“Rosalia takes over from men, who are rapists and abusers and traffickers and all sorts of other horrid things. She takes over so no one else can take it, someone who would do it without caring. I myself am more of a killer that doesn’t care what happens after, but Rosalia does.”
“Because she fucking cares,” I say sardonically. This is like a comedy gone wrong.
“It is your chance to do some good,” says Kat.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I say. “I’d rather be on the other side of the system.”
“There will be no other side for you after this,” says Kat. “That ring on your finger made you a part of this side, one with no way back.”
“You made me do it,” I say coldly. “You manipulated me into doing it, so I don’t have a way back, just like you manipulated me into believing Luisa was being shot and raped.”
“You didn’t have to do it,” says Kat. “You killed, because you wanted to kill. I bet when you profile yourself, you’d see the anger issues, see the desperate need to bring justice, no matter what.”
And if I were completely honest, I’d acknowledge she was right. But what kind of person would that make me? Acknowledging that somewhere in my depth, the kill felt actually fucking good?
I need time to think. Make a plan. Vanish.
But I can’t. There will be men upstairs waiting for me to act. There will be people challenging me. I killed a mafia boss. I have read about the mobs and mafia structures in theory, and I have landed in a hell I was never meant to. Or maybe I was meant to, because of my father.
I always thought he was a decent man. But he was a rapist asshole, and that betrayal is the worst. And with one tiny, tiny part of me, I can understand Rosalia. Because if my father were still alive, I would have killed him, too.
“Make her behave,” I say, lower the gun, and turn to walk to the door. “If she so much as tries to kill me, I will kill her.”
Kat chuckles.
“Is that a yes?” asks Kat.
“A yes to what?”
“A yes to working together.”
“Do I have a choice?” I ask sardonically. “No. So you two, crazy as you are, are the better option. I would rather have a sociopath with a temperament and a, I’m pretty sure in your case, psychopath with a cause, around me than an angry mob that will kill me and everyone I know for existing.”
“I will not work with that,” says Rosalia like a reluctant toddler, disgust spilling from her.
Kat removes Rosalia’s restraints.
“You will work together,” Kat says to her.
I doubt that any of those words reach Rosalia. She is cackling mad at me, and sure enough, Rosalia acts as I expected.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” hisses Rosalia to Kat in a harsh tone. “She took my flesh, she took the kill from me, she is the debt, she is a liar, and she is a bitch I will not have anywhere near me.”
“Rose, for fucks sake, stop it and shut up,” says Kat, but it’s too late. Before anyone can stop me, I turn and punch Rosalia full on in the face. A crack cuts through the air, and I know her nose is broken. I hit her so forcefully that she stumbles to the side.
Martial arts classes were good for something at last.
Blood runs from her nostrils as she bends down and coughs. Satisfaction burns through me. Oh, how I have wanted to do that.
“That’s for calling me a bitch and all the things you put me through,” I say darkly.
“You little—“ she begins and swears something in Sicilian afterwards. I don’t care. She should be happy to still breathe.
“Your problem,” I say to Kat and walk away. Out of the room. To somewhere where I can think.
But I don’t come very far before I am grabbed by the neck with nails digging into my skin and thrown forcefully into the corridor wall next to me. I hit my head on the rough sandstone, and warm fluid runs down the side of my face.
“You don’t touch me and get to walk away,” Rosalia says.
