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The handle of the whip is thick in my hand. Solid. Cool to the touch. I give it an experimental crack through the air and Vittorio screams like a pig in a slaughterhouse before it’s ever even touched him.
Then I raise it and flay open the man who killed my wife.
He screams again. It’s nauseating, but I don’t flinch. I give him three lashes. The blood on his skin sets my own blood alight with a strange kind of fire. It feels like the scales are being made even.
Balance. Repayment. Revenge.
A chapter closing, one lash at a time.
But when I’m done and my arm is heavy from the effort, I wouldn’t say I feel better. Hurting him doesn’t bring Elena back. It doesn’t undo years of heartache and rage.
In the end, the chapter may be closed—but Vittorio isn’t a monster or a villain or even an enemy. He’s just an old man tied to the banister in an empty house, screaming as his life hurtles towards its end.
So it’s easy to pass the whip along to Bee. “He’s all yours,” I tell her. “Make it count.”
She nods, flexing her arms purposefully before she accepts it. “I’m not coming out until the job’s done,” she informs me in a hard voice.
“Understood.”
I gesture to Cian to follow me and the two of us exit the building together to the echo of another desperate scream. Closing the door cuts the sound in half, but not nearly enough to completely drown out the sounds of Vittorio’s wails or the crack of Bee’s whip. That’s probably why Wren is in the furthest jeep with the windows up.
“Dmitri.”
I turn to Cian, who’s looking broken and lost. “I came to you to make amends—” He barrels through before I can interrupt. “—and I know that bringing you here isn’t enough. So?—”
“You're going to make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
Cian sighs, his eyes darting past me for a moment. “I’m offering you… myself.” I raise my eyebrows and he swallows. “I’m offering myself as a sacrifice for Elena’s and Rose’s deaths. Just as long as you leave my men and their families alone. Let my death be the end of this feud. End it. End me.”
The night is hushed around us. Birds titter in the trees and distant highway traffic drones like an ocean we can’t see.
Amazingly, I believe him. Even more amazing? The man has actually succeeded in impressing me. Perhaps Wren was right about him all along. I glance over my shoulder to the car she’s sitting in. I already know what she would say in my place.
“My men won’t take revenge for my death,” he adds. “They won’t move against you at all.” He turns his gun around butt-first and offers it to me. “Go ahead.” I accept the gun as Cian closes his eyes. “I know you’ll think less of me for this, but I’m not interested in looking death in the eye.”
His chin is thrust proudly in the air, his face smoothed of all concern. I switch the gun from hand to hand. Like the whip, it’s heavy and cool in my palm.
I could do it; it’d be easy. Clean. Simple. Death for death.
But I’m finding that I’m not so interested in killing anymore.
So I open the clip and let the bullets clatter to the ground. Cian cracks open an eye at the noise and gawks down at our feet as the bullets scatter in every direction and find resting places amongst the dirt and gravel.
“Open your eyes,” I tell him. “Today’s not the day you die.”
His jaw drops. “You’re not going to kill me?”
“My wife thinks you might not be the villain I’ve always assumed you were. And… she may just be right. So you get another chance,” I concede. “But one chance is all you get. Understood?”
Cian’s face splits into a smile. “Understood.”
“Now, get out of my sight before I change my mind.”
Without bothering to see if or where he goes, I twist around and run straight to the jeep where my wife and son are cloistered. The moment the door springs open, Wren is on me, engulfing me in her warmth and her flurried touches.
“Wren!” I snarl. “I’m so fucking sorry. I was?—”
She silences me with her lips and, as much as I want to say more, I find myself completely losing my train of thought. When we finally break away, new adrenaline is surging through my body.
