EPILOGUE
Two weeks later…
The sun hadn’t yet dragged itself over the skyline. Thin light slipped through the windscreen in weak lines, casting a ghostly veil across her face – like something half-remembered from a dream.
Most of the bruises had faded, but the small split on her upper lip remained – a wound that whispered of a night best forgotten.
That one would scar.
My fist clenched on the wheel at the thought of her carrying a souvenir from him.
Which was why this morning was important. And why I’d asked her cousins to help me set this up.
Symbolism. Closure. Melodrama.
I was clearly a sucker for all three – no wonder I ended up a fucking writer.
She glared at the building ahead, still half-dressed in scaffolding, its bare concrete resting like a corpse mid-autopsy. Nothing had changed since then.
Give or take a blood speckle.
She inhaled deeply, held, then slowly released through her nose. Her fingers trembled once in her lap, then stilled – as if she were holding something restless in her palms.
I glanced over.
‘Ready?’ I asked.
She didn’t answer at first. Just stared at her hands as if they cradled the entirety of her courage.
I covered them with mine. My palm made hers look absurdly small, fragile, almost.
‘It’s okay to be nervous. It’s okay to get closure, too,’ I said, gently. ‘You’re allowed both.’
A week after it happened, she’d told me everything. The belt. The chains. Even the machine she saw when we’d fled that night. The images had etched themselves into my brain ever since.
And it still burned me – that I wasn’t the one who ended him. That it had been left to chance. Gravity. Karma. Whatever.
Alessio was following up. According to his guys, the bastard had a broken leg – he was welcome for that. He must’ve slipped trying to climb up the stairs without railing.
Though… why he’d gone for the roof instead of going outside was still a question mark hanging in the air.
They’d already bagged the finger and the half-burned cigarette butts as evidence. Alessio was digging into Travis’ time in Italy – just to make sure there were no loose ends.
‘It’s not that,’ she said suddenly, ending my spiral.
I blinked, forehead softening as I turned to her.
She’d gone still, as if bracing for something. My arm went instinctively around her shoulders, and only then did she exhale – shakily, as though she’d been holding it in.
I leaned closer, kissing her temple first then murmuring into her ear, ‘Green?’
A small smile broke over her lips. Not quite peace, but close enough.
‘Green,’ she whispered. Then a pause. A swallow. ‘I took a pregnancy test this morning.’
She turned her face up to mine. Eyes wide.
The space between her breath and her words stretched like a held note.
‘It’s positive.’
The world didn’t exactly still – it felt more as if it had been shoved underwater.
The words echoed in my skull, distorted.
And something fierce, almost primal, lit up in my chest. Joy at first – maybe. But it was swallowed just as fast by a sick twist of fear.
What the fuck did I know about being a father?
The one posing as mine had been all fists and silence. Rage and retreat.
I’d grown up learning how to recoil, not how to comfort.
What if I ruined it – them – like I ruined everything else?
I felt her hand twitch beneath mine and I reminded myself to breathe.
I wasn’t him.
I clung to that belief like a drowning man clung to driftwood. But Jesus, it terrified me – the thought that something so innocent could inherit even a shadow of the monster that I was.
The sun came out then, clearing her eyes. And for a moment, the fear cracked.
I saw everything in them.
And a strange thought came over me: Christ, I hope the baby will have her eyes.
Eyes that didn’t look away. Eyes that made even someone like me believe in something better.
I swallowed the fear. Tempered the joy.
Only when the words settled like stone in deep water did I reach for her hand, brought it to my lips, and held it there.
‘You’re sure?’ My voice broke around it.
‘I need to see a doctor but…’ she croaked.
Something in my chest shattered and rebuilt itself at the same time.
She must have seen something on my face because she sucked in a breath, her eyes searching mine.
‘How do you feel about that?’
I couldn’t answer right away. The moment stilled… full of everything. Things I couldn’t put into words.
I exhaled, scratched the back of my neck, let out a breath through my nose.
‘Well… guess we’re not sleeping in any more,’ I murmured.
She let out a nervous chuckle. Then another, softer.
And that was it.
She leaned into me like it was enough.
Like I was enough.
