Carbone turned, now facing Alessandro, and knelt before him.
A blink later, he pulled the trigger.
Carbone just… crumpled. No drama. No cry. Just the dull thud of his body hitting the asphalt.
Nausea hit me like a punch. I staggered back, turned, stumbled behind the black SUV—and vomited. Over and over. My bodyconvulsed, my knees buckling. I clung to the bumper like it was the only thing keeping me upright.
The world spun. Everything spun. I’d arrived, suddenly and violently, in the heart of Alessandro Russo’s world.
Footsteps behind me. A hand gliding gently over my nape. Someone gathering my hair back.
"It’s okay, babe… Breathe. This is normal." His voice was almost soothing. Nearly tender. "If you’d taken that without flinching, I’d have been worried."
I laughed. A shaky, absurd sound—the only thing my body could still manage.
He handed me a tissue. I wiped my mouth, still kneeling there like someone who didn’t know what had hit them.
"And now?" My voice was fractured. "The police… they’ll come any minute—"
Behind me, Giovanni let out an amused chuckle.
"La polizia?" he muttered, shaking his head. Then, with a crooked grin aimed at me: "The police only come here if they’re called. And only if the right person does the calling." His eyes flicked to Alessandro. And so did mine.
Alessandro slowly raised his eyebrows with a shrug. Then he extended his hand toward me—the same one that, mere minutes ago, had taken a man’s life without so much as a blink. I stared at it. Loathed it in that moment.
"Yes, Fiona," he said, almost mockingly. "It’s the same hand as before. No need to drown in pathetic drama now."
Slowly, I lifted my gaze. That indifference. The cold detachment and reprimand made me furious.
"Maybe it’s no... drama to you anymore," I shot back. "But you’re a goddamn murderer."
"A murderer?" He stepped closer, suddenly seized my arm, yanked me up with the force of a man who tolerated no defiance, and pinned me against the SUV, my back pressed to the coldmetal. He raised his hand, held it in front of my face. The hand that had killed. The hand that had touched me.
"This hand belongs to a mass murderer, if you must know." His voice dropped to a dark whisper. "And as far as I'm aware, your hands aren’t exactly clean either."
My gaze slid over his face—that face, which looked far too good for the absurd situation I found myself in once again.
I twisted my expression into a sarcastic grimace. "I don’t have amnesia. I know what I’ve done."
We climbed into the SUV.
"Then save your Ave Maria for that man," Alessandro said as the driver pulled the car out of the courtyard. "You should’ve seen him when he sold that girl from Bari to the Russians. She was fourteen. Maybe even younger."
I said nothing. My fingers dug into the soft leather beneath me as if I could anchor myself to it.
"Carbone was a trafficker," Alessandro continued quietly. "He used entire refugee camps as marketplaces. Split up families, made children disappear. Those who didn’t comply were executed in front of the others—or worse." He held my gaze. "He wasn’t a man anyone will miss. Just another name on a list that’s better off erased."
I kept staring at him, unable to speak.
"When it all came out, he silenced everyone who could’ve testified against him. Didn’t just make them vanish. No. He wanted them to see him. Forced them to their knees. Looked them in the eye. And then pulled the trigger."
My voice was barely a whisper. "You did the same to him."
Alessandro jerked toward me, piercing me with a sharp look. "No," he said softly. "He killed innocents."
Then he leaned back again, his jaw tight. "And now you’d better shut up, Fiona," he said flatly. "I’m not about to justify every one of my decisions to you. You don’t know the full picture."
He rested his head against the seat, briefly closed his eyes, and muttered dryly, "Honestly, Fiona… your moral dissection is more exhausting than the bullet earlier." He shook his head slightly and exhaled sharply.
