30. Marco
Chapter Thirty
MARCO
I’m not sure how long I stay at Andre’s bedside, ripping into him like he’s not lying in a bed with a near-fatal gunshot wound in his chest. But it seems to do the trick.
Soon enough everyone’s tears dry up, and the room is filled with laughter, intercepted by Rosa’s groans of annoyance as her two brothers gang up on her.
It’s a sense of normalcy I never thought I would crave, but when death comes knocking, it makes you open your eyes to what’s important.
And my family is the most important thing to me.
Eventually, one of the nurses rounds on Andre and informs us that he needs to rest, though one family member is allowed to stay with him.
I look over at Lila.
She’s trying to play it cool as she sits beside Andre in the bed, but the truth is written all over her face. She’s completely exhausted, but I also know she would much rather sleep in the hospital on some old cot by Andre’s side then go back home.
I catch her eye and nod.
“He’s going to want you by his side more than any of us.”
Lila hesitates, guilt flickering in her expression as she glances at Rosa, Holly, Clara, and even Zoe, who has now taken Holly’s place in the stroller.
I smile at her. “I’ve got them. Take your time.”
Lila’s shoulders drop as she mouths a thank you.
“Come on, you lot, time to go home.” I usher everyone out of the room before turning my attention back to my brother.
“If I come back in a few hours to find you dead, I will personally bankroll every doctor in this hospital until they find a way to bring you back to life just so I can kill you again, you hear me?”
The nurse looks wide-eyed at me, but Andre only laughs.
“Noted.”
“Good. Now, get some rest, you lazy fucker, and leave the running of the business to me.”
“Same rules apply to you, Marco. Don’t fuck it up, or I’ll kill you.”
“They love each other really,” Lila chimes in when the nurse looks like she’s seconds away from calling for security.
The ride back to Westchester is mostly quiet.
Zoe sleeps peacefully in her car seat with her little face turned toward the window and her lips parted as she snores softly.
Clara sits next to her, her head leaning back against the headrest. Her eyes are closed, but I know she’s not asleep. I can tell that her body’s running on pure adrenaline by the way her fingers twitch every time I take a turn too sharply.
Rosa is in the back row with Holly, humming some soft tune under her breath as she tries to get the toddler to sleep.
The whole car feels like it’s exhaling. The danger has finally passed, but no one’s ready to believe it just yet.
I’m not sure we will until Andre is home and fully recovered.
When we pull into the estate and I kill the engine, no one moves right away.
Clara finally turns her head and looks at me, her face pale with exhaustion.
“You sure you’re okay doing all this alone tonight?” Her voice scratches.
I nod. “Of course. Lila needs to be with Andre, and you need rest. We all do.”
Clara studies me for a beat, then reaches across the console and squeezes my hand. “I love you.”
“I love you too. More than anything.”
By the time I get everyone inside, it’s early afternoon, though it feels like the middle of the night from how tired I am.
I help Clara settle Zoe into her crib while Rosa takes Holly to her room. The quiet of the house is comforting, though I know the day is far from over.
There’s still one person I need to take care of.
Once the girls are all settled, I lead Clara into our room and sit her down on the edge of the bed. I kneel in front of her and help to slide her sneakers off her feet and give her ankles and feet a quick massage.
“You should sleep, love.”
“So should you.” She brushes her fingers through my hair.
I rest my forehead against her knee for a second, knowing that I can’t wait any longer to bring up the subject of her brother. As much as I want to storm over there and empty a round into his head, I can’t do so without Clara’s permission.
When it comes to him, she gets the final say.
I reach for her hand. “We need to talk about Ben.”
Her hand stiffens in mine, but she doesn’t pull away. “I know.”
“I’ve got him at the slaughterhouse. Bruno and Carlos have been...keeping him busy.” I say it like it doesn’t weigh on me, but it does. Not because I have doubts about leaving him in the hands of the Costa brothers, but because I hate that it has come to this.
Clara’s shoulders slump. Her hands are still stained red with Andre’s blood, and she looks down at them as if she can’t quite believe what happened tonight was real and not just some terrible nightmare.
“I should feel something. Like grief or even guilt, but I don’t. I just feel numb. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, love. You could never be a bad person.” I squeeze her hand. “You don’t owe him anything, especially after what he did to your family.”
“He’s my brother.”
I reach up to cup her cheek. “No, he was your brother. There’s a difference… Family doesn’t do what he did. Family protects you and loves you.”
Her throat bobs, and I can see the internal battle she’s fighting in her green eyes.
“I know what you are thinking, but Ben made his choices. He chose wrong. Now he needs to deal with the consequences.”
She blinks fast, her eyes glazing with tears, but they don’t fall. “I just want it to be over.”
“It will be.” I climb to my feet and lean in to kiss her forehead. “I’ll handle it.”
