Chapter 188 191

Chapter 188 191
I laugh in derision. “So what? That’s your justification for doing all this?” I ask.

I rise to my feet and look down on her coldly. She doesn’t look so poised and perfect from up here.

She looks frightened, as a matter of fact.

I continue, “You think that because I won’t give up the Family, that means I don’t love her?”

“You don’t know the first thing about love,” Sonya spits at me.

I shake my head. “Sonya, Sonya, Sonya. You never did understand the Family. You never understood the Life. Which is probably why you never fit into it.”

Her eyes are angry slits. Her hands are crooked into claws, with those blood-red nails flashing in the chandelier light. “I never fit into it because you never made room for me.”

“Bullshit,” I reply calmly. “You wanted my world to revolve around you. You weren’t interested in being my partner. You wanted to be queen. And if you didn’t get what you wanted, you threw tantrums. A spoiled rotten little girl—that’s what you are. That’s all you ever wanted to be.”

“So you’re saying you loved me?” she asks challengingly. “You’re saying it was all in my head?”

She asks the question carelessly. Like she’s done investing any of her heart into the crumbling ruins of our fucked-up marriage.

But I can see the hope behind her carefully manicured expression.

I can see how much she needs to hear my answer.

“I tried to make you a priority, Sonya,” I say quietly. “But I had a duty to the Family that you never understood. I would have given you everything. I would have treated you like a queen. But you were too blind and selfish to see that even queens need to do their part.”

She narrows her eyes at me.

“So did I love you?” I muse. “No. I don’t think I ever loved you in the way that I was supposed to. And maybe in that sense, you were right in leaving.”

She stares at me with shock.

She’s still processing my words when I close the remaining distance between us.

She’s still as beautiful as I remember. But her beauty has lost its appeal to me. She’s nothing but a memory from my past now.

And the feelings connected with her are hollow, raw. Rotten with old regrets I can no longer fix.

“I came because I need something from you.”

Her expression turns suspicious again.

“What?”

“I need you to tell me where Kazimierz is.”

“You want to kill him?”

“He crossed a line. Threatened someone I love. That I cannot stand for.”

“The girl. You love her,” Sonya guesses. It’s half-shock, half-accusation. “The nanny.”

“Her name is Charlotte,” I offer quietly.

The name hangs in the air between us. Sonya’s eyes don’t betray her emotion, but her body does.

She’s tense, like a lioness just before jumping for the kill.

“And yes. I do.”

There it is.

The words I couldn’t say to Charlotte’s face.

“I can’t help you.”

“Can’t?” I ask pointedly. “Or won’t?”

Her jaw hardens. “FBI information is classified, despite what your ‘leaker’ seems to think. I can’t just hand it over. Particularly not to the don of a rival mafia gang.”

“Just tell me where Kazimierz is. That’s all the information I need.”

“What are you going to do?” she presses. “Barge in on him like you just did with me and blow his brains out?”

“I was thinking of a slow and painful death instead. But you get the point. Just tell me where he’s going to be.”

“He’ll know it was me. He’d kill me if he found out I talked.”

“And I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

With that, I’m on her too fast for her to react.

One hand finds her throat.

Picks her up.

Pins her with a harsh slam against the wall.

For the first time since I walked in, she is actually starting to look truly terrified.

It makes me wonder—how did she think this would go?

All these long years since she vanished, all those nights… She must’ve stayed up late, staring at the darkened ceiling and dreaming about making me suffer.

Did she picture a moment like this? Of all her plans going wrong?

Her eyes are wide and her fingernails scrabble at my wrists, but I don’t let her go.

“You’d kill the mother of your child?” she chokes out.

I tighten my grip around her neck. “Without a fucking doubt,” I hiss. “Care to call my bluff and find out? Fair warning—you’re not gonna be happy with the outcome.”

She’s speechless.

Looking at me as though she can’t even recognize me.

“I’m Evie’s mother,” she rasps again. Her face is paling quickly.

“No,” I correct with venom. “A mother loves. A mother cares. A mother protects. What you are is a threat. To Evie, to Charlotte, and to me. Killing you is a mercy to a little girl who deserves better than you.”

“You wouldn’t,” she says softly.

But she’s not sure.

And that tiny seed of doubt is all I need.

I lean in a little closer to drive home my point.

“This is what you never understood about me,” I tell her. “It’s why I can’t walk away from the Family. It’s why I will never walk away from Evie or Charlotte. I take care of my own. I protect the people I care about. I killed my own father to protect my mother. And I will kill you if it means keeping Charlotte and Evie safe.”

Sonya’s eyes go wide with realization as my words register.

“You… you did what?”

The memories are cropping up in my mind’s eye.

“He was a monster,” I say hollowly. “I watched him torment my mother for decades. He broke her. She’ll never be the same again—because of what he did to her. My only regret is that I didn’t kill him sooner.”

Sonya shakes her head as though she can’t quite believe it.

Truthfully, neither can I. It all seems like a distant, barely-remembered nightmare.

Hearing his raised voice in his office late one night.

Creeping down the hallway.

The harsh smack of him backhanding my mother as I watched through the crack in the door.

For thirteen years, I’d watched him do this. Hit and hurt and scream and belittle both of us.

But I was a man now. Or close enough to a man to finally do something about it.

I crept behind them, my mother and father, as they argued.

As she screamed.

As he hit her again and again.

I grabbed the ceremonial knife he kept on his desk.

Unsheathed it. Walked up to him.

Tapped him on the shoulder.

“Papa…” I croaked, my voice breaking with fury.

He turned. Saw me. Understood at once.

But it was too late. All his sins had finally come home to roost.

And when I buried that knife in his chest, I made sure he looked me in the eye…

So he knew exactly who was sending him home to hell.

Twenty years later, that same fury is still pumping in my veins.

But it’s changed. Morphed. It’s no longer as hot and molten and vengeful.

Now, it’s laced through with love.

“Like I said, I will do anything—and I mean fucking anything—to make sure my family is safe.”

My fingers tighten more around her throat and she starts clawing at my wrists harder as her air is cut off.

“You have a choice to make, Sonya,” I tell her. “And you have ten seconds before you lose consciousness in which to make it.”

She taps my wrist and nods, her eyes wide with fear.

I suppose that’s a yes.

I let go.

She collapses to the floor instantly. She gasps and gags as she clutches her throat and draws in huge, heaving breaths.

I stroll over to the desk and pull open a drawer to find a notepad and pen. I pull them out and slap them both on the table.

“Write down everywhere you know where that bastard will be,” I command.

She forces herself shakily to her feet and walks slowly to the table.

“After you’re done, you might want to contact your handlers in the FBI,” I tell her. “Tell them to get you as far away from this city as possible.”

She sits down, but she refuses to look at me as she takes the pen.

“Oh, and Sonya?”

She flinches, but I know she’s listening.