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Costa looks back and forth between us, clearly confused. “Is this a game? What the hell is going on?”
I shrug casually. “Torture. Revenge. We haven’t decided.”
“You’re not going to kill me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Rieta seethes. “I’m already a killer. I killed my own husband, so how hard do you suppose it would be for me to put down a sick and twisted person like you?”
Costa is even more confused. “Your husband is standing right there. Nero, what the hell is she going on about?”
I tuck a strand of Rieta’s hair lovingly behind her ear and drop the Luca act entirely. When I look at Rieta, it’s with my eyes, not my brother’s. “You can shoot him if you want,cara mia, but don’t hit anything vital. I want to question him.”
“You’re not Nero,” Costa accuses. “Who are you? Who is she? What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m Nero. The real Nero. And this woman is mine. She’s always been mine.”
“Where’s Harriet?” Rieta demands.
Staring down the barrel of the gun, Costa replies flatly, “She’s dead. She died months ago. I wanted to keep her, but you heard what I said before. There was too much public interest in her disappearance.”
“No,” Rieta cries, but it’s a wail of despair, not of disbelief.
I tighten my grip on her waist, comforting her as much as I can. I expected as much, but it’s still devastating for Rieta to hear it.
Through her tears, she says, “Then tell me where her body is. Her mother should at least get to bury her.”
“I don’t know. Now get out.”
The gun trembles in Rieta’s grip. Costa is relatively relaxed for a man being held at gunpoint, like he doesn’t believe she’s really going to shoot.
Rieta aims the gun lower and fires. A bullet hits Costa’s thigh, and he screams in pain.
Over his gasps of pain, Rieta says, “I followed my husband, and I found out what he was up to, and do you know what the most disgusting part was? He wanted me to be silent about what I knew. Complicit. I’ve shut my mouth and put up with horrible people my whole life, but not anymore. You make me sick.” She lowers the gun and steps back. “He’s all yours, Nero.”
“You’re not Nero,” Costa says through gritted teeth. He has both hands pressed over the bullet wound, and blood seeps frombetween his fingers. Getting to his feet, he orders, “Get out of my house, both of you.”
“Make me,” I reply.
The man actually swings a punch at me. I evade his fist easily, and while he’s off-balance, I shove him to the floor.
“Where’s Harriet?”
Costa’s hair is falling into his eyes. “I told you, I don’t know.”
I grind my foot against his bullet wound, and Costa screams again. “Try again.”
“I let some men take her away. I don’t need that kind of trouble in my—”
“What men? What are their names? How do you know them?”
“I didn’t know them,” Costa pants. “Nero found them for me. The other Nero, or whoever the fuck he was.”
Costa was probably in a panic over Harriet and trusted my cold and collected brother to make his problems disappear. That sounds about right, but it means we’ve reached a dead end.
I turn away from Costa, and he sighs in relief. I don’t know what makes him think he’s getting out of this alive. I reach for the gun that Rieta’s holding, but she won’t let it go.
She’s staring at Costa with a bleak expression. “I should be the one to do it.”
“You have me.” Gently tugging the gun from her grip, I turn back to Costa. “Look away,cara mia.”
