Page 64 of Venomous Throne

In one swift move, I gripped the old woman by the shoulders.

“Poison? You want to talk about poison!” I shrieked.

Her eyes widened in surprise. She had no idea I had this fight inside me. No one did, least of all her firstborn. It was forged in the years married to the sonofabitch, and it nearly came out in the bar when I attacked her youngest spawn.

“If you raised sons who were good, who were kind, I would have been the best damn thing that happened to them,” I shouted. “The only thing I wanted was a husband and children—a family of my own! I wanted to stay at home, to cook, to clean, to cherish my family. And Vincent? Vincent?”

I shoved her hard, pushing her onto the embroidered couch.

She stammered, holding up her gnarled hands in a feeble attempt to defend herself.

“Help! Someone help me,” she called.

My men paused, looking on with interest. They wouldn’t interfere.

“Vincent was a monster,” I seethed, bringing my face close to hers. “A fucking brute, who couldn’t give me a child and blamed it on me.”

I tore open the blouse under my tailored jacket.

“This scar? Vincent gave it to me for overcooking his pasta. We’d been married a month. A month! You raised two demons, and they got what they deserved.”

The rush of the past shot from the walled-off area, crashing down on her in a furious rush.

The last thing I wanted was to seem a victim. That was why I never spoke of the past, the trauma and the misery. But when she dared to suggest I was the problem? Well, I couldn’t have herleave without her knowing exactly what kind of children she held in such high esteem.

“I wish it had been me that killed them, I do,” I hissed. “But sending you away is the next best revenge.”

“You’re cruel,” she choked. “Driving me from my house. My home!”

“No, signora, you are cruel.” I sucked in a deep breath, standing straight and tall, looking down on the original source of this torment. If she had done her job, maybe her sons would have known a drop of kindness. “There is no place for you in this neighborhood. I want you out, out of this city. Out where I never have to look at your toxic face again.”

Maybe then I can forget. Maybe I can move on.

I stalked out of the room. Thirty minutes later, the van was loaded.

Standing on the front porch, I watched a grieving mother, lost in her own nightmare, ascend to the front seat. I didn’t wave; she didn’t look back. As the moving van lumbered from its spot on the curb, a small car pulled in behind it.

“Signora, I have news,” Franky called as he exited his vehicle.

I descended the steps. The surge of victory never came. Seeing my mother-in-law leave was the quiet closure to the worst chapter of my life. No matter what happened next, whether the mob survived with me at the helm or not, it would never be as ugly as my marriage to the late don.

“What’s your news?” I met Franky on the sidewalk.

He pulled out a cigarette box, tapped it on his palm, and pulled out a stick. The toxic scent tickled my nostrils, inviting me for a dark tryst.

I clenched my fingers at my side, resisting the urge.

“Ginger left town for LA. Took the morning flight,” Franky said as he sucked on the death stick.

The news was better than any buzz of nicotine.

“Good.”

Another rotten soul gone. Already, my neighborhood felt cleaner.

“Yep,” Franky chirped, an odd sound for a man his size. “The rest of the girls at the Ivory Pony know better than to take romantic deals on the side. They know their employment is at risk, and they’ll be out working the street corners in other Chicago burbs.”

My body unfurled languidly, each muscle extending with a satisfying tension that promised release from the coiled restraint of past anxieties. It was a fleeting moment of solace, a pause in the storm of my life’s recent chaos. I opened my mouth to voice some mundane observation, perhaps to comment on the reliability of Franky's presence or the oddly hopeful hue of the cloud-soaked sky. But before any words could form and spill into the air between us, the world erupted.