“Rebecca, Carol, Donna, Sandra.” I counted off my fingers. “Diane.”
Lanton’s growl was animalistic, but there was no escaping this. He was too far gone and now he knew it. His limbs twitched with his continued effort to escape, the enormous fists flat and limp. What a waste.
“I know all about your little hobby. You like to pluck pretty blondes off the street like flowers and pull them apart like bruised petals. Those are just the ones I know of. I bet there weremore, weren’t there? You’re a greedy little pig. Couldn’t even wait until your wife was cold before you re-married. It wasn’t enough to unglue those poor girls. You had to have a permanent one, for when the urges got too strong.”
I hopped off the counter and crouched in front of him. His breath was shallow, and his skin soaked with sickly sweet sweat. His eyes fluttered closed, spasming as pain wracked his bulky form. But on the floor, he was the one in pieces this time. My chest thrummed with a surge of energy. There was so much beauty in death; the cruel finality of it was mesmerizing to witness. I let myself sink into it, the slow stop of his chest, how it hovered and sunk impossibly low. The shallow breath a whistle from ineffectual lungs.
“Just so you know, it wasn’t Romeo who did this.” I reached out to brush a sweat-soaked strand of hair from his forehead. “It was The Gardener. It was me.”
He stared at me, projecting the last of his venom into one more word.
“Rosetta.”
I froze.
That was one name I never expected him to say.
Romeo’s mom.
His twisted lips slackened, and I missed my chance to question him further. Was he taunting me, or did he have something to do with her death? They’d never found her body to be sure, but they had laid the blame on the Donatos’ doorstep.
I waited until my thighs burned, knees cracking as I rose. Lanton Vani stilled. He was now nothing but an empty shell. He’d been the one to put my marriage into motion. If not for him, Romeo would never have glanced my way. He never would have allowed Paolo to force his hand. Now I had two more secrets to add to the cache I was building. He’d gone after Lanton to avenge Diane, but what if he’d been unwittinglychasing his mom’s killer as well? It felt right that it was me who finished this. My chest was hollow as I moved from the bathroom and checked on Merissa. Her arm anchored around her stomach, and her blonde strands dotted with brown vomit. Chunks of bright red peppered through it. I wrinkled my nose at the permeating stench.
“It’s done.” I told her, unsure whether she was lucid enough to hear me. Her eyes snapped open, however, and she let out a garbled cry of sorrow and relief. The brown sheets of Lanton’s bed were rancid with waste, and Merissa looked pitiful in the mess of it. Her hand shook as it lifted off the bed, curling into a desperate claw.
“What do I do now?” Her voice cracked, and my eyebrows knitted together as I offered a perplexed smile. She scrunched her eyes closed, as if the sight of it terrified her.
“Re-decorate this tomb for a start.” I waved my hand with a shrug. “You’re welcome.”
12
Paolo was fiddling with his shirt when I opened the steel door to the pen. I jerked my head at him. He searched for the guards normally placed there but was wise enough not to say anything. It was more than I could say about the three other idiots I’d dealt with recently.
Four, if I included my father.
My body crawled like a thousand ants burrowed underneath it. I ached to expend some of the energy. Past-Romeo would have found a willing partner and fucked the excess stress out on their body. But my wife would rather cut my cock off than welcome it between her warm thighs. That just made me even more frustrated.
“Is there a reason we’re here?” Paolo ventured as he slid me a wary look.
My jaw ticked, and I couldn’t help the hollow bark of laughter that escaped me. Paolo tensed further, slowing his footsteps. The pen was underneath one of our warehouses at the dock. Therewas a false floor that led down to a storage area. We stored hot goods here that needed time away from watching eyes before we could easily ship them out. Hidden behind a door was a dark hallway, which was usually guarded if it was holding anyone. The pen was comprised of two concrete cells and a larger interrogation room. It was cramped, dark, and dank with the ocean so close by. It was here that we brought anyone we needed to pry answers from. And I needed answers.
“I want to show you something.” I coaxed him, and he followed, dragging his feet. He was right to be wary, and as we entered the interrogation room, he reeled back, trying to leave. I muscled him away from the door, pointing my revolver at his face.
“What the fuck, Romeo?” His hands flew in the air, palm up, as he looked at the two dead bodies tied to chairs and the third, sagging and bloody. Still alive, for now. I pointed at the bodies with the barrel of my gun. I’d worked out some of my frustration on their soft, yielding flesh. But not enough to sate me. The floor was soaked red with their blood. The scent of their misery seared my nostrils. I’d cut the fingers off one of them, and the offending digits were tossed in a corner.
“Do you know what all these men have in common?” I said through gritted teeth. The gore didn’t faze me. Paolo smoothed his face over. It wasn’t new to him, either.
“Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with me,” he protested. I walked behind the only living man and yanked him up by his hair. He groaned, a pitiful sound. Blood clumped the back of his ratty gray locks.
“Tell me why you’re here,” I shook his head, glaring right at Paolo.
“I can take you to The Gardener, please. I know where he—” I slammed the gun to the side of his face. Knocking him out andcutting off his weak beg. The blood in my veins was scorching. My head pounded, expanding against my skull.
I was Romeo Orazio.
People feared me. My father might run Greenich Bay, but one day, it would be mine. If I could ensure Lanton’s filthy clutches didn’t ruin it before I got there. His mocking tone echoed in my ear.
“All these men assured me they knew who The Gardener was. That they would take me to him.”
