Chapter 2
“Enzo, my sweet boy, what is the matter?” Mamma’s warm palm rests against my cheek, wiping away a single tear and quieting my rage.
My fist slows, stopping before my bloodied knuckles collide with the door once again.
A red sheen glistens against the splintered cherry wood like a stamp of my temper.
“Father took Raf with him to the leaders meeting…again. Am I not good enough, Mamma? I’m just as capable as Rafael.” I pout, turning into her and wrapping my arms around her waist. Her warmth and peace crawl into my body, calming my anger like cool water over burnt skin.
“Moy milyy mal'chik.” My sweet boy, she whispers, running her fingers through my hair, the vibration of her voice echoing louder in my ear as it rests over her heart.
“Do not compare yourself to your brother, you are both exceptionally and beautifully different.” She pulls away slightly, tipping my chin up to meet her gaze.
“Uneasy is the head that wears the crown, my love. Rafael may be the next Don, but what would a king be without his brother? True strength lies with those who hold their head high and remain humble in the service of others. Your position does not determine your worth, Enzo.”
She tucks me back into her, wrapping her arms around my head.
“Ya tebya lyublyu, Mamma.” My voice wobbles as I tell her I love her, holding back the rest of my tears.
“Tvoya lyubov’—moy svet.” Your love is my light.
Her blood runs through my fingers and into the fabric of my dress slacks, warming my skin and saturating my senses with the rich iron scent.
The familiar tang used to bring a light, zealous sense of purpose.
Now, it carries unimaginable pain. I want to cut myself off from the scene, shield my mind from the image of my mother with her throat flayed open.
Instead, I force them to stay locked onto her, burning the image in my mind, the image I’ll conjure when I have that vicious little owl in my hands.
The Bayla Sova took the only pure light in my life, snuffing it out as if she were nothing.
Now she will see what happens when a dimmed heart goes pitch black.
I’ll hunt her down till my last breath, no matter how long it takes.
One day, my fingers will wrap around her throat, my knife will pierce her flesh, and I will revel in the way the light leaves her eyes.
The Romanova bitch is mine.
A growl rumbles up my throat as I fight to contain my rage, my entire body trembling as it courses through my bloodstream.
Raf pockets the white feather and my back teeth grind at her audacity to leave a signature after she took her pretty little blades and ended the life of the purest woman I know.
She’s proud of her work, claiming her kill, and it makes me fucking furious.
“Farò tesoro del modo in cui il suo sangue macchia la mia anima,” I snap, holding back my wrath.
I will treasure the way her blood stains my soul.
“A beautiful mural we will paint,” My brother vows with a cold and calculated promise. His stoic stance, hands casually tucked into his pockets, would fool anyone, but I know the ripple inside his pocket means his fists repeatedly clench around an incriminating white feather.
She’s out there now, somewhere in the forests surrounding our home, running for her life. I could find her, take her to the basement, make her feel every inch of steel as I drive it through her throat, delight in her screams as they fill my mind with the most serene music I have yet to hear.
I go to stand, to chase the Russian bitch down, but footsteps coming down the hall stop me.
“Victoria!” Father’s shout reverberates down the hallway and our spines straighten.
Dante Alessi storms through the library door with his usual brute force. When he takes in the scene before him, his brows crease and bewilderment replaces rage.
He rushes to her, kneeling at her side as he takes her hand in his, holding it to his cheek. My stomach rolls at the false show of affection because that’s all it is. A fucked up delusion my father could never let go of. “What happened?!” he snaps.
I glance to my brother for direction. He’s the anchor in uneven waters—a product of the way he was raised, so unlike me. The king and his hound.
We must tell him something, but this revenge does not belong to our father. He wasn’t capable of love; he only ever wanted to own her. But bringing our special kind of justice to her killer did not and would not belong to the man who caused so much misery and suffering to her life.
“What happened?!” Father barks again.
Rafael puffs out his chest and tilts his chin up, leveling Father with his bold stare. “The Romanova’s sent their Owl, Father.”
“Their Owl? They do not have a trained Owl in their ranks,” he questions, hesitant to believe us.
“They do, Father. We believe this was her first assignment.”
Dante glances from Rafael back to Mamma, a resolve settling over him. “Hunt her down, but do not kill her. I want to play with the little bird first.”
“Yes, Father,” Rafael and I answer simultaneously, heads bowing at his order.
I don’t know how he will manage it, but I know from the warning in my brother’s glare he will not allow Dante to touch what belongs to us. The Owl will be ours, and ours alone to ruin.
“Enzo,” Father barks, rising from the floor, his light grey pants now soaked in crimson, “take her to the basement.”
Without hesitation, I stand, scooping her into my arms and walk out of the library. Her blood trails behind us, matching the burgundy walls of the hallways. Her feather-light body rests in my arms, not even straining my muscles. For so long she carried me, I never imagined I would carry her.
I’ve only cried once before in my life, all those years ago when she held me and told me of the King and his burdens, and still only one tear had fallen back then.
Yet the unwanted sensation of tears now boils in the depths of my eye sockets as I walk through the quiet mansion that never felt like home.
I didn’t cry when someone tied me up and beat me black and blue during a training exercise.
When they chained me to a chair, forcing me to watch my twin receive the same treatment.
When a disgruntled ally captured Raf and I took a bullet to the thigh, not a single tear fell.
When they waterboarded me, when I lost fingernail after fingernail, after all the fucked-up torture I endured as Dante’s hellhound, his devil… his son. I never cried.
Tears are a weakness given physical form and we don’t have any weaknesses.
But now, as I walk down the grand staircase, into the elevator, I find I can’t seem to stop the salty liquid flowing down my cheeks.
Our light, gone and with her any sliver of morality in our hearts.
Entering the sterile room we use for torture, the automatic fluorescent lights flick on, and I hiss through my teeth at seeing her in the full light, grey skin void of life where there was once a vibrant luminosity.
“Lay her on the table,” Father commands. “Clean her up, I will send Doc to,” he snarls as he peers upon her with disgust, “make her more appealing.”
“Father—” Rafael cuts in, stepping toward us.
“Silenzio!” Dante shouts, halting Raf in his tracks. “Do as you’re told.”
My brother’s jaw tenses, and I think he might challenge the Don once and for all, but he concedes, bowing his head.
Father stalks out in silence and Rafael assesses me. “It’s okay, Raf. I can do this.”
He steps up beside me as I lower her. He grasps my shoulder, pouring his strength into me. “We do it together.”
We wash her with warm water, clearing the blood from her almost translucent skin. My fingers tangle in her matted hair, until the strands run freely.
“The next body on this table will be that bitch, then our father,” I snide, still brushing Mamma’s hair, resisting the urge to braid it. I can’t stop myself, even though it runs free of tangles, I can’t bear the thought of letting go.
“We cannot kill our father, Enzo. Not yet. His loyalties run too deep. We bide our time, take his empire from him piece by piece, then and only then will we bleed him dry, like we planned.”
“Loyal to the blood,” I whisper, taking in Mamma’s features for the last time.
“Ruthless as the father.” Raf’s dark stare mirrors my own.
“Diavoli della notte,” we finish together, her face disappearing under a white sheet.