monster of his making, but I’m a monster that rewards loyalty and values it over blood. What about yourself, Nestore? Do you reckon yourself not monstrous?”
I bared my teeth. “Are you worried I’m too monstrous to control?” I’d die before I’d let anyone cage me in again, but I would take as many lives with me as I could.
A hard smile twisted Remo’s mouth. “Do I look like someone who concerns himself with control? You can unleash your monster as long as you are loyal to me.”
I tilted my head. “I’m not sure I want to rule over the men who followed Lamorgese’s command. I have other plans for them.”
“It’s curious that you hold a Lamorgese in your arms when another made you suffer more than most humans can fathom.”
Amelia released a shuddery breath against my bare chest.
“She’s the reason I’m still here. She’s the air I breathe, the water I drink, the food I crave. She’s the reason for everything.”
Something wet hit my chest. I peered down at Amelia’s crown, catching a tear glittering on my scarred chest. I had seen too many of Amelia’s tears.
I could see that Remo didn’t understand what I meant. “You choose the men you rule over. What you do to the others is your decision. But make sure they aren’t the rats we want to purge from our territory. I think you have a loyal right-hand man in your cousin Niccolo.”
As a boy, I had imagined myself ruling over Los Angeles, over my city. But now? What I craved with a bone-crushing intensity was revenge. The first taste of it still lingered on my tongue.
I wiped the back of my hand across my lips. My skin came away covered in silky blood, beautifully red. It was a familiar sight, but for once, it wasn’t my own blood. Pain was the static in my bones, the familiar hum under my skin. A life without it? Unfathomable.
Remo scanned me from head to toe. “I have something for you as a present.”
He gave his brother a curt nod. Nino disappeared in long, purposeful strides.
Both men were young, maybe in their early twenties, perhaps even younger.
For them to rule over the Camorra, utmost brutality would be required.
I needed what they had to rule over my territory.
Nobody would take it from me ever again.
When Nino returned, a moment of pure animal fear took hold of me. My heart clenched in anticipation of agony. Nino dragged a struggling Achille into the room. My tormentor.
I despised my body for its initial reaction to Lamorgese. Nino dragged him closer. A bloody trail marked their passage over to us as a wound in Achille’s calf dripped blood.
Amelia lifted her head a fraction, a wispy gasp leaving her lips.
Nino tossed Lamorgese to the ground in front of my feet. Part of me wanted to run, run from a terror born from years of pain and humiliation.
Remo motioned at my tormentor. “He can be yours if you want. Whenever you’re ready, you can serve justice.”
Lamorgese lifted his gaze and noticed me for the first time. Realization morphed into trepidation, then fear in the merciless blue eyes that had regarded me without pity for years.
“Justice?” I echoed. I looked away, unable to bear his gaze, and nodded at Remo. I didn’t know what justice meant. How could I ever get justice for years lost, for all I had endured, and for the horrors Amelia had to endure and witness?
I motioned at Lamorgese without looking at him. “Why didn’t you kill him yourself? It would make you look stronger to kill the man who declared himself Capo.”
Remo came over, and I angled my body to shield Amelia.
“He was one of many who masqueraded as Capo since my Father’s death.
He’s nothing to me.” He gave me a knowing smile.
“I would give anything to kill my father, to exact the revenge I so crave, but you, Nestore, have the power to break the man who tried to break you. You have the power to be the master over life and death, to serve him the pain he deserves. That’s precious, and that’s my gift to you.
I want you by my side when we destroy the men who thought they could rule over my territory and the men who took yours, too. Take your power back.”
I cast my eyes down to Lamorgese, who watched with huge eyes. His expression hardened when our gazes met. “You are too weak to rule. You don’t have what it takes to dish out pain.”
My lips pulled wide as I pushed Amelia behind me. Remo held out a knife, a gleaming silver blade resting on his bloody, scarred palm. “I think you know this blade. It was his.” He nodded at Lamorgese.
He didn’t need to tell me what knife it was. I recognized it the moment I saw it. It had caused me too much agony to ever forget it.
I curled my hand around the cool hilt. Revulsion filled me as I held the very weapon that had ripped agonized screams from my maltreated body.
Lamorgese let out a scoff.
Rage bubbled up in a wave that washed every other emotion away.
I dropped to my knees and rammed the blade into the gap between his tibia and the fibula.
A heavy sense of power overwhelmed me at the flash of pain on Lamorgese’s face.
“I used to be too weak to dish out the pain you deserve, but you turned me into something capable of atrocities I was unable to imagine before your blade cut me the very first time.” I jerked the knife down, parting flesh until I hit bone.
Lamorgese howled with pain, then gritted his teeth.
“This blade won’t be your tormentor beyond today.”
Relief mingled with fear in his eyes. “I don’t fear death.”
I laughed hollowly. “Death? You won’t be granted death, Achille.
This blade won’t be your tormentor because I’ll carve a dagger from the very bone I’m touching now.
And your own bone will be the blade that causes you agony until pain is all you know, until death is the sweet dream you don’t dare to dream.
You honed me into the monster that will haunt your days and nights.
” I slashed down, separating bone from flesh and sinew.
Lamorgese’s screams were the most beautiful melody.
His blood pooled over my fingers. Nothing else mattered.
His pain was my reward. His scream, a balm to my broken soul.