CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE DAMON
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DAMON
PAST
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
The gun is heavy in my palm, far heavier than it’s ever felt before.
I’ve been shooting since I was ten, it’s not like this is my first time holding a weapon. It’s not even my first time holding this gun.
But it is the first time I’ll kill someone, and that’s the difference.
Most would think sixteen is too young to end a life, and maybe they would be right, but it’s a right of passage in the Lombardi family to spill blood on your sixteenth birthday. A coming of age, if you will.
But even knowing this day was coming, I’m not ready.
Not that I would ever tell my father that. He’s been bragging to everyone that works for us that it was time for his eldest son to spill blood for the family for the first time.
My heart beats in my ears so loud I can’t hear a word anyone is saying around me.
There’s laughter and jesting, yelling and drinking, but all I can focus on is the man with the bag over his head in the middle of the lawn by the lake.
I should have asked why we’re doing this out here rather than the cellar, the place that’s dedicated to violence, but I’ve been too busy trying not to throw up at the idea of ending a life.
He would only take the question as a sign of weakness, and as of an hour ago, I’m no longer permitted the luxury of softness.
I’m a man now, and that means I’m expected to be a cold killing machine.
Or at least that’s what Dad thinks.
“You ready, son?” Neil asks, his eyes so similar to his daughter’s it makes it hard to hold his gaze.
By the time the sun rises and word spreads of my first kill, Chloe will never look at me the same way again. The best friend that she’s loved all these years is about to die, and in his place will be a killer. Someone that’s not worthy of her, and I refuse to mar her with the blood on my hands.
I nod, unable to find my voice.
I wish I could do this without an audience. It wouldn’t necessarily make it any easier, but it might ease some of the pressure if I didn’t have fifteen of Dad’s closest men standing around drinking.
He claps his hand on my shoulder and steps toward my father, who says something to him in a hushed whisper. Neil nods once, looks over his shoulder, and then heads toward the main house.
Turning my attention back to the weapon in my palm, I flick the safety on and shove it into the waistband of my jeans.
I wonder how long it’ll take to get used to having the hard metal pressing against my spine, because it feels foreign as hell every time thus far.
A loud whistle fills the air, and the lawn falls quiet as Dad steps up beside the man on his knees in the grass.
Other than the occasional whimper, he’s been quiet since I arrived twenty minutes ago, and he barely flinches at his proximity.
Most men would be shitting themselves right now, but this guy barely seems to care that he’s about to die.
And maybe he doesn’t.
It still wouldn’t make it any easier to pull the trigger.
“It is my great honor to announce that as of an hour ago, my son has become a man!” His voice carries across the lawn, and I can’t help but glance back toward the house.
If Chloe looked out her window right now, she’d see us gathered around, and I just hope she stays asleep through the gunshot that will fill the quiet night.
“Tonight he will take his first life and take his first step toward his destiny of becoming the head of the Lombardi family.”
A round of cheers follow his words, and my chest tightens to the point I can barely drag in a breath.
I never thought I would be this nervous for this moment. It never occurred to me that I would be hesitant to pull the trigger because I always knew it would happen. But now that it’s upon me, my heart racing, my chest tight and uncomfortable, I don’t know how I’m supposed to go through with this.
Disappointing my dad isn’t an option though, because although I am his son, he would not hesitate to end me.
He tugs the hood off the man and all I can do is stare.
Because this isn’t a stranger. It’s not a nameless man who I can tell myself deserves to die.
This is Matt, the gardener who has worked for our family since before I was born.
The same man that snuck me and Ronan cookies when our parents weren’t looking and helped Chloe climb down from a tree she got stuck in.
His dark eyes are cast downward, his breathing even despite knowing his life is about to be taken, and suddenly, I don’t think I can do this at all.
How am I supposed to kill someone who has shown me nothing but kindness my whole life?
“Matty here was caught stealing, which saved us the hassle of finding another enemy to sacrifice. Isn’t that right?” Dad chuckles, tugging the gardener’s head back until he’s forced to stare up into cruel eyes.
I hope I never become that dead inside, that no matter how many people I kill, I don’t turn into a heartless monster the way my father did.
“I didn’t steal anything,” he says calmly, not bothering to yell or shout. He’s accepted his fate despite knowing he hasn’t done what he’s accused of.
“Really? So how do you explain the missing soil?”
My mouth drops open as I flick my attention to my father. Did he say soil? Is he suggesting the first person I kill be a man who stole dirt?
“The roses in the garden needed it.”
He’s telling the truth. Chloe and I took a walk last week and saw him in the blaring sun making sure Mom’s garden was tended to, but how will it look if I defend the man I’m about to kill?
I’ll never live it down.
I might not live at all.
I swallow down the bile that climbs up the back of my throat, my stomach rolling until I’m sure the light dinner I ate is about to make a reappearance.
“A liar and a thief. The perfect piece of shit for my son’s first kill,” Dad announces, and another round of cheers surrounds me.
When I take control of the family, this is the first tradition that’s being retired. No one needs a fucking audience for the first life they take, no matter what position they hold in the family.
“Son, it’s time.”
As if my body has a mind of its own, I step forward, my fingers wrapping around the handle of the gun and bringing it between us.
A voice in the back of my mind tells me not to do this, that as soon as I kill an innocent man, I’ll never get that part of my soul back, but I can’t disappoint Dad.
Matt looks up at me, his dark eyes pleading, but I steel my shoulders and flick the safety off, preparing myself to do something I promised myself I never would.
Every set of eyes is on me, which is what I remind myself as I swallow down the sob that threatens to escape.
I cannot appear weak.
I cannot let my father down.
I repeat the words over and over again, hoping at some point they’ll make what I’m about to do easier.
But even as I squeeze the trigger and watch as Matt crumples in the grass, I know I’ll never be the same.
A shocked cry fills the night, and when I glance over my shoulder, I find Neil with his arm wrapped around Chloe. She’s barely awake, her bare feet in the wet grass, her pajamas rumpled, but it’s the horror in her eyes that breaks me.
Tears roll down her soft cheeks, her body trembling as her eyes flick between me, the gun, and the dead body.
And then she runs, and without a shadow of a doubt I know I just lost the most important person in my world.