by Nicole Fox
A few Lombardi men do it immediately. Others are more reluctant.
“If you won’t listen to my man, maybe you’ll listen to your don,” I say. I nod towards Conor.
My men part and Oisin pushes out none other than Giorgio Lombardi, don of this rebellious fucking collective of too-big-for-their-britches Italians.
He’s been beaten, gagged, and bound. The coat of his tux is torn to tatters and gobs of his own blood stain the lapels of his crisp white shirt. Both eyes are blackened. Splits litter his forehead, each weeping more crimson blood.
He looks like utter dogshit.
I give Oisin a nod and he rips the gag free.
“You motherfuckers!” Giorgio bellows instantly.
I walk up towards him. Still stunned by how fast their world is crumbling to pieces, his men part like bowling pins to let me through.
The moment I reach Giorgio, I slug him hard in the gut, forcing him down to his knees in front of me.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?” I say pleasantly. “Tell your men to drop their weapons.”
When he remains silent, I grab him by the scruff of his neck and yank him up to his feet. Then I withdraw the knife in my boot and hold it up to his throat.
“You should re-think your current security systems,” I tell him. “My men have been in your house all morning and you didn’t even know it.”
I press the knife to his throat, leaving a tiny cut that allows out only a drop of blood. “I don’t like repeating myself, Giorgio. Give the order.”
“Drop your weapons,” he mutters reluctantly.
His men lower their guns. As soon as they hit the floor, my soldiers rush around and strip them all out of reach.
“Who are you?” Giorgio says in a low, frightened voice.
Irritation flickers across my eyes. “Seriously?” I glare at him without removing the knife from his throat, though I do take note of the large whale tattoo that covers most of his flushed skin. “You should know who I am, you stupid motherfucker. You’ve been encroaching on my territory for months now.”
I shake my head and sigh. Some men never learn until it’s too late.
“If it had been a matter of simple ignorance,” I continue, “I would have taught you a lesson and we could have put all this ugliness behind us. But this was never about ignorance. This was about disrespect. You chose to challenge my clan and I am here to assure you that that was a mistake, my friend. Problem is, when you ask for trouble, you better be fucking sure you can handle it.”
He looks at me with dark eyes. Hope is fading from them quickly. He has only minutes left in his life. Maybe not even that.
“Your men slaughtered everyone in my house,” he says in horror. “The halls are filled with blood.”
I look him in the eye. “Helena Selznick.”
“What?” He blinks in utter confusion.
I give Oisin the order—a silent raising of my fist—without ever looking away from Giorgio.
The cacophony of gunshots extinguishes all other sound. Giorgio flinches again and again and again.
More sounds follow.
The thump-thump-thump of dozens of Lombardi bodies hitting the ground.
A few bedraggled moans from the unfortunate survivors, quickly silenced as Oisin and Conor stride around to finish them off.
“Helena Selznick,” I repeat when silence resumes.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“A month ago, you gave the order to storm an O’Sullivan warehouse. She was one of the women working there when your men arrived. Helena Selznick. A single mother with a ten-year-old daughter named Corinne. Helena had brought Corinne to work that day. Do you want to know what happened to her?”
“No,” he bleats. “No, God, no!”
I force him onto his back. He’s trembling from head to toe and tossing his head everywhere as if praying that someone, somewhere, will intervene to save his miserable life.
But no matter where he looks, all he can see are the dead, rotting bodies of the men he thought would protect him.
No one is coming.
No one cares.
“You’re going to hear it anyway,” I tell him. “Helena Selznick. She was held down and raped while her daughter was forced to watch.”
His eyes dart around wildly, but I know he’s listening to me.
“Corinne watched as your men took Helena again and again and again. At some point, she passed out. She couldn’t take it anymore. And when she woke up, Helena was dead. She’d had her throat slit.” I put my boot on Giorgio’s stomach and lean in a little. “Do you remember the warehouse raid now?”
He’s spluttering tears and snot and blood. Every twitch draws my knife a little farther down his throat. The stream of red blood trickling into his collarbone grows thicker and thicker.
“I’ve ordered many raids,” he gasps. “I don’t remember them. It’s just business!”
“Interesting.” I shrug. “I would have thought you’d remember this one.”
I redouble my grip on the knife and adjust the weight of my knee on Giorgio’s chest. He wheezes in desperation. His breath is harder and harder to come by.
Only a little longer left, my friend.
“You see, Aisling told me that the man who ordered her mother to be raped had a whale tattoo on his neck,” I inform him. “In fact, she remembers that very, very clearly. Not such a common thing, is it?
His eyes widen. This is it. This is the end for him.
“No!” he screams. “Don’t—!”
I drag my knife across his throat and end his pitiful fucking life.
“Boss?”
I get to my feet and wipe my blade against the seat of my trousers. “Yes?”
“What should we do about that one?”
