Chapter 30
Ithought I knew anger.
After years of living and breathing violence, I was certain that I’d explored every inch and crevice of rage and fury. I believed I’d been singed by the hottest flames of hate and experienced the iciest stabs of vengeance.
I was wrong.
Until the moment I witnessed Kiera desperately fighting for her life in my living room, I had no idea what true rage felt like.
Seeing the blood smeared across her face, her wounded stance, the injured arm hanging limp at her side brought out something dark and feral in me.
Something unstoppable.
There was no time for thought, only action. Like a tidal wave, I surged forward, determined to destroy anything that dared stand in my way.
My fury hit the stranger first, my eyes instantly zeroing in on the holster he was frantically reaching for under his jacket. Before he had a chance to pull the weapon free, I lunged forward, hitting him with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs as we crashed to the ground.
Wide, panicked eyes stared up at me as I straddled his chest.
“Get him off me!” the man screeched, pleading with Sal to save him.
But anyone who knew Sal D’Angelo knew he would never risk his own neck to save someone else.
Deep down, this bastard must have known it too because he reached for his weapon again. But he wasn’t fast enough. I caught his hand before it got anywhere near the holster.
With one quick snap, I thrust the back of his hand against his forearm, shattering his wrist.
His agonized scream reverberated off the glass wall, filling the room as fully as any Puccini aria.
In the background, I heard Kiera gasp in shock.
“Look away, sweetheart,” I called out to her.
She didn’t need to see what came next. Not after everything that she’d been through.
“You must be Special Agent Hollis Murphy,” I said, coldly gazing down into the stranger’s panicked and bloodshot eyes. “Corrupt cop. Wife killer. Tormentor of innocents.”
“Holy shit,” he blubbered. “Don’t kill me, man. Please don’t kill me.”
It was easier than usual to ignore his prayers for mercy. “Do you know who I am?”
His whole body began to shake in terror. “D-Dorian Marchetti.”
“That’s my name,” I told him. “But it’s not who I am. Don’t play dumb. You’re with the FBI. You know what they call me.”
Hollis Murphy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up the length of his throat as he tried to swallow down past his fear. “The Angel of Death.”
“That’s right,” I said, grabbing the sides of his head and lifting it off the ground. “So you know what happens next.”
“No! Please don’t!”
“Say hello to the devil for me.”
All it took was one quick twist, and his neck snapped like a dry twig. The light instantly dimmed in his eyes as his whole body went slack.
One down. One to go.
Standing up, I turned my attention toward Sal, who was doing his best to keep his shoulders straight and his head held high as he shuffled back several steps. Only now that I was looking directly at him did I notice the long slash that cut across both his hands.
The wounds were bloody but superficial, no doubt a gift from the knife Kiera was currently clutching in her left hand.
Damn, she’d been brave taking these two on by herself. She’d done a surprising amount of damage for a lone woman against two skilled attackers. Still, I felt an unbearable amount of guilt for not being here to protect her in the first place.
The only remedy I could think of was making Sal’s end as dark and painful as possible.
My hands balled into fists at my side as I took that first step toward him, my head filled with all the possible ways to kill the bastard.
As if reading my mind, Sal shook his head. “Dorian. Calm down and think, boy. You don’t want to do this.”
Unlike the chicken-shit FBI agent, Sal’s voice didn’t shake.
That didn’t surprise me. After all, he’d been the head of the D’Angelo family for nearly a year now. Before that, he was the underboss. He was a man used to being able to threaten and strong-arm his way through any situation.
But not with me.
“You hurt her, Sal.” The words tasted cold and bitter on my tongue. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“He’s the one who hurt her,” Sal countered, pointing at the dead man sprawled on the floor. “All this was his plan. I had nothing to do with this.”
“That’s not true,” Kiera shouted. “They were going to kill me and pin the murder on you.”
“Shut up!” Sal hissed at her before turning back toward me. The moment he spotted the flash of anger in my eyes, though, he changed tactics. “The poor thing is hysterical. She’s out of her mind with fear. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“Yes, I do,” Kiera said. “He told me everything—including that he was the one that killed your adoptive father.”
“Bullshit!” For the first time, a crack of panic cut through Sal’s controlled mask.
Though I didn’t think it was possible, somehow, my rage deepened.
It was one thing to suspect Sal, to question if he had somehow played a small part in the tragedy that had ripped through our family, but it was another to hear it stated as fact.
My lip curled up in pure hatred and disgust as I started toward Sal, ready to end this farce.
“The bitch is lying,” he cried, quickly retreating. “Can’t you see she’d trying to control you? She’s playing you like a puppet. Earlier, she admitted that she only wants you for your money and power. She told me she only pretends to care about you.”
“He’s the one that’s lying,” Kiera protested.
Sal’s eyes grew even wider at the sound of footsteps at the door behind me. Though his look of worry quickly turned to relief.
“Gabriel! Thank god,” Sal said with a sigh. “Dorian’s gone crazy and is trying to kill me. Stop him.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see my brother leaning against the door jamb, slightly out of breath. He must have followed me through the park after I took off running and had only now caught up. His gaze flashed from the dead man on the floor to Kiera, then to Sal, before finally settling on me.
“What’s going on?” he asked with a calm only someone who was raised in the criminal underworld could have in a situation like this.
“Sal killed papà.” My voice cracked with emotion.
Gabriel stiffened. The muscles along his jaw tensing and twitching as he raised his chin.
