“You wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to betray him,” she continues. “You love Rem. You don’t want to hurt him. You definitely don’t want to kill him. So, stop threatening to do it.”
Ari looks at Lena with begrudging respect, which is entirely at odds with his tone when he says, “You really are the biggest pain in the ass, you know?”
“Guess I’ve taken to being a little sister better than I thought.” Lena’s comment has bite, anger the one emotion she’s letting rise to the surface. “So maybe cut your sister some slack and put the gun down?”
For a breathless second, I think Ari is going to do it. I think he’s going to put the gun down and we’re going to be able to get out of here without bloodshed. But all hope of that vanishes when he closes the remaining distance in a flash.
I move just as fast, more grateful for my reflexes than I’ve ever been. I push Lena out of the way, taking her place. Ari’s Beretta meets my chest at the same time mine kisses his temple.
“Stupid move,fratellino.” Beneath the wildness, there is anguish in Ari’s eyes.
“I’m not going to let you kill her,” I tell him. “I can’t let you kill her.”
We’re so close I can’t help but lock eyes with his. Dark brown irises, so like mine, flood with disbelief, then frustration, then despair. I’ve only ever known my brother to be strong. Unbreakable. But here, now, with our weapons cocked to fire, I see a vulnerability in him I never knew existed.
“Please,” he whispers. “Please just let me. It will all be so much easier once she’s gone.”
Che cazzo?!“Why? What the fuck is going on with you? So what if she’s Aldo’s daughter?” I lay the truth out there sothere’s no misunderstanding. “So what if she’s a member of the Family? Lena is not a threat to you. Why have you been trying to kill her?”
“Because he made me promise I would.”
“Who?” Lena and I say simultaneously.
“Who?” I repeat. “Who made you promise?”
His answer, when it comes, nearly takes me out at the knees. “Marco.” Ari sounds more pained than I’ve ever heard him. “Marco made me promise that as soon as I tracked down Aldo’s bastard child, I’d kill it. I swore on my life, brother.”
Without warning, Ari swings his arm wide, his gun now trained on Lena where she’s standing several feet to the side. “I swore on my motherfucking life that I’d kill her,” he yells. “I can’t break that promise, Rem. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“But Marco’s been dead for two years. How could he have known Aldo had a kid?Aldodidn’t even know.”
“Marco found out from Maria.”
“How?” Lena’s disbelief propels her closer to Ari’s gun. I stop myself from pushing her away. Fuck knows what any sudden movements will make Ari do.
“Accidentally,” he answers. “Maria was trying to tell Aldo. Wrote him a letter after she ran away. She was never coming back, but she regretted not telling him she was pregnant. Marco intercepted the letter, but never showed it to Aldo. Marco always knew about the baby.”
“Have you?” I ask him, dumbfounded.
“No. Marco didn’t say a word until right before he died. He showed me Maria’s letter. He wanted me to find it. The kid. Took me fucking long enough.” Ari looks down the barrel of his Beretta at Lena. “Adelina. That’s what Maria said she was going to name you. After Aldo and Marco’s great-grandmother. I think that made Marco hate you even more.”
“Why should he hate me at all?”
“Because you were in the way. You’re always in the fuckingway.” Ari’s voice pitches uncharacteristically high. My brother’s control is cracking. And with it, my ability to predict just how far he’ll go to get what he wants.
I tap my gun against Ari’s forehead, forcing his attention back to me. “She’s not in the way, brother. Lena’s not a threat to you.”
“Bullshit. She’s his fuckingdaughter, Rem. Aldo is going to give everything to her. She waltzes in here, practically falls into your open arms, and is suddenly at the very head of our family? She’s done nothing,nothingfor the Cerretis except fucking exist. But me?” Ari slaps his chest, vibrating with rage. “I did everything Marco told me to. Every fucking thing. He taught me, shaped me, broke me, beat me until he looked at my face and saw the man he’d once been. The man who was supposed to become the head of this family before his little brother stole it from him. And then she shows up and I’m just supposed to let her do it all over again? Steal the position from its rightful owner? No fucking chance.”
Ari gestures wildly at Lena with his gun. Sweat drips down my spine, my legs almost numb from keeping them locked in place. I don’t recognize the man in front of me. He isn’t my brother anymore. The man I grew up idolizing is gone. The brother I trusted with my life is now a shadow of the person I’ve known and loved. In his place stands the specter of our violent uncle, Marco. A man too volatile, too vicious to lead the Family, so Aldo took the role and Marco was forced to take commands from his younger brother. I had no idea that while Ari was training as Marco’s apprentice, the older man was poisoning my brother with his vitriol and destructive need for revenge.
“What did Marco do to you, Ari?”
His face twists into an expression I’ve never seen before. One that’s too painful to look at. “You don’t want to know, brother. You don’t want to fucking know.”
Only a few feet away, Lena curses. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she hisses at Ari. “You did all this because you think I want yourjob? Because a dead uncle I’ve never met told you two years ago that I would show up and take your place as the future head of this family? You tried to kill me,andRem—andyou actually killed my aunt —all for job security?”
“No.” Just one word but it’s punctuated with all the hatred Ari feels for my wife. “No, you little conniving bitch. I’m going to kill you because you’re destroying my life.”