Rhys gestures towards the entrance of the mansion. I look up to see a young girl, standing at the threshold, her little hands clinging hard to the doorframe. She’s wearing an ivory frock with a pink sash around the waist. Blood is splashed across her clothes like gruesome abstract art.
“A kid?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“Lombardi’s daughter,” Rhys informs me. “The son wasn’t on the property when we did our initial sweep.”
“She wasn’t supposed to be here, either,” I grimace quietly.
I walk forward slowly. I expect her to try running. But the girl just stands her ground and stares. Even when I squat down in front of her, she doesn’t so much as flinch.
There’s a crescent moon scar on her right cheek. It’s fresh. She must’ve caught a ricochet or hurt herself trying to flee in the chaos. I tear away a piece of the sleeve from my shirt and use it to dab off the small droplets of blood on her face.
She doesn’t move. Not even once.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her.
I don’t expect a reply, which is why I’m mildly surprised when she speaks. “You killed my papa.”
There’s no accusation in her tone. No blame. Just the desperate curiosity of a child who wants to understand. She can’t be older than seven. Five, six at the most.
There’s no point in hiding from what I’ve done. “Yes,” I say solemnly. “I did.”
“Why?”
I’ll always be the villain in her memories. There is no fighting it. My name will haunt her forever. But maybe I can leave her with something that will make her think back on this moment with new clarity when she’s older.
“Sometimes, even decent men must do terrible things for the greater good.”
Then I put the torn fabric of my sleeve into her tiny hand and walk away.
Renata
Twenty Years Later—Long Island, New York
I’m one lap shy of twenty miles. But I’m nowhere close to tired. So I keep going. Hoping that if I just keep moving, maybe at some point, I can burn out my anger.
It’s been eleven years since I took up running, trying to do that exact thing.
Quiet the inner fire. Calm the inner scream
s.
And still, no luck.
When I finish my eightieth loop around the track, the sun is close to setting and the sky is painted in hues of green and teal. If I were the romantic type, I might have taken a moment to sit down and enjoy the sunset.
Too bad I’m not the fucking romantic type.
I walk to the end of the garden to the low brick wall that my brother Drago started building a few years ago. He always said he wanted it to be ten feet tall. Of course, he got to waist-height before he gave up and found something new to occupy his time.
I straddle the structure and look down the tiny slope that leads to the road. The house’s raised elevation gives me a decent vantage point of the surrounding houses, as well as a bird’s-eye-view of one of Long Island’s busier roads.
Drago moved us here about five years ago. At the time, it was a decent neighborhood. Familial, in a sense. But the atmosphere has since downgraded.
I blame Drago.
He blames the Irish.
My logic makes more sense, but Drago talks louder, so he inevitably thinks he’s won the argument. That’s how things always go with him.
I notice a young couple walking down the road, hand in hand. Both look around my age, possibly a year or two younger. She’s wearing tight jeans and a skintight crop top. He’s wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie with some university emblazoned across the chest.
I can’t relate to them at all. They might as well be aliens from another planet for all I care.
My eyes flicker down to their entwined hands. When was the last time someone touched me so tenderly? When was the last time someone told me they loved me?
The fact that I can’t remember should be depressing. Honestly, though, it’s not.
Mainly because I’ve blanketed myself in numbness for so long that sometimes even when I want to feel something, I can’t.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been moved around and isolated my entire life.
Maybe it’s because I was raised by a psychopath who calls himself my protector.
Or maybe it’s because I watched my father get slaughtered by a monster when I was five years old.
That’s Drago’s theory, at least. And he’s always right. Just listen to how loud he is, yeah?
“You’re dead inside, Renata,” he always says. “You’re dead inside just like me. You know why? Because that Irish fucker killed our father. He forced us to go on the run. He took away my legacy, my destiny. But don’t worry, little sister, I’m going to get it back. Mark my words—I’m going to piss on his body.”
Lots there to unpack. Am I dead inside? Drago used to tell me that endlessly when I was still a little girl. He told me that I couldn’t feel things because the O’Sullivan fucker ripped out my soul the day he killed Papa.
One day, I’d like to make up my own mind about things. But Drago’s voice is so loud that he blocks out mine.
I’ve grown up with the shadow of Kian O’Sullivan hanging over my head. He’s the ever-present ghost, the ghoul in the closet, the monster underneath my bed. I’ve been told I need to hate him my entire life.
And so I do hate him. I do.
But sometimes, the hate burns so badly that I feel like I’m going to pass out from the ache of it. And in those moments—in those weak moments—I wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to let go of the hate once and for all.
Kian’s face floats across my vision, blurring out the young couple who are walking past the house now.
On that bloody day twenty years ago, he looked like a man to me. But it occurs to me with a sudden start that he couldn’t have been any older than I am now. His eyes were a soft, clear blue. His hair was brown, with streaks of something closer to blond. Jaw sharp as a razor, chin strong and proud.
Even as a child, I remember thinking, He looks like a prince from a fairytale.
That was back when I read fairytales. Back when I believed in them.
