Page 165 of Savage Don

“You’re heartless…” I hear myself finally mumble. My entire body is still frozen, but I can suddenly feel my bottom lip trembling.

If Sonia wants to get a reaction out of me, then so be it. I’m already sick of the void inside of me.

I’ll fill it up with rage.

“I’m a survivor,” Sonia quickly responds, pleased that I’ve decided to start speaking again. “And so was Ray. The only difference between us was that I am willing to do whatever it takes to thrive. That’s why I’m still here, and he’s gone.”

A simmering fire flickers in the darkness inside of me, but it can’t seem to rise past the frozen horror of all that I’ve seen and heard over the past hour.

Still, I try to fan the flames, even if I don’t really want to give Sonia what she wants. I would rather go out in a blaze of furious glory than without even a whimper.

It’s what Ray would have wanted. It’s how I could honor him one last time before I’m wiped from the face of the earth.

“You won’t be here for long,” I try to threaten Sonia. But my voice feels so small that I’m not so sure she can hear me. So, I try again, louder this time. “Unlike you, Ray wasn’t alone in this world. He has friends. They’ll come for you.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Sonia smirks, but her twisted smile isn’t as cocky as the others. Even her dark eyes glaze over for a second, as if she’s contemplating just how fucked she really is. “Despite what you’ve heard, I’m not perfect, dear. I’ve made my mistakes. But I’ve also made backup plans. I’ll escape this mess, and I’ll live out the rest of my days in quiet luxury. No matter how boring that may be, it’s still better than losing. Maybe, if you had been a nice step-daughter, I would have taken you under my wing and taught you all about how to cover your ass. ”

The thought makes me sick to my stomach.

“I’d rather die.”

“You’ll get your wish,” Sonia grins, her long nails tracing the barrel of her gun.

“… Was my father a backup plan?” I suddenly hear myself ask. I desperately want to scrub his drying blood from my face and my clothes, but I can barely sit up straight against my restraints.

“No,” Sonia says, shaking her head. “In fact, he was supposed to be my savior. He was supposed to be the bridge that I walked over to get everything I’ve ever wanted. But the same weakness that made him so easy to manipulate also made him impossible to count on. He thought he was so much greater than he was. But he didn’t understand that everything in his life had been handed to him. He didn’t know what it was like to fight and truly struggle for what he wanted. I did. But I couldn’t drag him along with me. His dead weight was too heavy.”

“So, you killed him because he wouldn’t let you walk all over him?” I ask, trying not to look at the bloody seat where he was just killed.

His silhouette is still there, but Sonia hardly seems bothered by it.

“Quite the opposite,” she replies. “I killed him because he wanted to push back. He wanted to make things complicated. Our old life is gone. It’s been gone for a while now. But that was all part of the plan, to start anew. And that meant cutting all ties to our old life.”

“… That meant killing me.”

And Ray…

“You should be thankful,” Sonia sighs. “What Domenico had planned for you was far worse than the quick death I’m willing to provide.”

“This is far from quick,” I spit. “If you truly wanted to cut all ties, you’d have already shot me. So, what’s the fucking hold up?”

Outside the tinted Cadillac windows, I can see the world speed up. Wherever we’re heading, we’re going there in a hurry.

But I’m not afraid. I’ve accepted my fate. Now, all I want is to get the last word in.

“Bodies are heavy to lug around,” Sonia says, tapping her gun against her lap. “And I couldn’t just dump you in the city.”

“You didn’t seem to have any trouble killing Father in the city,” I remind her, my stomach twisting as I try my best not to look back at the bloody seat.

“That’s because his body won’t set off a manhunt. But yours will. For some reason, even with Ray dead, powerful people actually care about you. You’re more valuable to them alive. To me, though? You’re even less useful than your father. No one gives a shit about Domenico, dear. That’s why he failed.”

It hardly matters that I know all about Father’s wicked plans for me, a lump of black bile still catches in my throat at Sonia’s sharp words.

The man I always thought I knew was a lie.

Father wasn’t strong or powerful. He was a spoiled pawn. And he has paid dearly for it.

“… Failed at what?” I gulp, trying to keep the tears from my eyes. I grew up even more helpless than I knew. This was never going to end well—not unless Ray had somehow managed to break the inevitability of my fate.