“You’re…You’rehappyhe killed your father?”I recoil from that, the sheer, cruel unnaturalness of it.But his sneer only widens, deepens, turns his entire face into something gruesome.
“Of course,” he replies without hesitation.“Killing bosses – even if they’re fathers – is often the only way to make things happen in this world.Why the fuck do you think that I killed yours?”
My breath lurches.
“What?”I try to swallow.But I can’t.“Papà died of an aneurysm!He-”
“He died of a fatal case of bullet-in-the-brain-itis,” Alessandro interrupts.“I should know.Since I’m the one who fucking put it there.”He shakes his head.“You are so damn clueless it’s fucking pathetic.Why do you think your step-mamma Mia ran off to Texas and remarried so damn fast?She fucking walked in on me, came cruising right in through the front fucking door, right after I did it.”He raises his gun in the air like it’s a trophy.“I told her she could either have a nice, shiny bullet of her own, or she could disappear and never fucking come back.”
I’d always wondered how she could leave me the way she did.We’d always been close, more like best friends or sisters than stepdaughter and stepmother.She didn’t even stick around for the funeral.That had hurt me so much.
But now I understand why.
“You killed my father.Why?”
“Why the fuck do you think?”The gun slashes through the air ash he waves his arm.“To start the clock on your inheritance transferring over to us.Your papà kept dragging his feet, wobbling back and forth, not committing to wedding dates.Eventually, he ran out of time.”
So that’s why the wedding came together in a frantic flurry after papà’s death.I’d questioned what the rush was.Why it all had to happen so fast.
“Out of time,” Alessandro repeats, more quietly his time.“Just like Curse Titone.”
“No.”The word comes out steady.Sure.“I meant what I said.If you kill him, then you’ve killed me.”
Alessandro looks like he wants to strangle me.And I’m sure he would, if he didn’t need me alive.It’s the only thing that gives my threat any power over him.
“But…But if you let him live,” I say, the words pouring from my mouth in a rush, like water, like blood.“I’ll annul my marriage to him.I’ll go with you to any lawyer, any judge.I’ll do whatever it takes to get you my inheritance.”
It’s the easiest promise in the world to make.Because Buffalo has been nothing but a weight around my neck, dragging me down.Drowning me.I’d trade it – and more, I’d trade fuckingeverything– for Curse’s life.
“I’ll marry you, Alessandro.”
Chapter19
Curse
My ability to hear comes back online before anything else.While entirely immobilized, I try to pick apart the words drifting into the mud of my mind.
“Eventually, he ran out of time.”That’s a man’s voice.That’s not right.It should be a woman’s voice speaking to me.It should behers.“Out of time.Just like Curse Titone.”
It takes me far too long to recognize my own name.
But when the next voice speaks, a spear of music straight through me, I know it at once.
“No.”
Angel.Angel, run.
It feels like I should be saying the words aloud.But I’m not.Because she doesn’t run.And I told her before.I told her that if I ever command for her to run, to leave me, then that’s exactly what she should fucking do.
“I meant what I said,” comes the angel’s voice again.“If you kill him, then you’ve killed me.But…But if you let him live.I’ll annul my marriage to him.”
Something has happened to me but I don’t know what.If there are gears in my head, they’ve stopped turning.
“I’ll go with you to any lawyer, any judge.I’ll do whatever it takes to get you my inheritance.I’ll marry you, Alessandro.”
Alessandro.
Alessandro Messina.