“Don’t believe it, nephew,” Sal said with a defiant shake of his head. “This bitch wants me dead, so she’s lying. She knows Dorian will do anything for her. Who are you going to believe, Dorian’s whore or your own flesh and blood?”
Gabriel and I shared a long, hard look, and for the first time, I honestly didn’t know who my brother would side with.
Eventually, though, he turned to Kiera and asked, “Do you have any proof?”
She hesitated for just a second before her eyes widened slightly in realization.
“Actually, yes,” she said. “Sal told Hollis he bugged the apartment the last time he was here. It was how he knew Dorian had left this morning. He’s been recording everything since yesterday. So if he hasn’t stopped, his confession will be on the tape.”
The corner of Sal’s eyes unconsciously twitched. That was all the confirmation I needed to know the bug was still live.
“What are you doing?” Sal demanded as I went over to the chair I’d found him in yesterday.
“Looking for bugs,” I said, running my hand along the wood frame beneath the seat.
Sure enough, seconds later, my fingers brushed against a small metal protrusion. I plucked it free and held the button-like listening device up for Gabriel and Kiera to see.
“I’m sure the receiver is somewhere in his room,” I told Gabriel. “You want to run and get it? I can keep him tied up until then.”
Gabriel shook his head. “No time. I’m sure one of your neighbors has already called the cops, and they’re on their way.”
“Then how do you want to play this?” I asked my brother, already treating him as the family’s new boss—an act that made Sal’s pride bristle.
“I am still the head of this organization,” he impotently proclaimed. “Gabriel, I order you to stop Dorian and his lying little bitch!”
But Gabriel wasn’t listening. Deep grooves cut into his brow as he considered how to answer me. Then he turned to Kiera.
“Did he really confess to murdering my father?”
Deep sadness filled Kiera’s eyes as she nodded. Even though I knew she had mixed feelings about my brother, her voice still rang out with compassion. “He did. I’m so sorry.”
Her forehead didn’t tense when she spoke. Her nostrils didn’t flare. Her mouth stayed flat and straight.
She was telling the truth. I could see it…and so could Gabriel.
Sal’s trigger finger, on the other hand, was twitching like he had the shakes.
Gabriel’s expression turned to stone. His whole body tensed as he turned to me, giving a single, tight nod.
“Do it,” he said.
“No! No, no, no,” Sal cried out in the background. “You can’t do this to me. I run this family, you backstabbing bastards. Me—no one else.”
“Will you take Kiera out into the hall,” I asked Gabriel as I slowly closed in on Sal.
I waited until she was out of sight before I cornered the bastard against the wall.
In a perfect world, I could have taken my time. I could have dealt real justice, extracting the payment for his sins against Giuseppe and Kiera in pain that lasted for days.
But there simply wasn’t time.
“Please,” Sal pleaded one last time, his lower lip trembling pathetically. “You wouldn’t kill your own uncle, would you?”
“No,” I answered honestly. Unlike him, I would never hurt family. “But you’ve always made it clear that I’m nothing to you. So, unfortunately, that means you’re nothing to me.”
Reaching out, I grabbed his head and, with a swiftness he didn’t deserve, snapped his neck.
His lifeless body crumpled to the ground the next instant.
I didn’t even look down at him before turning and walking back to the door.
Gabriel and Kiera were standing just outside in the hallway. My brother’s expression was every bit as hard and tortured as it had been a moment before, and Kiera looked as if she could barely keep herself upright a minute longer. The overhead lights gleamed off the knife she still clutched in her hands.
“You can let go of that now,” I told her. “It’s over.”
She dropped it instantly, tears of relief welling up in her eyes as she rushed into my arms. I was careful not to touch her injured arm as I held her close.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” I confessed. The guilt of that mistake felt like a searing wound inside my chest. “I promised I’d always protect you. I let you down.”
Kiera pulled back just far enough to look me in the eye, her gaze not breaking from mine as she violently shook her head. “You saved me, Dorian…again. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“But you’re hurt.” Badly, by the look of it.
Kiera just shrugged her one good arm. “It’s a dislocated shoulder. The paramedics will be able to pop it right back in,” she said before her face fell slightly. “Right before the police arrest me.”
“Before they arrest the both of us,” I said with a long sigh.
With two dead bodies on the floor of my apartment, I had the feeling that my streak of outrunning legal consequences was finally coming to an end.
But Gabriel shook his head.
“No one’s going to jail,” he said with certainty.
Though I appreciated my brother’s optimism, I couldn’t agree. “Kiera’s wanted by the FBI for murder, and no cop is going to believe that I killed those two in self-defense.”
“They will after they hear Sal’s tape,” Gabriel said. “I’ll call Matteo and have him edit out the end before he brings it over. Once the cops listen to what really went down in there, they’ll have no choice but to exonerate you both. Especially after our lawyers sit down with them.”
Damn—just minutes after being confronted with shattering truths, Gabriel was already thinking like the new head of the family, speaking with the authority of the boss he was born to be.
“Is that true?” Kiera asked, staring up at me expectantly. “Are we really going to be all right?”
I nodded. “We are.”
“Oh, thank God,” she sighed…just as the elevator doors opened, letting out a flood of first responders.
As the paramedics quickly pulled her to one side of the apartment to fix her arm and the cops dragged me to the other for questioning, reality finally started to sink in.
We were going to be all right.
Not just for right now…but forever,