“My mother isn’t with him, right?”
“She’s been moved to the apartment. I personally checked before coming here.”
I nod, convinced.
This is it.
The one chance I get to hurt him, ruin him, make him suffer as I have suffered.
AsSophiehas suffered.
With the final slice through the restraint, my arm is freed, my knees banging into the cement. Dante drops down to help, but I hold up my arm, stopping him.I have to do this.
One glance down at my body and I freeze, feeling my face drain of blood. At one point, I couldn’t have imagined my father would do this. His beloved son—his trophy.
Now, nearly a corpse. I begin to question everything I’d thought when he brought me to this place. So convinced that he still planned to make me his successor, I pushed him every chance I could, knowing he wouldn’t go so far as to kill me.
Seeing myself now, it dawns on me that it was really just a matter of time.
“You need help, X. We gotta get the Doc here?—”
My hands glide through blood as I pull myself onto my feet, only to fall back until my shoulder slams into the pipe. Icling to it with one hand.Breathe. “Get me something to clean myself with and a suit.”
“X—”
“I'll go after this is finished.”
Dario looks proud. Dante looks the opposite. “How will you walk?”
With hatred as fuel, I say, “I’ll do it. Just get me what I need. Get the room prepared.”
Dante nods as Dario sets a leather bag on the chair and a pitcher of water. “It’s already done.”
The look I give him is baring, exposing my internal desires. “And my kit?”
Most doctors have medical bags. Teachers have satchels of schoolwork. A man in my profession carries something similar, except the contents inside have the ability to gut, maim, and carve someone’s soul out of their body.
Dante’s lips thin out to a flat line, the weight of those three words landing upon him like a blow. “Yes.”
This is the only way.
As Dario unzips a clothing bag, revealing a three-piece waistcoat suit, my eyesglaciateon the material. He couldn’t have known when he chose from my wardrobe that this one was passed down to me by my father. The gray wool is vintage but immaculate. I made sure to never work a job in it.
That changes today. There has never been a more fitting occasion to wear it. Already lacking a shirt, I unbuckle my pants. “Dario, pull the car around.”
Out of respect, Dante follows him, offering me a few moments of silence. I grab the water, pouring it over my head. The blood and sweat I’ve lived in rains down my body, filth the cloth isn’t strong enough to remove. As I slide into the clothes, this uniform I can never escape, one item after another, each move calculated in an effort to keep me on my feet, I prepare myself for what is about to happen.
How far I'm willing to lose myself. My morals. The organization’s morals.
As he has, I'm going to beat against tradition.
My arms quake as I raise them to slide the tie over my head, pulling the knot right to my throat. Then the buckle, the cuff links, socks, and Italian shoes that dig into unhealed welts. As I pull on the jacket, I notice blood already seeping through the Oxford shirt. The last object at the end of the pile is a petite wedding ring, a reminder of who I am at this very moment—and who I will no longer be after today.
Dante must have known I’d need this.
My hand shakes as I grab the ring, feeling the weight of my agony all at once.
I could scream. Go insane.Kill.
