He doesn’t have to explain. The mole, the person who infiltrated our family and passed on information to Stephanos. It would have to be someone trusted to get the intel Stephanos seemed to get, intel that kept him one step ahead of us at all times.
Names and faces flit through my head. “Who?” I know I’m not going to like the answer.
“Gino.”
I close my eyes and accept this bullet to the heart. My stupid, selfish brother. “That fool.” It makes sense. He burned through his trust so quickly. He liked spending money and expected it to come easy. And as the son of one of the top family members, he had access to anything. No one would question his loyalty.
A shadow falls over me. Victor has come around the island to be close to me, and despite my roiling stomach, the hairs on my arms raise a second before he touches me. “Lula, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” I wrench myself away, wincing as it sets my wounds throbbing. “You’re one of them.” An enemy. I have to remember that. I keep retreating until I’m a few feet away. “I need to tell my cousin. I need to get out of here.” It’s stupid to say this to my captor.
He stands at my stool, his hands by his sides, still no expression on his face.
Then he says the unexpected. “And if I let you go? Will you continue on this path to vengeance?”
I’m still reeling from the fact that he would let me go. “What do you care?”
“You belong to me.”
“I’m not a possession—” I’ve stopped retreating. Mistake. Because he’s crossed the distance, backing me into the wall. I glare up at him as he sets his hand at my throat.
“You belong to me. And I belong to you.” He flexes his hand and releases me. “But you see nothing, consider nothing, but your revenge.”
“It’s not revenge. It’s vengeance. It’s for someone else.”
“Is it? What does your mother gain by you killing her murderer?”
My chest is rising and falling so rapidly that blood has started trickling down my breast. “She deserves to be avenged.”
Victor’s face is carved from stone, but his eyes burn like blue lasers. “But does sherequireit?”
“I require it.” My voice cracks. He’s flaying me open like the sadistic surgeon he is, and I have no more defenses. “They threw her life away. They treated it like nothing. But she wasn’t nothing. She was everything.”
“And what would she think if she saw you now, her precious daughter? Would she want your life to look like this?”
I suck in a breath. Victor could not have hurt me more if he carved my heart out and held it in front of my face, still beating.
“You spent all these years sharpening yourself to a blade and making yourself a bullet in a gun. But you are more, Lula. You can do, can have, more.”
“Shut up,” I whisper and turn my face away.
The floor creaks as he leaves.
He’s making noise on purpose because he so rarely makes a sound, leaving me with bile in my throat and burning eyes.
* * *
Victor
The screensin my media room are filled with motion. Spiro, Joe, and the rest moving around the deserted pizzeria. Cars zooming down streets. Workers in Cavalli’s, fixing the walls, prepping them to paint.
I ignore them all and fix my eyes on one screen, the most important one. In the black frame, Lula sits on the bed, staring at the wall. She hasn’t crumpled yet, but I can tell she wants to. The news about her brother bowed but didn’t break her. More proof that her mother’s death was ignored by those Vera loved the most.
They threw her life away. They treated it like nothing. But she wasn’t nothing. She was everything.
My captive has not cried yet, but her eyes look bruised. I message the doctor to watch over her and leave my media room.
An hour later, I’m across from the dark doors of the abandoned hotel Spiro gave me the address to in a neutral part of town. Here, supposedly, Stephanos left me my money. A black duffel bag of unmarked bills. Whether the money will be accompanied by the man, I cannot say.
