I can tell Gustave wants to fall quiet, wants to fall back into his memories, but I won't let him. "So the Valverdes never knew Marisol had a kid?"
He shrugs, "They probably heard the same rumors I did about Marisol taunting Viktor with a son he'd never find."
I let that sink in, but not for long, "So why now? Why did you send Nico to the Valverdes three years ago, when nobody even suspected who he was?"
He closes his eyes and shrinks back into the chair; his face is paler now, probably from the blood loss. The wound in his foot isn't oozing any longer, but drops of blood are still seeping out. Not knowing how much longer this confession will take, I unbuckle my belt and cinch it around his calf. He hisses in pain, but contains it. A true mafia man. I can't help but admire that and feel some kind of pride; he's still my father.
"Because the fucking bitch decided then was a good time to blackmail me into backing Edoardo."
A dark foreboding fills me. "Donna Margarita?"
"Who else had the balls to blackmail a capo?" Gustave counters.
"So you decided rather than give in to her demands, you'd have me killed?" Nico exclaims.
Gustave looks him straight in the eye. "It was a perfect plan. If Margarita had said one word after, it would have exposed her. You would have been dead. The Venezuelans the bad guys."
Bang. The shot is loud, but not final. Gustave cries out in pain as his other foot is shattered.
"Fuck, Nico." I hold my hand out. Gustave doesn’t have that much more blood to lose. "Give me your belt."
It's becoming more difficult to stay away from the lake of blood around Gustave's feet, but I manage to put another tourniquet on him.
"For all that sacrifice," I say, voice steady, "for everything Christine endured—everything you claim you lost—this is what you made of it."
He watches me, searching. Maybe for understanding. Maybe for absolution. He finds neither.
"So how did Silvestre find out?" Gustave asks, hissing through his teeth in pain, searching for a distraction from the pain.
For a moment, Nico looks like he's not going to tell him, but then he relents, probably figuring it doesn't matter if Gustave finds out or not; he's going to die, we all know it. And he'd tell me eventually anyway.
"We were having dinner when a surprise guest appeared. Donna Margarita. Silvestre wasn't expecting her, but he seemed genuinely happy to see her. I'd seen her before, of course, and we greeted each other. Suddenly, she pulled back and stared at me, then at Silvestre.Oh, I never realized the resemblance before, she cooed. Aurelio played right into her hand. I have no idea if they were in on it together or not, but I doubt it. Anyway, Aurelio pointed out that I had the same dimple as Marisol. I didn't know who he was talking about at the time."
I can almost see Donna Margarita. Her conniving ways. She must have known for a long time who Nico was, sitting on the secret like she had been sitting on so many others. The old bat was a master of deception; I'm only now finding out how masterful. Silvestre would have been enraged to find out Margarita had known all along, so she found a way to expose Nico without giving herself away.
"That was all it took. Silvestre was curious and asked about my birthdate, which coincided with the time Marisol was married and ran off. So he ordered a DNA test. The rest," Nico spreads his arms, gun pointing at Gustave, "is history."
It's not quite that easy. I still have questions, some mundane, but maybe that's what we need right now. An answer to a mundane question.
"What about the hair?" I ask. Nico was always dark-haired, as long as I can remember, but now blond hair is growing out. "You dyed it," I say quietly. "All theseyears." Confusion hits me. I can see how a father can color a young boy’s hair, but a teenager? "But how?"
Nico laughs bitterly. "Remember my scalp condition?"
I do, faintly. There was a lot of flaking and itching there for a while, and it still happened on occasion when Nico didn't have hisspecial shampoo.
"I had dye mixed into it," Gustave admits. In the dim light, he looks a lot older than he did a few days ago. Not that I feel any pity for him. Not anymore.
It makes sense, too; it's not like either Nico or I questioned where the coffee we drink comes from, or the soap, or, in his case, the shampoo. It’s just there when we need it. The curse of having servants.
Like me, Nico probably washed his hair daily, never giving roots a chance to show their true color, no pun intended.
A monster with foresight is always more dangerous than one with rage. And Gustave—my father—is a visionary in all the worst, darkest ways. I thought I saw the whole board. I thought I understood the betrayal. But the truth is bigger. Wider. Older. A plan stitched together from decades of lies and fear and strategic cruelty. My entire life, he taught me that contingency is strength. Now I see it for what it really is: Cowardice sharpened into strategy.
Nico wasn’t abandoned. He wasplaced.On the edge of a blade that Gustave didn’t have the guts to wield himself.And I—the son hedidwant—was being positioned to do the finishing work. Perfect. Efficient. Clean.
Except Gustave miscalculated one thing.
I’m no one’s weapon anymore.
