Take him out.
I’m going to do it. I’m going to put a fucking bullet between his eyes.
And yet I can’t get my finger on the motherfucking trigger. Years of trust. Friendship. Pure faith. All down the drain. And I can’t pull the trigger.
“One!” I scream at him, the sights of my rifle picking out a spot in the center of his forehead. “Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t be painting that wall with your motherfucking brains, you traitorous cunt!”
Mateo pauses for a moment, his eyes flickering. Then he drops his arms, letting them hang limply at his sides. Above him, a helicopter swirls, painting him in a circle of white light. Despite the thudding of rotor blades, when his voice comes, it’s clear as a bell.
“Because… I’m your brother, Dario.”
Chapter 2
Dario Caraldi
He’s standing in front of me. Unarmed. Vulnerable. Ready to die. Waiting for me to choose to kill him. Why the fuck is he putting this decision in my hands?
I feel the cold steel of the trigger guard against the pad of my finger as I brush it there briefly.
Easy…It could be so easy to slip my fingertip through, squeeze down on the trigger now and end Mateo’s fucking life.
His eyes are locked with mine, and somehow, it’s as if he can sense the turmoil within me. But his words keep swirling in my head. Words that suck the air from my lungs.
Brother. My brother.It can’t be true.
“You’re a fucking liar,” I hiss out at last. He gives a slight shrug as if he doesn’t expect me to believe it. Perhaps if he was trying harder to convince me, I’d be more inclined to let my finger squeeze down on that trigger. But his dispassionate stance almost makes it seem more real. As if he’s accepted the outcome, whichever way it goes.
“Mateo…” I begin, then trail off. I lick my lips and swallow hard.
“What the fuck, man?” Raoul grinds out. He’s staring from me to Mateo and back again. I have no doubt that this announcement has affected him as profoundly as it’s hit me. Raoul, the bastard son. Unacknowledged heir of the Caraldi empire. Unloved child of my fucking asshole of a father. It’s been hard enough for him growing up all these years knowing he could have been more. It’s left me riddled with guilt too. And now Mateo is telling us that he is another?
“My father…?” I begin, needing to know more. Trying to understand. Mateo shakes his head.
“Your mother was my mother. Before you were born, she—”
“Bullshit!” I finally snap. This is impossible to believe. Maybe if he’d said my father had knocked up yet another woman, I’d have leaned toward believing him. But this? This is sheer madness. Making a mockery of her memory. “You’ll say anything to save your ass right now,” I snarl. “To cover the fact that you’re a fucking traitor.” My finger’s itching to let loose the bullet that would end his fucking life…if I could just make myself do it.
A sound nearby draws three pairs of eyes to where my cousin is still stretched out, bleeding. He’s hissing silent laughter between lips that are pulled back into a humorless grin.
“You…” he chokes out. “You fucking idiots!” Raoul shakes his head. My hotblooded brother isn’t good with insults. His self-esteem is stretched too tautly. Eduardo is oblivious, however. Perhaps because he’s too stupid to sense it. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. “You stupid cunts spend so much of your time crying for your fucking mamas…when all you need to do is turn to the father who’d do anything for you.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarl. “Don’t you dare…don’t youdarespeak of my mother, you piece of shit!” How can I forget what he told me moments before Mateo dropped his bombshell? The horror of what my father had done…killing his own wife. Robbing me of the woman who birthed me. And now Eduardo thinks I should be trying to earn that cunt’s approval? I’ll kill him myself.
All of them.
I narrow my eyes on him, then switch back to Mateo. It’s almost impossible, right now, to determine who I hate more. The man who’d betrayed my trust these past seven years, or the motherfucker who’s known all along that my mother’s been left to rot in a shallow grave since I was a child.
“Dario…” Raoul says. I notice that although he’s eyeing the other two men, he’s also glancing in the direction of the gun battle nearby. Eyes lifting to take in the helicopter that’s hovering closer. I’m not one to ignore the threat of encroaching gunfire, but for once, I’m processing something that feels more important, somehow.
My mother is not only dead, but her killer walks freely. The man who raised me. The man I call father.
She didn’t abandon me.
I feel the barrel of the gun waver slightly.
“Get out,” I hear Mateo say below his breath. He’s shooting glances past us. No doubt sensing that others are approaching. “You gotta get out of here,” he repeats. As reality begins to sneak past the bubble of numb horror I’ve been engulfed in, I suddenly realize that the gunfire is ebbing away. What lingers now are the shouts and calls of law enforcement taking down stragglers. I hear the metallic crash of the container doors being flung open and then the strangled cries and wails of their human cargo being released.
“Come on, man,” Raoul says breathlessly behind me. “Let’s blow this joint. Or we’re gonna go down!”
