He thinks this is the last time he’ll see me.
He could be right.
I don’t have the heart to watch the cabin decrease in size, leaving behind the last moments I’ll ever have with my wife. It’s in this moment, as I grip the steering wheel with both hands, that I finally contemplate exactly what I should expect from my father.
He will attempt to strip her location out of me, I'm sure of that. He’ll tell me they've found and killed her in the most brutal ways. They’ll punish me dearly for besting them.
And I will take it.
I’ll play the game better than they've ever witnessed… and I’ll come down upon them with a fury they’ve never seen.
I will strip them of their power.
I will rid them of their protective skin.
I will take everything they have and obliterate it to pieces.
I. Will. Ruin. Them.
Nothing will stop me. I’ll revel in the revenge, soak in its destruction. They will wish they'd let me run. They will wish they’d never touched my wife. They’ll wish they'd patched up Thomas Ritchey and let him go free.
Did they make you watch more than once?
Sophie’s words, uttered so weakly, made me want to vomit then, right over the leather-bound steering wheel—and that urge hasn’t subsided, only stronger as I return home.
Home.
Fuck, I’ve never hated a place more.
The gates to the estate are open. They’re never open.
My eyes dart to where I freed Sophie just a few hours ago, noticing soldatos circling the door with interest. I cut across the trimmed lawn, eying the men I was born to lead. Most regard me with judgment, while others find it in them to feel pity. Neither reaction bothers me anymore.
“Xavier!”
It takes whatever strength I have left to resist turning at my mother’s frantic screech. For an unperceptive woman, her tone is rightfully pitched with panic. Her heels thud against the steps, her screams escalating as she fights whoever stops her from following me. “What are you going to do to him? Don’t you dare touch him!”
Starà bene.She’ll be okay.I have to tell myself that. To be able to do this, I can’t think of how this will torture her.
My father is sitting on the veranda with this morning’s paper raised over his face. A steaming cup of caffè normale sits on thetable next to an untouched breakfast. He doesn’t speak immediately, despite knowing I’ve returned.
When he does, his first words aren’t directed at me.
“Clear the yard.”
I stand motionless, watching a capo disperse the curious men.
For a moment, I concentrate on the sounds around me. The hummingbird sipping fragrant nectar from my mother’s garden. The steady stream of water easing through the pipes of a fountain. My mother’s muffled screams within the house.
Jets of a plane soaring through the clouds…
My eyes drift to the sky, my heart beating unsteadily in my chest. I imagine it’s Sophie’s plane, taking her far from this hell, and it brings my pulse back to a fixed drum.
My father’s men round the side of the estate. To them, I’m no better than the filth beneath their feet. Atraditore. Aninfame. Henri passes me with a damning scowl, clicking his tongue while the other one parks directly behind me. I don’t need to turn to know he’s the one who my father has ordered to subdue me.
Little does he know I have no intention of fighting what comes next.
“I’ve got to give it to you, X.” Arturo sets down the paper, inhaling deeply. “Loyalty is a good quality in a man. I wish all these fuckers around me had more of it.”