I stay with Clara until she’s asleep, curled on her side with one hand resting on her stomach. I press a kiss to her shoulder before quietly slipping out of the room.
If she hears me leave, she stays quiet, considering what she knows I’m about to do.
I pass by Zoe’s room to check on her before heading down the hall to Rosa’s room.
She’s still fast asleep with Holly wrapped in her arms, both of them snoring softly.
Everyone is safe, which means it’s finally time to take care of Ben.
As much as I regret putting Clara on the spot like this, Ben needs to be dealt with, once and for all. He’s proven one too many times that he can’t be trusted, that he is a danger to my family, to his own blood, and I don’t want Clara to have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
My brother almost lost his life at his hands, he put a gun to Clara’s head and shot it, even if he missed.
I take that sort of shit very personally.
I want Ben to know what it means to betray blood. I want him to sit in the cold with the taste of failure and fear in his mouth, knowing I’m coming for him.
Right now, I need to be the version of myself I only pull out when things like this happen.
The one that Clara doesn’t see.
The one that Zoe will never know.
The one who keeps them safe by being the monster that guys like Ben Peterson come to fear.
The metallic smell of blood hits me the second I step inside the slaughterhouse. It clings to the walls and stains the concrete floor like a canvas.
This place is designed for the most unnatural of deaths, and tonight it will once again live up to its name.
I walk deeper into the warehouse, the cold echo of my footsteps bouncing off of the steel walls until I reach the back room where Bruno and Carlos are waiting for me.
They are laughing, and a low groan accompanies it.
When I enter the room, I find Carlos leaning against the wall trying to catch his breath, while Bruno steps back from the slumped figure in the center of the room.
Ben.
His body is twisted on the ground with blood dripping from his nose, and his lip is split. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and his shirt is torn and stained red with blood.
Bruno turns when I approach and grins. There’s a nasty bruise blossoming on his cheek, but he looks otherwise unharmed.
“Still alive, as requested. And as a bonus, he’s still conscious.”
Ben lets out a low groan as he tries and fails to move.
I nod once, ignoring the way my chest tightens as I look at him.
I’m doing this for Clara.
“Thanks for your help.”
Carlos steps forward, rubbing at his bruised knuckles. “And the arrangement?”
“The East side is yours, as promised.”
The brothers look at one another before nodding.
“We don’t have to like each other.” Bruno folds his arms across his chest. “But if you stay out of our way, we’ll stay out of yours.”
“Agreed.”
There’s no need for fake pleasantries or shaking of hands now that our deal is done. After all, we’re not allies. We’re just survivors of the same war.
Bruno and Carlos head out, their footsteps fading into the distance followed by the sound of the main warehouse door slamming shut.
Then everything goes quiet.
I walk slowly toward Ben, the sound of my boots hitting the concrete floor echoing around us.
He’s barely clinging to consciousness, but I know he hears me.
I crouch beside him, staring down at the wreck of a man who has caused so much fucking chaos in my family’s life. “You could have avoided this. You could have walked away.”
Ben’s breathing sounds haggard, and he tries to open his mouth to speak, but no words come out. Not that I want to listen to anything he has to say. At this point, there’s nothing he could say that would make me change my mind.
He made his bed the day he decided to hand his sister over to Tommaso Costa. The final fluff of the pillow was when he pulled a gun on her, putting it to her head. His time was up the first time I caught up with him. I only hesitated because of her, but he’s been living on borrowed time ever since.
I stand, grabbing a fistful of Ben’s shirt and yank him to his feet.
His legs buckle immediately, and he drops back to the floor like a sack of bones.
I let him fall.
Then I drive my boot into his stomach, over and over until I’m sure I’ve broken every single one of his ribs.
Each kick is fueled by undiluted rage, not just for what he did but especially for who he is. For how easily he betrayed his own blood.
If he had been different, my brother and I would have welcomed him into our family with open arms. But he put all of that at risk, and for what? A deal with Tommaso? With Cillian?
“You’re fucking pathetic.” I continue to kick the living shit out of Ben, and I stop only when his grunts are replaced with silence.
I reach for the gun tucked into the back of my waistband and walk around him so that I can look into his face.
It’s barely recognizable, nothing but a mess of blood and bruises, but that doesn’t matter. In a few seconds, he’ll be nothing more than a shell of a human who will soon fade from our memories.
I point my gun right at his head, my finger flexing over the trigger. “Goodbye, Ben.”
I squeeze the trigger without hesitation, landing the shot right between his eyes.
His body jolts from the impact, but then he goes still as dark crimson blood to spreads on the concrete behind him.
It’s finally over.
The weight that’s been sitting on my chest for weeks lifts, but only slightly.
Killing Ben doesn’t erase the damage he’s caused Clara or erase the image of my brother bleeding out on the floor.
But it is justice, and I’ll take that over mercy that might bite me in the ass any day.