And kissed me.
I tasted the fear we hadn’t spoken, the hope I didn’t deserve. And promises I was still learning how to keep.
Pulling away slightly, I handed her the tiny square device; something Matteo had rigged last night, right after he called me a sick bastard.
She frowned, looked down at it.
‘What is this?’ she asked.
‘A full stop,’ I said.
She stared at it for a moment, thumb brushing over the button.
Her gaze darkened, but not with fear – something closer to resolve.
‘“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction’,” I added.
She cocked a brow at me.
‘Picasso,’ I divulged.
She stared at the device for a while, then looked up at me.
And pressed the button.
Fire burst through the windows like a scream held too long, glass shattering into a rain of light. She yelped, but kept her gaze on it, the shock melting off quickly, giving way to something hard.
The scaffolding collapsed with the shockwave, a howl of metal and memory.
Smoke rose – black, thick, climbing into the quiet sky, carrying the horrors away with it.
And the past went up in flames, making space for something new to breathe.
One week later…
The image of him striking her still burned behind my eyelids. The blood. The split lip.
The colour had bloomed like stigmata across her skin. Almost sacred in its divinity. Awe had gripped me by the throat and held.
I believed pain was a sacrament, the anointing of sinners like us. She was being absolved, thoroughly and beautifully, and I had to let him do it. I’d watched as his belt snapped down, again and again, carving sanctity into her flesh.
And she’d taken it like a goddess.
Not a word. No begging. No screams.
She had understood – a cleansing was inevitable.
Like breathing.
Like death.
But when he’d undone the denim—
A red curtain bled across my vision.
I’d surged forward from the dark alcove where I had observed the unfolding of this holy rite.
Too late – D’Angelo had crashed through the space. Sinner upon sinner. Rot answering rot.
I would’ve spat a curse if my jaw hadn’t locked up with rage.
What in the hell was he doing there?
How had he known to find this place?
Grinding my molars, knowing full well I could only attribute it to my volatile acolyte, I slithered back into the shadows.
Her kin had followed, too.
Parasites drawn to light. I couldn’t have even shattered anything, no matter how much my fists begged for it – just to alleviate the tension. They would have found me in an instant.
I should’ve never brought that halfwit into this. I should’ve never handed her over to him even though he did what he was supposed to do – at first: fray her mind. Even if the plan had always been for him to be the scapegoat.
He ruined everything.
Days of meticulous planning. Since the moment I saw her in that club, legs parted for D’Angelo, I’d known…
She was radiant. She was heavenly. Beneath that black wig, pretending she was common, pretending that she blended in with the sheep.
That she wasn’t searching. For reason. For faith.
Absolution.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death…
My thoughts snapped back to the looping reel of the weeks before.
I had seen Harris stumble into the open concrete of the ground floor, dripping sweat and confusion. And it had been a gift – a sign.
From Him.
I’d relished it – the slow ritual of peeling the rot from his body. The blood had spilt gloriously, purifying the very ground where she had been meant to be cleansed.
Where she still could be.
Mother would have been proud of me. Father too. I was the only one who went to confession, scraping the filth from my soul.
The filth they poured into me.
I had seen my mother. With her lovers. My father with his. Lying. Cheating. Building kingdoms on the bones of the damned.
Their rot spread like plague.
But mine would be cleansed.
I had a higher calling. The Lord had let me witness it all so He could reveal my true purpose.
Three hundred and seventy-three.
A humble number of souls I’d guided into penance. Few, but pure. She was supposed to be the last – my swan song – but Mr Harris had turned out to be a catalyst. A messenger. A prophet to whisper that my work was not yet complete.
She would be my final verse.
Just not now.
The Lord valued patience. I’d already given Him twenty-five years. What was another twenty-five in the light of salvation? Just a grain of dust in eternity’s hourglass.
I pushed the door of my Mercedes and eased myself out. My ribs still ached from where D’Angelo had driven his knee into them in the ring – sin against salvation. The wound he’d cut over my rib was still sore – one he’d graced me with at the makeshift altar.
But pain was holy. Pain reminded me I was still worthy of His service.
What was broken would always be mended. Eventually. And I had nothing but time.
