I schooled my face into a worried expression as my brother got into the car and pulled away.
He glanced at me once, pulling onto a quiet road. “What? You have nothing else to say?”
“No,” I whispered. “No, I haven’t got anything else to say to you, Gio.”
And I didn’t. But I would be doing plenty to him soon. Because if he thought I was going to go out without a fight, he had another thing coming.
I wouldn’t let him hurt me or my daughter.
And I needed this time to be silent so I could make a plan, just in case Matteo let me down again.
The drive was much shorter than I expected. Barely five minutes. It was like my brother hadn’t thought about any of this at all.
“What is this place?” Leaning forward, I narrowed my eyes at the small white-washed cottage.
“Mom and Dad bought it as some kind of retirement place.”
My head snapped around. “Mom and Dad wanted to retire here? Wait, they were going to retire?”
“Get out of the car and stop asking stupid questions, little sister. You’re daughter is inside.”
I was out of the car and running before he had even killed the engine. It didn’t matter if this was a trap, and a hail of bullets were going to rain down on me. All that mattered was my daughter.
Flinging open the door, I screamed her name. “Lily?”
“Mommy?” A small, timid voice spoke out from the back of the tiny house. “Mommy, is that you?”
Her voice was so tiny, so scared.
I barreled into the kitchen, or what used to be a kitchen, anyway. There were no cabinets. It was nothing but an empty shell. And in the far corner, her hands tied cruelly in front of her, was my child.
My sweet, brave child.
Skidding to my knees, I gathered her into my arms, rocking her as she cried and I cried as well
“Pathetic.” Gio entered the room but didn’t close the door. Instead, he went and leaned against the wall facing it. I glanced between them.
“Get her to shut up, Sophia,” he said after ten minutes. “I can’t hear myself think.”
“She’s tired and afraid,” I snapped back, continuously rocking my child. “You left her alone in the dark. What kind of person does that?”
He ignored my question completely and asked one of his own. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
Blinking rapidly, I shook my head. “No, Gio, I am not afraid of you. Should I be?”
“Yes.” One simple word, and it was like a knife had been twisted in my gut. I loved my brother, and although I’d had my doubts about him and what he was capable of, I hadn’t truly believed it deep down.
Or maybe I hadn’t wanted to believe it.
I had always been the kind of girl who was blinded by love.
“I don’t believe that, Gio. You love me. I’m your sister.”
His laughter floated up. “It won’t be the first time I have killed someone I love. And…” He turned to me slowly. And his eyes speared me to the spot.
There was so much hatred in his eyes that I instinctively shielded my daughter's face from him. She didn’t need to see that kind of hate, and she sure as hell didn’t need to hear it from her uncle, who was supposed to love her.
“I loved them a lot more than I do you.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve never loved the brat.” He sneered. “If you hadn’t been knocked up by that asshole, none of this would have happened.”
