“I made damn sure that the plane crashed and burned.”
The words echoed.
Over and over.
I made sure that the plane crashed.
I tasted something metallic.
Blood.
I’d bitten my lip without realizing it.
He kept talking.
Calm. Detached.
Like this was all perfectly reasonable.
“After I set up their plane crash, I faked my own death so nobody would point the finger at me, then vanished. Ended up here in Italy.”
He gave a lazy one-shoulder shrug.
His eyes raked over me, cold and full of disgust.
“Best part? It let my lawyer boot you and your sister out of my house onto the fucking streets. Made sure you two lived like worthless orphans — broke, starving, scraping by in poverty. I wanted you both to suffer every single day.”
My chest tightened so violently it hurt to breathe.
I took another step back instinctively, even though there was nowhere left to go.
The wall pressed harder into my spine.
The room felt smaller.
The air thicker.
Harder to pull into my lungs
“It’s hard to believe what you’re saying when I see what a monster you’ve turned into,” I pushed the words out, voice trembling hard at first, then forcing it steady.
“But fine — let’s pretend Mom cheated. Was blowing her and her son out of the sky really the answer? Did it fucking satisfy you?”
My hands balled into fists.
“We were just kids. Innocent. We did nothing wrong. So why take it all out on us?”
For a fraction of a second—something flickered in his eyes.
Then it hardened.
“No,” he said, voice completely flat.
“You’re not innocent. You’re nothing but bastards.”
The word landed like a punch to the gut.
“You and your sister should count yourselves lucky you didn’t burn with your mother and that other little shit. And yeah... your suffering, your pain, your death — it would satisfy me a whole fucking lot.”
