Page 47 of Vicious Kingdom

Now I felt sick.

I’m a fucking monster.A black hearted soul. The worst kind of creation.

Sandro’s groan of dismay behind me told me my brother felt the same. He pulled out his phone as he approached.

“What’s her name?” the don asked.

The plebian looked up, and the damn hope in his eye shimmered. “Sarah Matthews. She’s currently at the St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital.”

Sandro listened to his phone ring, and when his assistant, Luca Bravitti, answered, the don asked for his secretary for confirmation. We waited in tense silence as the young member of our organization worked his magic from the next room over.

“She’s there,” Sandro confirmed, pocketing his phone.

“She’s only seven,” the father pleaded.

I looked up at my brother’s hard face.

“It’s your call. You fucked this up,” Sandro commented in Italian.

The beast, pacing back and forth inside, moaned. This wasn’t his outlet. The release I desperately craved wouldn’t find satisfaction in what I was about to do.

“It’s a bad business, teacher,” I said matter-of-factly.

The man sobbed. “I just wanted to help my girl.”

“Oh, you did.” I patted his shoulder. “You helped her. She’ll have any treatment money can buy. An anonymous donation will arrive when the hospital’s billing department opens in the morning.”

The man drew in a shaky breath.

“But, Mr. Matthews—”

“It’s Stevens. The girl has her mother’s name,” he corrected.

I nodded. “Well, Mr. Stevens, if science can cure her, she won’t have her daddy to walk her down the aisle. Is that a price you can pay?”

My meaning sank in. The man began to breathe hard. He struggled to control his body.

“I—I can pay.”

“I swear to you, Sarah will never want for anything,” Sandro added, voice coming as a prophetic overtone.

“Tell her how much her father loved her,” Stevens insisted, meeting my gaze with a steady stare.

“She’ll know.” With that, my hand slid up his throat, and I snapped his neck.

Quick and painless, he felt nothing.

“He didn’t have to die,” Sandro scolded. “I had a handle on the situation. But now his death is on your hands. Do you feel good about yourself?”

No, I fucking didn’t feel good. I felt…lost. I would be the last man to complain, to tell my brother that it killed me a little each day to play the role we designed. That my throne was empty and lonely. That I craved even the smallest interaction with the famiglia. But now the price of trying to belong cost an innocent man his life and his daughter a father.

“You can’t pull this shit, Leonardo.” The don stepped into my path, glowering at me. “They’re already whispering, wonderingwhyyour business is being attacked by the IRS. They want to find something, so they’ll guess at a reason that is too close to the truth. And if you pull more shit like this—”

“It won’t happen again,” I snapped.

“You’re damn right it won’t. Stay away from us,” Sandro growled.

Brushing past my brother, knocking my shoulder into his, I left without a word, only feeling the suffocating weight of my situation steal the air from my lungs. The beast inside let out a roar of lamentation. It would be another long night, alone in my tower with only a bottle of scotch for company. Sandro, my own brother, didn’t know how bad things were. He didn’t see me dying, slowly, right in front of him.