Chapter 42 #2
“My daughter gave you an heir,” he grits out, trying to squirm out of the rope that’s probably digging into his skin at this rate. “That’s all that you should care about. We’re the reason Bastian exists.”
“You’re also the reason that his mother is dead,” I counter, temper rising. “He could have inherited his mother’s disease too. You know that, don’t you? And then where would we be?”
“But he didn’t,” Sara bursts out, finally getting ahold of herself enough to speak.
Apollo pins her with a look that makes her shrink, replying darkly, “Something you had no way of knowing would be the case.”
“The point still stands,” Ezio tries to argue, but my brother isn’t done.
“Do you know what happens to people who lie to our family? To those sorry souls who think they’re clever enough to pull one over on the Moretti family?”
Sara shakes her head rapidly, trying to deny it. “We didn’t.”
She can’t even clarify what she means to deny. Tsk tsk.
“Oh, but you did.” I look between the two of them, trying to imagine how good it will feel to do the same thing once they’re lying bloody and unconscious at my feet.
“You forced your daughter to pretend to be a perfectly healthy woman so she could win you the connection you so desperately wanted to score. How does it feel to be so close to the rulers of The Outfit now, hmm?”
“What are you going to do to us?” Sara finally asks. No, pleads.
She’s dying to know if I’m going to end their lives, and if I am, how merciful I’m willing to be in the process.
Some men won’t kill women brutally, even if they’ve earned it.
They’d offer them a pill, or an equally soft method.
Something that allows them to drift into sleep only to never wake up again.
But something tells me Sara Sala wouldn’t offer her daughter that kindness if the roles were reversed, and so I’ll follow her example.
“I thought about giving you both cancer, like they do to lab rats so they can try to cure them,” I muse, crossing my arms as I step closer.
Cleo’s mom flinches so hard that her chair rocks and the legs click hard against the floor.
“There’s no realistic way to give you both Huntington’s to force you into living with what your daughter had to go through, so cancer seemed like the next best thing.
Aches and pains, confusion, cognitive decline…
But even if I could give you her condition and force you to live with it, I could never recreate her circumstances. ”
“Leon, please—”
I ignore her mother’s pleading and continue, “I can’t make you children again, so that you can grapple with your life expectancy before you even mature into your teens.
I can’t pressure you into hiding your condition for the benefit of others, and I can’t recreate the fear your daughter felt when she thought she may have passed her genes onto our son. ”
“Cleo knew what she was doing,” her father growls. “She agreed.”
“Is that what you tell yourselves?” My lip curls up in a sneer. “That you had her consent to shackle her with this life?”
Cleo agreed under duress at best. She was manipulated and molded into the woman she came to be, and no other choices were presented to her. How can you agree to something when it’s actually the only option?
“You chose for her,” I counter. “She agreed because you didn’t allow her to object.”
“If we hadn’t shackled her to you, your son wouldn’t exist,” Sara snarls, finally letting her anger show through her scared little wife act. I knew she couldn’t hide behind fabricated fear and surprise for long. She had to have known this was coming. She’s a cruel woman, but not an ignorant one.
“If I didn’t have my son, I would have simply blown up your house when your daughter died, cagna.
” My chest swells with satisfaction at the fear glowing behind her eyes.
“I wouldn’t have bothered to come here and deal with you personally.
I wouldn’t have given you the time, or the courtesy to inform you of your fates. ”
Ezio scoffs. “You think this is a courtesy? Blowing us up while we slept would have been kinder.”
“I know.” I grin wolfishly. “I’m not just taking revenge for your daughter, you know.
My son deserves to know that you were punished rightfully.
He’ll hate what you did to his mother, whether it resulted in his creation or not.
He’s a very honorable boy, even at his young age.
I can’t let you off easily, for both of their sakes. ”
“Both,” Sara mutters, chewing on the word like it tastes terrible. “That other boy is not our concern.”
“Is that why you decided in your infinite wisdom to make up lies about him? To try and tarnish my wife’s name? A woman who’s only loved and cared for Bastian and Leo since she came into our lives? The woman who took on a role that your daughter wished for on her deathbed?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lies, trying to hide her deceit. She can’t hide her little smirk, though. She’s proud of herself for what she’s done, even though she’s about to pay the highest price for it.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Or did you just assume I would kill you and you wanted to get one last jab in before dying?”