Chapter 8
VAL
I sucked in a sharp breath and choked on it as the jet took off.
Marco had known all along.
He’d known my death was faked and where to find me.
He didn’t say anything else. None of us did.
I refused to let any more tears fall, even as a lump swelled in my throat and my nose began to run.
If I sat quietly through the flight, maybe no one would pay attention to me, and I could use the time to sort through the big mess banging around inside my skull.
I spent the next two hours calming my silent frenzy and worrying about Enzo. Was he okay? Had Stefano called the doctor to examine our son’s injury? Did I really have confidence in Stefano’s commitment to our son? Would he keep Enzo safe?
Did my baby miss me?
Did he hate me?
“Let’s go,” Marco said, startling me.
Then, after leaving the plane, we climbed into another stupid fucking limo—Stefano would never use rented limos—and I couldn’t help staring out the window at the city I’d left behind so long ago.
Chicago buzzed with a different energy than New York.
Still, the two cities had a lot in common.
Neighborhoods with traditional brownstones and districts with massive high-rise buildings made of glass and steel. Beautifully preserved mansions and glorious Art Deco reminiscent of wealth and taste from an era long past.
I focused on the city as we passed through, working hard to ignore the discomfort from Aris’s stare. He had something to say, I could feel the weight of it burning onto my skin, and the only reason he stayed quiet was because Marco had warned him to keep his fucking mouth shut.
It wouldn’t stop Aris forever. It hadn’t stopped him when we were kids. I doubted that would be different now.
No. If I knew my twin, he was biding his time. Waiting to get me alone, so he could do whatever he imagined inside his sociopathic brain.
The stop-and-go traffic slowed us down, but it was better than the constant gridlock of Manhattan. Soon enough, the rent-a-driver turned into a residential neighborhood along the Gold Coast.
As we rounded the corner onto Saul’s street, a heady cocktail of emotions clawed at the inside of my chest. My throat closed again, and an intense longing swelled around my heart. For better or worse, I’d come home.
My childhood had been filled with so many horrors, so much pain. Countless obligations no child should ever carry. But a few good memories existed too.
Moments of joy, laughter, and warmth.
Those memories had all been made when my nonna was alive. So much had changed since then.
The neighborhood being one of them.
I searched for the house on the corner next to ours, the one Saul swore he would buy and tear down just because he didn’t like the unruly kids who lived there. I didn’t find it, because now a mid-rise tower that looked like an apartment building took up both lots.
Across the street rose a similar building instead of the duplex Saul had always complained about housing ‘the wrong kind of people.’
I wondered if he preferred the mid-rise apartments, or if he hated them more than their predecessors, and why he’d allowed it in the first place.
The limo pulled up to the curb. As everyone got out, Aris gripped my neck, his fingers digging in with enough hate to leave a bruise.
He maneuvered me around the wrought-iron gated garden separating the front yard from the public sidewalk. When he knocked me into one of the sharp points of the decorative bars, I knew it was intentional.
It always was because those points never ripped my clothing or broke the skin. The perfect way to hurt me without leaving a mark.
Then he pushed me through the door, and I stumbled into a house that looked both familiar and foreign.
Cold. Empty.
I missed Nonna’s voice and the smell of roasted garlic and tomatoes floating out from the kitchen to greet me. That aroma had defined the house in my memory, more than even the black-and-white marble tiles lining the foyer.
“Put her in her room until I figure out what I want to do with her,” Saul barked.
“I’m gonna get some grub,” Santo grumbled.
Aris marched me to my room, shoved me forward, and sent me flying. I landed on my hands and knees, my skin slapping against the rough wood floor.
Then he slammed the door and left me alone.
Pain radiated from my arm, reminding me that I’d taken a bullet only a few days before. I’d been keeping that pain masked as much as possible in front of the others. Especially from Aris.
If he saw that weakness, how much it still hurt, he would exploit it even more. He would dig his fingers into my arm again to aggravate the healing wound.
For now, at least he’d gone away.
My childhood bedroom hadn’t changed a bit, either. I would have liked to think they’d kept that way as memorial, but the thick coating of dust hinted otherwise.
I pressed my ear to the door to make sure Aris had gone. Then I searched my room for anything that might help me.
Below my third-floor window lay a brick courtyard, obviously by design. This room had always been intended for a daughter. A room difficult to reach and impossible to escape, all in the name of protecting my virtue.
