5. Darragh
Chapter 5
Darragh
F ucking Fabbri fucked me over and I should have fucking known he would. Don’t know why I expected any better from the Sicilian piece of shit. He deserves far worse than the nice sunny flight with the sudden stop on the pavement below that I just gave him.
He deserves to have his balls ripped out, sliced open, then emptied into his eyes.
But he’s not some low-grade mafia nobody who’d only be missed by his own mammy. He’s a Toronto city councillor. Or was , if the meat-sack thud that just cut off his scream is any indication. He’s too public, too well-known for me to just make him disappear without a massive investigation. A staged suicide is certainly more boring, but in these circumstances it’s the better move.
I step away from the glass at the edge of the roof and fix the chairs Fabbri knocked over in his pathetic attempt at escape. Rage writhes within me like a living thing, unsatisfied with the near-bloodless way I killed him. I know from experience that this is the sort of anger that won’t go down easy – not without my knife in the guts of some poor sod. But I don’t have anyone else on my hit list today.
I’ll fight instead. Get inside the ring and beat the shit out of somebody – or maybe three or four somebodies – so that I can fucking sleep tonight.
I’m ready to split when the sound of shattering glass makes me pause.
A woman rises, shuddering, from where she’s apparently been sitting this whole time. I don’t know how I missed her with that black dress and black hair against all the sunbaked white furniture. Wet glass sparkles at her feet – a drink she’s just dropped.
This could be a problem. It’s not like I can just throw Fabbri’s whore, whoever she is, over the roof with him. There’s not a woman alive in this world who’d kill herself out of grief for that greasy dipshit. No one would believe it. And if I kill her another way, it’ll make Fabbri’s death look a lot less like suicide and a lot more like somebody purposely made him go splat on the pavement.
I could take her with me. Kill her somewhere else. But it’s already going to be tricky getting out of here without being noticed, let alone with some wriggling, screaming Italian girl in my arms.
She’s not screaming, though. Why isn’t she screaming?
She’s half-hunched, one hand in a fist banging against her belly, the other clawing at her throat. Dark hair hangs in front of her face, but I see the food on the plate nearby and I know what’s happening.
She’s choking on something.
I move closer to be sure. I don’t hear the sound of breathing.
Well. If that isn’t damn good luck, I don’t know what is. She’ll die choking on something she swallowed all by herself, not from anything I did. Couldn’t have wrapped this up any neater if I’d fucking tried.
I start walking again, passing her. I expect she’s about to collapse.
But she doesn’t.
She seizes on my arm, and in that little manicured hand is the strength of fucking God, dragging me to a halt. Dark red nails dig deep into my flesh, breaking the skin.
Some fucking nerve, this one. But that’s what imminent death tends to do to a person. Turns them into a puddle of piss. Or makes them ballsy.
And you’d have to be ballsy to grab my fucking arm that fucking way in this fucking city. Grabbing it like it belongs to her.
“Let go.” I grasp her wrist, ready to wrench her hand away.
That’s when I see her face.
This isn’t some expensive escort or a tipsy, nameless girl from the party downstairs.
It’s Valentina fucking Titone.
Daughter of Cosa Nostra royalty Vincenzo Titone. Cousin to Elio Titone, a man I’d happily stuff dick-first into a barrel of acid if I ever got the goddamned chance.
I’ve never seen her up close in person like this, but there’s no mistaking her face. The distinctive heart shape of it, with the high, soft cheekbones and the delicate, pointed chin. You’d have to be a fool not to know who she is. It took me way too long to notice it myself. It’s because her long hair is usually lighter in the photos I see of her. Photos that accompany the articles and press releases about whatever bullshit charitable gala or fundraiser the Titones are putting on that month to make everyone forget that they’ve built their vast empire on the foundations of this city’s spilled blood.
Just like I have.
“This hair colour suits you,” I say. I drop her wrist and seize her chin.
It does suit her.
So do the tears streaking dark lines of makeup down her cheeks.
A Titone dying right in front of me. God really is too good.
Maybe I’ll stay a little longer than I’d planned. Just to watch the show.
She’s got to be close to losing consciousness now. But she’s a stubborn fucking fighter, like her da and her cousins, I guess. Because she only digs her claw-like nails in harder. Blood wells and rolls down my arm. Her other hand rises, then clasps the front of my shirt, pulling so hard that in any other circumstance I’d assume she was desperate to press her mouth against mine.
“What?” I ask, bending towards her. Just a little. “You want me to kiss you? You can’t possibly think that I’d save you.”
She’s the only witness to the murder I just committed. She’s a massive liability, not to mention a Titone – an integral member of a family I would love to see go completely fucking extinct. If she died, I’d go dance a merry little jig on her grave.
And then I’d piss on it.
So why the fuck am I leaning closer to her now?
I always thought her eyes would be dark brown, like her cousins’ eyes, or like my right eye, but they’re not. They’re bloodshot and swollen and ringed with ruined makeup, but the irises are scathingly clear. They’re the colour of sunlight hitting a tumbler of whiskey at the precise angle to give birth to gold fire in the glass.
Jesus. It’s like bad poetry. I should let her die just for inspiring such a shitty line.
“Here’s the thing,” I murmur, so close to her now that my breath skates across her lips. Her body convulses, but I don’t know if it’s from my proximity or the lack of oxygen. “If I save your life, then that life becomes forfeit. That life becomes mine .”
Her grip weakens on my arm. As if she’s going to let go. Give up. Like making a deal with the mad devil Darragh is a far worse fate than death.
It probably is.
But then, at the last second, she forces strength back into her fingers, squeezing my arm one final, searing time.
She’s made her choice.
And I, apparently, have made mine.
I don’t know why. And I’m fairly certain this choice will fuck me up the ass someday. Maybe someday soon.
But I’m not going to let the Titone principessa die tonight.
Without even realizing I’m doing it until it’s already done, I brush my lips lightly over hers.
Then, I step swiftly behind her back. I lock my fists together in front of her. Before I drive them hard against her belly, I put my mouth to her ear and whisper, “Every breath you breathe belongs to me now, pet.”
One. Two. Three hard slams of my fists below her ribs. Three times her body is jerked violently in response, the same way it would if I were thrusting into her instead of just against her. My front feels hot where she makes contact, like I’ve been sunburned. Toronto humidity and the sweet scent of her hair swirl around me, intoxicating fog.
When the food dislodges and she takes her first sobbing, ragged breath, I realize I’m hard.
Valentina sags heavily in my arms. I adjust my grip, one hand flattening against her belly, the other going to her throat, pinning her against me as she coughs and splutters.
I saw the pictures in the news. I know her birthday, with its giant, gaudy party, was last week. But I can’t help but feel like today is her true birthday. Like she’s taking her first breath all over again. A second chance at life. A life that I now own.
Valentina Titone is mine.
I’m not precisely sure what that means yet. All I know is that it’s true.
There’s screaming below. Sirens stab the air. Vincenzo’s men will no doubt be up here any second, pouring out of that other elevator like hornets. The police won’t be far behind.
“Goodbye for now, pet,” I whisper. “Don’t tell anyone it was me.”
Me who killed him
Me who saved you.
I drag Valentina to the closest couch and dump her shaking body into a heap atop the cushions before I leave.
My arm bleeds all the way home.