Her beautiful dark fire.
My knife traced a line along Vincenzo’s face. “Very few people have had the honor of watching Il Tagliatore in action, Bianca.”
She grimaced. “Why do you… Why are you giving me thathonor?”
“Because as of today, like whoever landed on my chopping block, they are all dead. Giovanni, Alfio, Marta and Cosimo.” My whole family. Everyone I’d ever loved. “And…because we have a deal.”
“I thought you forgot about our deal.”
I heard something in her voice. Blame? Sadness? I thought she’d be happy with the delay, not frustrated. “Never, dolcezza.”
A hint of a smile touched her lips. Was it the prize in the end that she was so eager to play for? Or was it the game itself? “What’s it got to do with…this?”
“You’ll see.”
I ripped the gag out, nicking Vincenzo’s cheek. A little blood trickled with his sweat and lies streaming from his mouth.
“I didn’t kill Marta. I know nothing about the poison—”
My palm rang across his face, whipping his head to the side. “Silenzio. You speak when I tell you to speak.”
I took slow, deliberate steps around the chopping block, enjoying the trembling of my treacherous uncle, loving every moment of his humiliation as I’d tied him up naked and helpless and waiting for his death. Was his heart racing or slowing down? I wondered about that with each of my victims. Were they dying before I even touched them or were they so delusional they thought their fear might save them?
“Hold this for me, dolcezza.” I stretched my hand with the knife, the blade on my side, not hers, taking off my suit jacket.
“What?” she asked in disbelief.
“I don’t want to get blood on my suit, so you either hold the knife or undress me.” I winked.
Her lips parted, and then she shook her head and grabbed the knife.
“Too bad.” I shrugged out of my jacket and stripped to my underwear. Then I folded everything and put it on the floor. In the end I took off my watch and laid it on top of the neat pile, Vincenzo’s breath catching in the background.
I gestured for my knife back, and she gave it to me with a swallow. “Grazie, dolcezza.”
“Now,” I spun toward my dear uncle, “you were saying?”
“I have nothing to do with Cosimo’s will or what happened in Ponza, and I didn’t poison your mother or your wife. Why would I do any of that?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question for weeks. See, Cosimo was a fair man. He’d have never written a will like that fake piece of nonsense. He’d have given something to his widow and the rest of the family. I’ve been wondering who would have forged my brother’s will to make it look like he’d been a greedy son of a bitch who didn’t give a shit about the family, and the whole Giovanni Lanza house by extension.
“Marta didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. No one could have done it but the real greedy cazzone in the house that doesn’t respect blood ties or family honor. Someone who was supposed to go with me on my last trip but came up with a lame excuse to stay behind. Someone who thought he could get rid of me, and Mario’s legal parent to make sure things wouldn’t go to court, so that everything landed in Marta’s lap, when he’d charm his way into her bed and marry her and then kill her to get everything himself.”
“No! I didn’t do any of that. Cosimo betrayed the family in his life and his death,” Vincenzo lied.
I poked his index finger with my knife. “Cosimo didn’t do anything. I saw a copy of the real will myself in his apartment.” I sliced along the base, and then I pulled the knife out and dropped the sharp edge, chopping his finger off. He screamed, his disgusting body shaking. “And don’t interrupt me again.” I wiped the blood on the blade against his shoulder.
“Your stupid plan might have worked if the useless pieces of shit you hired in Ponza weren’t so useless. Except Marta had a secret that ruined everything.” A secret no son should have ever known about his mother or himself. “If she was to remarry, she would have chosen a different brother. The brother that had already shared her bed.” My jaws gritted. “The real father of her boys.”
My gaze traveled to Bianca. “Alfio.”
Her face didn’t change, as if she’d known all along. “Did Cosimo know?”
I nodded. My brother knew everything about Marta cheating on Giovanni. About Marta poisoning Giovanni when he found out. He helped me cover it, making it look like Giovanni died naturally in his sleep, so no one would know about our not-so-honorable mother or take away what was ours. It was funny how she died the same way she killed Giovanni. Karma was really a bitch.
My knife traced an invisible line along Vincenzo’s neck. “When Alfio died, you thought you were lucky. The universe was working in your favor. Marta was already dying with the poison you’d been slipping her for weeks so she could die right after you married her. Why wouldn’t you expedite things, weaken the boss one hit after another so he wouldn’t see when you strike again?
“So you thought you could kill my wife and my mother, poisoning the tea Bianca had offered to Marta, the tea you helped make, killing two birds with one stone. Then you’d have killed me, too, and Mario would have no one else left to be his guardian but his great uncle, Don Vincenzo.”
