It’s better this way, when I have no hope of winning her back. Some doors aren’t open for you, even after you’ve forcibly broken them down.
And yet every time Tommaso or Adora calls, I feel the pull of Malus like a hook in my chest. The Montoni name. The Montoni legacy. The father who beat me until I learned to hit back, and then beat me harder for daring to fight. His violence was seeping into my blood. His poison was filling my veins, and he was remaking me in his image. Some nights I still wake in a cold sweat, certain that I’ll look in the mirror and see his furious eyes staring back at me.
Amber eyes. Unmistakable eyes, passed from father to son down the generations.
Tommaso calls again.
And again.
The ringing distracts my men from their cigarettes and flirting. They frown at my phone. Finally, to make Tommaso stop, I answer the call, but say nothing.
“Your father is dead,” the voice at the other end of the line says.
I watch a pigeon land on the edge of the fountain, its head bobbing as it searches for crumbs.
“Did you hear me? Agnello Montoni is dead. Murdered at your sister’s wedding.” Tommaso’s voice shakes with something between rage and grief. “I have a bad feeling, Cristiano. The way it happened, the timing. Adora married that Vici piece of shit. I don’t have proof, but I swear they did it.”
The pigeon takes flight, and I track its path across the pale blue sky until it disappears behind a terracotta roof.
“Cristiano. Say something.”
I hang up.
The phone sits in my hand, the screen blank.
My father is dead.
I reach for my espresso and down the rest of it.
I hated the way he smiled when I flinched, like my fear was delicious to him. I hated the bruises he left on my ribs where no one would see. I hated the sound of his belt sliding through the loops, the way he made me wait and watch before the first blow fell. For years I dreamed of killing him, slow and agonizing. I had plans. I had patience. I was going to look into his eyes and make him afraid of me for once.
But someone else got to him first.
My hand tightens on the empty cup.
Adora.
What did you do?
I think of my little sister, so eager to turn her face away from my pain, shut her bedroom door, and shut me out.
I wanted to do it.
Iwanted to.
He was mine to kill, not hers. Howdareshe.
But now Agnello Montoni is dead, and everything that was his belongs to me.
The casinos. The clubs. The politicians in our pocket, the judges on our payroll, the cops who look the other way. The Montoni mansion with its marble floors and its ghosts. The soldiers who killed for my father and will now kill for me. An empire of violence, money, and fear.
All mine.
The burst of cold fury dies to a background flicker. I tap my forefinger on my espresso cup, thinking.
I imagine arriving at a Montoni casino, and everyone falling silent when I enter the room. My father was so stupid with power. Impulsive, ruling with his temper, swinging his fists at every problem like a brute.
I’m smarter than he ever was.