In some ways, that made it harder to process. And so much harder to understand. When evil looks like evil, it’s easier to spot. Easier to run from. Easier to despise.
But when evil doesn’t look like evil… what do you do then?
You look for other things. You look for reminders that the angel approaching you is in fact a devil.
I might have walked right into Kian O’Sullivan’s arms if it hadn’t been for the blood splattered all over him.
My father’s blood.
I hold onto that. The way Kian reeked of blood and gore. The way he seemed completely unaffected by all the corpses he had to step over to get to me.
I can’t see the young couple on the road anymore, but I can hear their dying laughter as it fades away. When was the last time I’d laughed—about anything?
It’s been a long fucking time.
I slip back into the house and turn on a few lights as I move through it. It’s a one-story, two-bedroom ranch. The smallest home we’ve ever lived in. Drago insisted that he could have bought a bigger place, but he wanted to “fly under the radar.” Too bad I stopped believing his spin the day he dragged me out of hell. But that’s another story.
The money is dwindling. A combination of two things: Drago’s excessive spending in the early years of our forced exile and the fact that his so-called “business deals” are really just desperate attempts to try and reverse our fortunes.
Drago gets stupid when he gets desperate.
He also gets angry. Really, really angry.
I’ve got the scars to prove it.
I’m just stepping out of the shower when I hear the door slam. It seems to vibrate through the house. I sigh deeply and slip on my underwear.
I always make sure to keep the bathroom door locked. It makes me uncomfortable when Drago walks in on me—a creepy habit he’d fallen into a few years ago.
I grab the black matching bra and put it on. Automatically, my eyes go to the square mirror in front of the sink.
I look at myself with a critical eye. My legs are hard and well-toned from all the running. I used to think that if my body was strong enough, it might erase the scars etched on my skin. Trauma from my weaker days.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to realize that weakness comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, it can even masquerade as strength.
“Renata! Where the fuck are you?”
I put on my favorite pair of blue jeans and a short white t-shirt that I’ve had since I was a teenager. I leave my thick brown hair loose as I head back into the main body of the house.
It’s meant to be open plan, though out here in the boonies of Long Island, that mostly means that all the living spaces are mashed in together with little to differentiate them. A half-wall cleaves out the kitchen, but everything else is a confused jumble.
Drago is hunched in front of the fridge, his back to me. I don’t have to see his face to know he’s pissed off.
There can only be one reason for that kind of reaction.
“How’d it go?” I ask, making sure to keep a wide berth between us.
“How do you fucking think?” he growls, slamming the fridge door so hard I hear something break inside.
“Careful,” I warn before I can stop myself. “We can’t afford to buy a new one.”
He whips around and glares at me. His brown eyes are darker than mine and ten times more affecting.
When I see his face, I gasp. He’s got a split lip, a bruised cheek, and a trickle of dried blood running down the edge of his jaw.
“What are you trying to say?” he demands. “That I don’t have money? That I can’t afford a fucking fridge?” He rounds the small kitchen island menacingly.
I try to back away without being too obvious. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Haven’t I provided for you all these years?” he seethes.
His chest rises and falls with the force of his anger. We’ve played out this scene in so many different iterations over the course of our time in exile.
My head hurts from the predictabili
ty of each beat.
Another botched attempt on the Clan.
Another failed venture to try and gain the upper hand.
Another futile effort to try and restore the family honor.
He may not be the strongest or the smartest man, my brother. But he’s always been the most determined. The most dedicated. I say that to him all the time. But lately, it’s stopped sounding like a compliment. Now, it just sounds like I’m listing flaws.
“You have provided—”
“Not enough for you, princess?” he growls, cutting me off. “Not the lifestyle you want?”
“That is not what I said.”
“You want someone to blame, blame him—”
“I do—”
“Blame the fucker who stole my birthright, slaughtered our father, and turned our family legacy to dust in one fucking afternoon!”
“I know—”
And I do know. I know everything Drago’s about to say before he says it.
I’m a fucking don.
“I’m a fucking don!”
But because of that Irish fucker, I’m in exile.
“…But because of that Irish fucker, I’m in exile!”
Despite all that, I kept you alive. Another man might have gotten rid of the dead weight. But not me. You owe me your life.
“Despite all that, I kept you alive. Another man might have gotten rid of the dead weight. But not me. You owe me your life!”
I nod. “I know, Drago. I—”
Normally, that’s enough to placate him.
But not tonight, it seems. Tonight, he lunges forward to seize a fistful of my hair and tug me towards him.
If I’d known he was feeling violent, I would’ve kept out of arm’s reach. But he caught me by surprise. The yank pulls me off-balance and I slam into the cheap tile floor. My knees scream in protest and the impact sends a ripple of shock up my whole spine.
He wants to inflict pain. Which usually means he wasn’t just defeated. He’s been humiliated, too. There’s nothing like beating up on a woman to make a weak man feel strong.
“Drago, please,” I beg. “Let me go.”
