40. Bianca
Bianca
The paperwork blurs, and I swipe angrily at my eyes.
I shouldn’t cry over him, but so much has happened, and seeing Marco with Gen so soon after our implosion feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He was the first person who understood me.
Not the me I showed everyone else, but the woman I was beneath all of that.
He not only saw the messy, ugly parts of my heart, he accepted and celebrated them wholeheartedly. For a short, sweet period, he trusted me enough to let me behind his walls. Finding myself outside them again leaves me bereft and cold.
Marco chose me, the first person who ever has, and in that choosing, I found a place to belong.
Now, I have nothing, not even the position Elio’s paid for with his life.
Storming out of the gala early like I did was foolish, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of facing Marco any longer.
Not when I know just how far I’ve fallen.
It’ll only be a matter of time before he and everyone else hears about my demotion.
He’ll probably rejoice.
With nothing else to occupy my thoughts, I’m in my office reviewing what I know about Il Silenzio.
It’s the one place in the house I can go where Father doesn’t force his way in and the only room where I feel safe.
Marco took the files about Silenzio with him when he escaped the Library, so I’m poring through Father’s records for any mention of the assassin.
How did Aldo track him down in the first place?
Reclining in my seat, I tug the bobby pins from my hair.
I’m still in the mustard-colored dress Father demanded I wear to the gala.
He knew the yellow would wash me out, but I couldn’t summon the energy to protest. The zipper on the side digs into my skin, but I’m too afraid to go to my room and change.
So long as I’m here, at least I’ll receive some sort of warning before Father finds me, though that won’t matter much. If he wants to get in, he’ll get in.
I lick my upper lip nervously, my attention darting to the poison on my desk. The vial was still in my purse, where I’ve kept it ever since Livia passed it to me at the coffee shop.
I spin the glass in my hands.
No matter what Marco believes, I never truly considered him a target. The man whose drink I imagined slipping poison into, the man who I pictured convulsing on the floor, his heart bursting in his chest, has always been Aldo.
Could I really do it? Could I kill my own father?
The office door crashes open, causing me to jump. Aldo looms in the doorway, cattle prod already in hand. The terror swamping me is so sharp and cruel that my body goes numb beneath its assault.
“Where. Is. She?” His eyes are trained on me, his expression twisted and evil. I fold my hands across the desk to hide the trembling.
“Somewhere safe.” No point in playing dumb now. “I had her moved this morning while you were still asleep. Livvy can’t survive another one of your tantrums. I’ve tucked her away somewhere you’ll never find her.”
Thank God Luca was still willing to help me. He assured me that until the ink dries on the divorce papers, I remain the wife of his don and my requests remain orders.
Cocking his head, Aldo narrows his eyes. “You always thought you were so damn smart.” He prowls inside, slamming the door shut behind him, and I grip the edge of the desk to stop myself from trying to flee.
“Do you know how much I’ve invested in you?
” His steps are slow and measured, but they may as well be bombs dropped on my psyche given how they destroy all the hope within me.
“The time, the money, the sacrifice that went into molding you into what you are…” He shakes his head.
“Just for you to turn out to be my greatest failure.”
My voice wavers, but the words come out more confidently than I anticipate.
“You’re the only one who ever saw me like that.
” Talking back, speaking my mind… It’s unknown territory, and I pick my way along carefully, struggling to keep my footing.
“Anyone else would have been proud to call me their daughter.” I rise to my feet, fighting to stay upright, and edge away from the desk as he inches closer.
“No matter what I do, I’ll never be good enough for you.
Not because of anything I’ve done, but because you’re a small, unhappy beast of a man on the inside, and there’ll never be any fixing you. ”
The cattle prod crashes down. I roll across the carpet, dodging the computer monitor that sails against the back wall. Electricity sizzles in the air as I retrieve my knife from the sheath around my thigh and clench it tightly in my fist.
Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have fought. I would have prostrated myself across the desk and let him beat me like a dog until his anger was spent. Once upon a time, I would have curled into a ball on the ground and sobbed, grateful that he found me before Livia.
But that me died a lifetime ago.
As tumultuous as living with Marco was, he taught me how to bite back.
He showed me that my imperfections and messiness don’t mean I’m unworthy of love or that I deserve humiliation and punishment.
Now that I know that someone can care for who I am instead of who I’m pretending to be, I refuse to shrink myself back into the prison my father created for me.
The Ice Princess is dead.
Long live the Queen.
“You fell in love with him, didn’t you?” Aldo’s voice is deceptively neutral. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re not related to her by blood, but you and Dulce are a lot alike. She fell in love with Gio, after all.”