Sunlight struck the car’s polished hood, glinting so fiercely it hurt to look. A halo. Divine light upon my chariot.
I turned to the other vehicle beside it – her uncle’s Range Rover – filthy, dull, desecrated by dust. Like him.
Opening the rear door, I flicked the gun from the seat into the duffel to hide it from the light, and lifted the white box tied with a silver ribbon. A white balloon bobbed above it, the pacifier symbol across it shining in the afternoon sun.
I had packaged it myself. Every fold meticulous. Everything tied with devotion. A gift. Just for her.
Buttoning up my crisp, white shirt, I started towards D’Angelo’s new home.
They’d chosen Parioli – a quiet and discreet suburb. A place where sinners dressed their decay in marble and groomed it alongside their hedges.
I looked up at the house. So white. So plain.
So unworthy of her.
I would have gotten her a castle. A sanctum. An altar where we’d kneel side by side every Sunday, whispering prayers until our voices bled into one.
I palmed the switchblade in the pocket of my slacks, the other hand steadying the box.
It would have been a place of cleansing.
Each step I climbed made my heart throb with divine rhythm. A pulse of worship. I could see it already: the spill of crimson down her neck as she sang her agony for me. Her voice – a gift. Her screams – a benediction.
But first… D’Angelo. I’d end him with ceremony. And then she’d be mine. I could almost taste it.
Knocking softly, I reminded myself of patience yet again.
My gaze dropped to the box in my hands.
Nine months of time, to be exact. Perhaps a little more, just to let her breathe out the filth.
By then, Cain D’Angelo would have shown his true face. The desecration beneath the flesh. The demon beneath the lover.
And I would be there – waiting – to catch her when she fell.
The door opened.
Time fractured. Every detail sharpened like stained glass: her platinum hair shimmered, catching the light like a crown of spun silver. The sun framed her from behind, painting her in a halo of gold.
A saint’s grace. She stood there in a white dress trimmed with scarlet poppies, their petals bleeding along the hem. The red on her mouth matched them perfectly. Blood. Sin. Absolution.
My heart misfired. My breath crashed and vanished on the edge of praise.
She was divine.
My angel.
My final prayer.
Even if she was his. For a while.
I could live with that.
For now.
‘It’s not like you to be late,’ she said softly, swatting lightly at my chest.
The touch burned through the cotton of my shirt like wine over an open wound.
I grinned, offering her the white box.
‘Oh, that’s so thoughtful! Come on in,’ she said brightly. ‘Cain’s on his fourth drink.’
She rolled her eyes, trying for playful, but the motion drew a wince that betrayed the ongoing healing of her body.
It was sobering. The warmth in me cooled to black. Awe and amusement bled out, replaced by that same dark tide that always came when I remembered Harris’ belt. His laughter. Her breath catching. The near ruin.
‘It’s not every day you hear you’d become a father,’ I murmured, slipping the mask back on.
She smiled. ‘It’s not confirmed,’ she said. ‘Still need to see the doc.’ Then she opened the door wider.
The motion may have been simple and ordinary to most people. But to me – it was a blessing meant only for the devout.
She spun on her heels, the white dress fluttering like a veil, and the world stilled. My pulse marked the time with each movement she made, my hand squeezing the blade in my pocket as I trailed close. Closer. Nearly drawing it right then.
Too soon.
‘Cain!’ she called, voice light, melodic.
Startled, I released the weapon in my pocket and I followed her into the heart of their new rental – into the wide space of white tiles and oakwood gleaming under filtered light.
The air smelled of polish and lemon, of false purity that stung my throat.
My gaze drifted – found him.
Cain D’Angelo. The pretender.
He turned, smiled unguardedly.
Unknowingly.
And just like that, my heart froze over. Jealousy flared, a sour communion under my ribs.
He moved towards me with open arms, the picture of fraternal ease.
A perfect imitation of grace.
When he reached me, he drew me into his arms. Patted my shoulder once – twice. Warmth. Trust. A heretic’s comfort.
‘Thanks for coming, Vinnie.’
And I smiled back, tapping him right back.
‘I couldn’t stay away.’