No electronics remained—no way to contact anyone in the outside world.
What could I have done with a phone or computer anyway?
Like a dumb fucking idiot, I hadn’t memorized Stefano’s number or email, and any cop who responded to a call from this neighborhood already topped the Moscatelli payroll.
I wouldn’t have felt safe talking to police anyway, even if I made it out of the city and ran all the way to Joliet.
If I could find a weapon, I could protect myself when Aris came back to collect his pound of flesh.
Or maybe I’d get lucky and stumble upon a different escape.
At this point, anything was better than Klimov. I’d heard countless rumors about the man to whom my family had sold me, and if fate still meant for me to go to that monster, I might have to take matters into my own hands. Again.
The idea twisted a knot in my gut, and a cold shiver skittered down my shoulders.
My family murdered with ease, yes. They stole, cheated, schemed, betrayed, committed adultery, took the Lord’s name in vain… and broke every one of the Ten Commandments time and again, but we were still Catholics.
Devoutly—hypocritically—Catholic.
Which meant I deeply believed that if I took my own life, my soul would burn in hell. I’d never meet my son in heaven.
I sat on the queen-size canopy bed, and a cloud of dust rose from the duvet.
I had to laugh.
Taking my own life was a sin, but suffering through whatever horrors Klimov had in store? Perfectly fine.
Hilarious.
Surely, faking my death had already earned me a spot in hell. If not, disobeying Saul and running away might have warranted the same eternal damnation. Or maybe it would be the premarital sex with Stefano and creating Enzo. Or all the times I’d reveled in Stefano’s touch.
Even if that wasn’t enough, I’d killed a man in cold blood, and I didn’t feel a shred of regret.
Fuckface Luka got what he deserved.
Lying back on the bed and closing my eyes, I pictured Enzo and prayed to my grandmothers, and once again, I had to ask for their protection over my son.
I prayed to the Virgin, asking for her guidance.
I prayed for my son to be different, for him to find a way out. And if escaping this life wasn’t possible, that he found a way to be better than the men who came before him.
I had to believe I’d done my job as a mother well enough for Enzo to survive his father and strive for something greater.
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut.
It didn’t matter what I believed.
Stefano would shape him.
The bedroom door slammed open so hard, the brass knob hit the wall and left a small dent in the plaster.
I scrambled onto my feet, chest heaving, and glared at Aris.
He strolled into my room like it wasn’t an invasion.
“You’ve caused a lot of trouble.”
I bit my tongue as he pulled a knife from his pocket, opened it, and stabbed the blade into the apple in his other hand.
Juice beaded down the ripe flesh, and my stomach growled. I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten.
Aris had made his point, but cutting up an apple gave him a legitimate reason to keep that open blade in his grip. He wanted me to know he had it, that he could turn it on me at any second.
He lived for these pointless power plays.
If I didn’t do the right thing or say the right thing, his knife would be buried in my flesh as easily as it pierced that apple.
Aris wouldn’t kill me. He wouldn’t even scar me. He knew better. That didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt me.
I offered a polite smile, hoping it sufficiently hid my fear.
“How can I help you, Aris?”
His smug grin transformed instantly into a furious snarl.
“You can’t do shit for me now, you stupid cunt. They had a plan. We were gonna be the most powerful family in the country, but you just had to fuck it all up. I should kill you.”
Straightening my spine, I stepped forward, holding his gaze with hope it would prove he no longer intimidated me. I was a grown woman, not the little girl who’d run away.
Either Aris would recognize that, or he wouldn’t. Either way, I didn’t have to stand there and listen to him belittle me.
How many times would we have this same damn kill-me-or-don’t-kill me conversation?
“Then just fucking do it,” I said.
He came closer, slowly, one step at a time, pulling the blade from the apple to point it at me.
“What did you say to me, you little whore?”
“I said if you’re going to kill me, then just do it.”
My twin’s sneer tightened and twisted, hatred and malice gleaming in his eyes. It made me wonder if he might really do it this time. My death by taunting Aris into ending it for me.
Suicide by twin.
“Don’t worry, sister,” he said. “I’ll get my moment. Father’s already called the Russians. Once they confirm they don’t want your traitorous whore-ass anymore, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. Sending you back to your lover and his little bastard one piece at a time sounds like fun.”