Rotating his head, he spits as if even the name Argento is too disgusting to hold in his mouth for long. A dark light burns in his eyes, illuminating an endless, yawning greed. I nearly stumble backward to escape that hollow void, except you can’t run from a rabid hound.
“That bitch threw me away when she knew damn well she was supposed to be mine.” His hand clenches around the cattle prod until his knuckles blanch.
My lips part as a dark, almost unbelievable realization dawns. I straighten slowly. “It was you, wasn’t it? You…you murdered Dulce.”
Aldo drums his fingers on the desk. His teeth flash in a manic smile. “Put a bullet in her and watched her bleed out in the gutter like the trash she was. It was the least I could do after she betrayed me, after she betrayed this family.”
“But I thought…Enzo said…”
He sneers. “Enzo was too soft. Even after everything, he felt guilty for excluding her from the family.”
My breath escapes me in a rush, and tears blur my vision. I can only imagine what Marco’s mother went through. Dodging my father’s advances all her life until she could escape this family, only to be gunned down by the one man she probably detested the most.
Aldo waves the weapon at me like a wagging finger. “I gave Dulce and your mother everything and would have placed the world at their feet if they’d only learned to obey.”
He swings the cattle prod again, and the window behind the desk shatters into thousands of tiny fragments.
“But you women…none of you know how to behave.” For a moment, it’s almost like he’s talking to himself.
Then he glares at me, his eyes nearly black.
“How dare you have the gall to hide my own daughter from me?”
“You will never see Livia again.” I practically hiss my response. “She’s done playing whipping girl for you.”
Lurching toward me, Aldo seizes the desk chair and launches it into the wall. “Is that so? You fucking rat.” The plaster next to the window buckles beneath the assault. “You’re more of a threat to this family than Marco Argento will ever be.”
He swings at me, and I dart out of his way, as lithe on my feet as I’ve always been. In his haste to keep up, he stumbles, his massive bulk working against him. “Fortunately for me, unlike that miscreant you’ve been spreading your legs for, I know better than to spare the life of a turncoat.”
The cattle prod flies toward my chest. I duck beneath it, darting in past Aldo’s defenses and slashing my knife wide. My dress clings to my legs, inhibiting my movement, and I strain until the material splits at the seams.
My knife opens a hole in his shirt, and a sudden patch of crimson blooms. A copper scent permeates the air as I circle him, my blade dancing again and again. I slice his back and arm in two places, and dark blood coats my hands.
It’s the same color as Livia’s. For some reason, part of me always believed he was invincible, like some sort of terrible, soulless monster. But men who bleed red are men who can die, not immortals who live forever.
Aldo’s eyes widen in shock. He entered the room assuming he could handle me the same as always, the way he handles Livia, but he understands now.
I’m not my sister. I’m not as beautiful or charming.
And I’m definitely not as good.
Livia is sacrifice and forgiveness, while I am death in a pair of Louboutin heels. And Aldo can see his end written all over me.
Roaring curses at me, he hefts the cattle prod in a two-handed grip and tries again. I sidestep the blow and arch my knife up to slash his left bicep. Close to the main artery, but not quite deep enough.
Flipping the blade to my other hand, I drop to my knees and slide behind him to slice his Achilles tendon.
This should have brought him down, but he’s wearing his ankle holster today, and the leather strap surprises me. Lightning fast, Aldo grabs me by the hair, yanks me to my feet, and drives his fist into my face.
“Fucking rat.” He punches me again, and copper seeps into my mouth.
The vision in my right eye darkens as the lid swells shut.
He hits me a third time, and I release the knife so I can try to stop his fist. “Fucking squeal for me, rat.”
A fourth blow knocks my tooth from my mouth and whips my head so sharply to the side, I worry I fractured a vertebrae. My ears ring…or maybe I’m screaming. Not sure which. He lets me go, and I crash to the carpet, my back arching as blood and saliva dribble past my busted lip.
My phone is on the floor beneath the desk. I crawl for it, desperate to call Marco, but Aldo jumps on me like a wild animal. The cattle prod lashes across my back, and electricity jolts into me, reshaping my synapses. I’m still seizing when he flips me over.
Straddling my thighs, he poises the cattle prod over my throat. “Was it worth it, Bianca?”
I’m unsure if he means standing up to him, hiding Livia, or falling in love with Marco, but the answer to all three is the same. Red liquid bursts from my mouth and splatters my cheek as I laugh, spitting my lip even more. “Oh, absolutely.”
A guttural growl escapes him. His arm rears back for one more strike, and the world goes blessedly dark.