“Tell me everything?” Odin asked.
I felt like I couldn’t move.
Something wasn’t right here, and I felt my gut twisting as I looked at Chiara. What did I not see? Why didn’t I feel sorry? Was it because of hatred? Had I gotten so used to not being around her, that I didn’t want her close?
She started to talk, and as I watched her, it dawned on me. My father had once hit me so hard, he had split my lip. I couldn’t even remember what I had done wrong, but I’d been his target, and I got slapped for it. Chiara had a split lip, only her lips were moving normally. She didn’t show any signs of pain, and when you have a split lip and you talk, it hurts. Staring closely at my sister, I saw the other signs as well. She loved to brag that she could turn the waterworks on and off without a care in the world. Those tears had left behind streaks of evidence.
She hadn’t thought about that.
My sister was in Odin’s arms, but she was not here for help. She was a fucking horse, a Trojan horse, and I knew we were targets.
I reacted. I grabbed her around the throat and slammed her against the wall. She hadn’t been expecting that.
“Alba, what the hell?”
But I was already smearing the makeup off her face. My sister was lying.
“What game are you playing?” I asked.
Odin reached for me, but I held my grip tighter on my sister. I wanted to hurt her.
Chiara looked at me and smiled. “I should have known you wouldn’t fall for it.”
Growing up, I was the only one who didn’t fall for her shit. I saw right through her, and staring into Chiara’s eyes, I knew what she was doing. The Serra Mafia didn’t know exactly where Odin was, so they sent my sister, which had given them the exact location.
Seconds later, I heard the gunshots.
“Oops,” Chiara said. “My bad.”
She looked so smug. She had led the Serra army to my home, to my husband, to this street. Good men were going to die because of her actions.
All those years of watching her set about destroying men and women because of her petty jealousy, and I felt this newfound hatred wash right over me. I pulled my fist back, and twenty years of hatred that had been building was behind the punch I landed to her face. The smile was wiped off, because I felt the crunch of bone as I had aimed for her nose, and that was where I hit. She fell to the floor, and the gunshots rang out.
Odin grabbed my arm, and he was already loaded up. “We have to move.”
Chiara didn’t know we had a Plan B, and I looked at my sister. Odin reached for her, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Alba, you know what this means,” he said.
I did know what it meant, but I was not going to feel guilty about what was going to happen.
We got out of the room, and I let out a scream as a bullet whizzed past. Odin pulled me behind him, we got out of the exit, and as we did so, I heard the first explosion go off.
Odin had told me this studio apartment had a fail-safe, that in the event of it being attacked by the Serra Mafia, he had the means to take out most of the men. It would destroy the building, but he was not attached to this home. This building was a means to an end.
My sister was inside that building, and Odin had set the trap, which meant he already knew what was going to happen. Odin was already ten steps ahead of the Serra Mafia.
I had just helped kill my sister, and I didn’t feel anything.
****
Odin
“What happens now?” Alba asked.
I had driven her to the safe house out in the country. It was one place the Serra Mafia couldn’t get to.
“I go and finish what I started, and when it’s over, I come and get you,” I said. “And we start our life together.”
