169

169
Vincenzo's POV
Samantha tore into the waiting room like a wild animal, but there was no fight left in her by the time they reached the sidewalk outside. I shoved her through the automatic doors and she stumbled towards the curb.

“Where am I supposed to go now?” she whispered again and again in a hollow, broken voice.

I didn’t think she was talking to me, but I was happy to answer anyway. “I don’t give a fuck. Anywhere but here would be a good start.”

I wanted her as far away from Raella as possible. But I also knew that if she stayed here, I’d kill her. And I had done enough of that for one night.

Her husband had tried to force Raella into marriage and then, when she refused, kill her. And Samantha hadn’t given a damn. She had never tried to save Raella. She had never tried to make things right. She was more worried about her life than Raella’s.

Part of me had once thought Samantha was like my mother. She had been trapped with a monster and didn’t have another choice. But now, Damian was dead. She was free to make her own choices. And with this newfound freedom, her first thought had been to get to the hospital and scream at her daughter for having the audacity to save her own life.

This bitch didn’t deserve Raella.

“Damian was all I had.” Her shoulders sagged. It looked like she was caving in on herself. “I have nothing left.”

“You could have had your daughter.”

Her eyes were dark, shadowy caverns when she looked up at me. “Raella hates me. She has hated me for years. It’s why she killed Damian. She wants to punish me for—”

“I killed Damian.” I paused and let the confession sink in. “Raella didn’t pull the trigger; I did. And I did it because, just like you, he slapped Raella. I’ll kill anyone who hurts her.”

Her eyes went wide and she stumbled another half-step back.

Good. She should have been scared.

“And just so you know—so you can spend the rest of your days thinking about all the many ways you’ve fucked up—he hit her because Raella attacked him after he said he was going to kill you. She was defending you.”

Samantha’s jaw dropped. “He didn’t say that,” she whispered. But I could tell she didn’t believe it.

“He sure as fuck did. After everything you’ve done to her, Raella was still trying to protect you. Your daughter was looking out for you even though you have never once looked out for her.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “I didn’t know. I thought—I need to talk to her.”

She took a step towards the front doors and I shifted in front of her. “You are never going to talk to your daughter again.”

“We’re family. We need to—”

“You need to get away from me right now. Before I decide to kill you for hurting my wife.”

She inhaled sharply. “You wouldn’t kill your wife’s mother.”

I chuckled darkly. “Then you don’t know a fucking thing about me. If you touch my wife again, I’ll end you. If you so much as breathe the same air as her, I’ll pop your lungs like balloons and watch you choke. If I even hear your name whispered by anyone in my vicinity, I will hunt you down and make you wish you had never been born.”

She was pale now. She took another step back and fell off the curb. Only barely did she catch herself on the bumper of a parked car to keep from spilling into the street.

“I don’t care where you go,” I told her, “but it better be far away from here. Do you understand?”

As much as I wanted Samantha to run into the night and disappear forever, part of me would have respected her for pushing back. I was estranging her from her daughter forever. She should have fought against that. She should have raged and begged, whatever it took. That was her daughter she was letting go. Show some goddamn heart.

But in the end, Samantha nodded weakly and then shuffled into the darkness.

Maybe she’d end up on the streets again. Maybe she’d find another rich man willing to take her into his house. Either way, I didn’t care.

I watched her turn the corner and disappear. Hopefully for the last time.

“Do you think that was a good idea?”

I had seen Lorenzo crossing the street towards us a few minutes ago, but I had been a bit too busy ridding Raella’s life of yet another soul-sucking leech to pay him any mind.

I turned to him now. “I think it was one of my best ideas, actually. I should have done it a lot sooner.”

He nodded. “Good. If she stuck around, I was going to have to keep an eye on her and any future boyfriends she had to make sure they weren’t plotting anything. It would have been annoying.”

“That’s why I did it,” I said sarcastically. “So you’d have less work.”

He grinned.