39. Mattia
I stare blanklyin the distance as they lower my father into the ground, trying to contain all the rage I’m feeling inside. I’m battered and bruised, but I can’t feel much apart from the violence bubbling inside me. I have been kept in a shitty dungeon somewhere in fucking Russia for more than half a year, thinking that I’ll never get to see the sun again. They tortured me. They starved me and kept me in chains. I will forever wear the marks around my wrists and the nightmares in my head.
Kazimir Mordvinov killed my father simply because he could. He didn’t want to listen to a word I had to say. The truth is, I wouldn’t have listened if I were in his place. I made a deal with Sevastyan. He freed me, and I promised to help him hide and kill Kazimir. For now, I will honor my word, but the ultimate fate of that rat is sealed. Whether he meets his end before or after Kazimir matters little to me. Perhaps he was right, and Ermanno Benedetti was not my father—certainly not by blood. But it makes no difference to me. He raised me. He made me who I am.
My mother never told me I had a twin brother, so you can imagine the shock that coursed through me when I awoke in captivity, face to face with a mirror image of myself. The initial weeks were tumultuous as I grappled with the realization that my brother is a deranged lunatic. He pretended to be me for half a year. He lived in my house. He drove my cars. He fucked my wife.
That cunt deserves everything I have in store for her.
I didn’t want to distract myself from my father’s funeral. I wanted to be here for my mother and Ludovic.
Now, my father rests in the ground.
Hunting season can begin.