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“I’m not a possession—” I’ve stopped retreating. Mistake. Because he’s crossed the distance, backing me into the wall. I glare up at him as he sets his hand at my throat.
“You belong to me. And I belong to you.” He flexes his hand and releases me. “But you see nothing, consider nothing, but your revenge.”
“It’s not revenge. It’s vengeance. It’s for someone else.”
“Is it? What does your mother gain by you killing her murderer?”
My chest is rising and falling so rapidly that blood has started trickling down my breast. “She deserves to be avenged.”
Victor’s face is carved from stone, but his eyes burn like blue lasers. “But does she require it?”
“I require it.” My voice cracks. He’s flaying me open like the sadistic surgeon he is, and I have no more defenses. “They threw her life away. They treated it like nothing. But she wasn’t nothing. She was everything.”
“And what would she think if she saw you now, her precious daughter? Would she want your life to look like this?”
I suck in a breath. Victor could not have hurt me more if he carved my heart out and held it in front of my face, still beating.
“You spent all these years sharpening yourself to a blade and making yourself a bullet in a gun. But you are more, Lula. You can do, can have, more.”
“Shut up,” I whisper and turn my face away.
The floor creaks as he leaves.
He’s making noise on purpose because he so rarely makes a sound, leaving me with bile in my throat and burning eyes.
Victor
The screens in my media room are filled with motion. Spiro, Joe, and the rest moving around the deserted pizzeria. Cars zooming down streets. Workers in Cavalli’s, fixing the walls, prepping them to paint.
I ignore them all and fix my eyes on one screen, the most important one. In the black frame, Lula sits on the bed, staring at the wall. She hasn’t crumpled yet, but I can tell she wants to. The news about her brother bowed but didn’t break her. More proof that her mother’s death was ignored by those Vera loved the most.
They threw her life away. They treated it like nothing. But she wasn’t nothing. She was everything.
My captive has not cried yet, but her eyes look bruised. I message the doctor to watch over her and leave my media room.
An hour later, I’m across from the dark doors of the abandoned hotel Spiro gave me the address to in a neutral part of town. Here, supposedly, Stephanos left me my money. A black duffel bag of unmarked bills. Whether the money will be accompanied by the man, I cannot say.
Instead of walking in as instructed, I climb the fire escape of a nearby building and get to the roof to scout the area. From here, I can settle into a sniper’s perch and look down onto the drop zone. Not that I have a gun.
A few minutes pass. I’m early, but something tells me my client is earlier still.
The moon drifts across the sky. A rat pokes its head out of a hole and inches toward a dumpster.
A match flares in the dark for a second before being snuffed out, but it’s enough. The tiny, mean eye of a cigarette remains, burning red gold.
And there he is. Broad shoulders, shaved head.
I wait in the shadows, contemplating my next steps.
CHAPTER 15
lula
Victor leaves me alone. For hours. Maybe days. I try to break down the door leading to the hallway where he’s gone but have no luck. I even try to break into the dungeon. I stand on a stool and poke into the vents, but they’re too small to fit more than a hand and covered in a steel grid. I leave it alone, not wanting to mess with the only source of fresh air in my cushy prison.
I have nothing to do but eat the food in the fridge, take the painkillers he left me, and imagine what I’ll do to my brother if I get my hands on him.
I refuse to think of Victor. He’s nothing to me. He was never more than my captor. My enemy. And if I am a bullet in a gun, a dagger with a poisoned edge, let me maim him. Let me kill him.
