Changing tactics, I drag her to one of the stalls, still holding her by the hair. Her face is bleeding slightly, but this is just the beginning.
Pushing her head deep into the toilet bowl, I revel in the sounds of her choking, lifting her only to see the terrified expression on her face.
"Thank you for clarifying what I always wanted to know," I add, kicking her in the ribs as she starts to move around. "But it's still not enough. How do you think a child feels when the people who should have loved her most ended up hating her most? Have you ever spared me a thought? No, I see on your face that you have not. You just despised me so much that you immediately signed off on my death. For what? Money? Fame? To give the limelight to Chiara?"
I submerge her in the water until bubbles erupt on the surface, her heaving telling me she's already suffocating.
Grabbing her by the nape, I prop her up against the wall, studying her.
"You… you're a monster," she yells at me, pure terror in her gaze.
"Come now, don't be a hypocrite!" I roll my eyes at her. "You can't create the monster and then complain when it's set loose."
Removing a small knife from my pouch, I drag it across her face.
"Do you even know what your darling daughter did to me?" I ask, and she gulps, swallowing hard. "She disfigured me. Can you imagine what it feels like to have the flesh of your face dangling, the pain so astounding you can barely move?"
My words wake her, and she starts struggling again. One hand gripping her throat, I hold the knife tightly with the other and carefully slice a contour all around her face. She screeches in pain, her legs kicking under me.
Applying more pressure, I continue to cut under the skin, taking off flaps of flesh and detaching them from the muscle. Her expression is stuck in a perpetual scream, her mouth jammed in the shape of an O.
She must have passed out from the pain.
Feeling for a shallow pulse with my hand, I return to cutting at the flesh until the entire layer of skin is separated from her face.
Mutilated like this, she almost looks human. I'm not even disgusted as I take in the redness of her muscles and flesh, the blood slowly pooling down her face.
The ugliness inside is now the ugliness outside.
Taking the flimsy flesh, I place it in her right hand. Then I wrap her other hand around the blade, slowly bringing it up to her throat. Squeezing her fingers on the knife, I jab the sharp point into her skin. Trickles of blood start to slowly pour out of the wound.
I take a step back, wanting to avoid the spurts of blood once the pressure on the wound gives way.
"Another one down," I mutter to myself, taking a moment to enjoy my revenge.
51
ENZO
"You'resure you're okay,cara?" I brush the hair from my sister's face. She's huddled under the blankets in one of the guest rooms because she didn't want to disturb her daughter, who's sleeping in her old room.
"Yeah. I'm just a little disappointed he won't let me in," Lina says as she comes closer to me, allowing me to hug her.
"It will take time. There's fucked up and then there's Marcello. I don't even know how he's remained sane until now."
In a weird turn of events, Marcello's brother Valentino had shot Jimenez before killing himself. And after a ten-year absence from the famiglia, Marcello had decided to return as capo and sought me out for an alliance.
Now, knowing what the Lastras are like, particularly Marcello's reputation, I'd been reluctant to give him Lina's hand in marriage. But some complications at Sacre Coeur forced my hand, and I had to make a quick decision.
"I promised I'd wait for him," she whispers, taking a deep breath to avoid crying again.
According to Catalina, Marcello's not so bad. But then again, she's head over heels in love with him, so I can't exactly trust her judgment.
"Everything will be fine. If not, you always have a house here with me and Luca."
If it wasn't enough that Marcello's past is drenched in sin, his enemies had to target Lina too. I'd been mad with worry when I realized she'd been kidnapped by a madman, and I'm happy we got there in time before anything happened to her.
But imagine my surprise when Lina had told mewhohad orchestrated her kidnapping.
