Whatever the cost.
CHAPTER 14
Saint
Antonio's bedroom smells like death.
Not the fresh death I'm used to. Not blood and gunpowder and fear. This is slow death, and it has the under scent of chemicals and decay. It's morphine and a body giving up piece by piece.
I stand in the doorway, trying to prepare myself. This is one of the hardest moments of my life. When my father died, it was quick. I wasn't there.
Antonio…
It's just different.
"Are you coming in or are you going to hover like a ghost?" Antonio's voice is weaker than I've ever heard it, but the command is still there.
Even at the end, he makes sure I understand that he's in charge.
I enter, closing the door behind me. He's propped up in bed, skin gray, eyes sunken. He's lost thirty pounds in the last month, and I can see his bones through his skin.
"You look like shit," I say, taking a seat.
He laughs, and it turns into a coughing fit. When he recovers, there's blood on his lips, which I wipe away. "Always the charmer."
I pour him water, help him drink. His hands shake as he tries to hold onto the glass.
"The doctor says you're refusing treatment again."
"The treatment makes me feel worse than the cancer." He waves a dismissive hand. "I'm done, Santino. It's time."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Don't accept reality?" He fixes me with those dark eyes that used to terrify me as a kid. "I'm dying. We both know it. The only question is how long I'm going to suffer first."
I sit in the chair beside his bed, jaw tight. "You're not dead yet."
"But I will be. Soon." He reaches for something on the nightstand—a gun. My gun, I realize. The one I keep in my office. Someone must have brought it to him. "Which is why I need you to do something for me."
"No."
"Santino—"
"I said no." I stand, backing away. "I'm not fucking doing it."
"I'm asking you for mercy." His voice breaks. "I'm in pain. Constant pain. The morphine barely touches it anymore. And it's only going to get worse."
"Then take more morphine."
"And die in a drugged haze, not knowing my own name?" He shakes his head. "No. I want to go on my terms. Clearheaded. With dignity."
"Asking me to shoot you isn't dignified." We've been going over and over this. He won't let up. He wants to die, and he wants me to do it, and I won't.
It's the first time that death has felt like too much.
"Asking my son to end my suffering is the most dignified thing I can think of." His hand trembles as he holds out the gun. "Please."
The word breaks something in me. Antonio doesn't beg. Doesn't ask. He commands. And he's never outwardly called me his son. He's desperate, and he's playing me.
