The moment he tears my panties away from me is the same moment I slam my stiletto heel straight into his neck. Blood sprays as it severs his jugular, but I don’t care as his hands fall away and he sits backwards to assess what the fuck I’ve done to him.
I’ve fucking killed him, that’s what I’ve done, and it never felt more liberating to kill a man like that right now.
I push myself backwards, distancing myself from him. I only stop when I hit the front door, and I watch him. He finally plucks the heel from his neck and discards of it across the room. He looks at me, the expression masked with a killer intent. He’s feeling feral right now, but he’s not going to last long. He goes to make an advance toward me, but he barely makes it before he starts to cough, spitting blood up as he does so. He falls onto his hands, now positioned on all fours. He begins to make a gurgling noise, and I can only assume it’s where he’s drowning in his own blood.
As scared as I am, I know I need to finish this and leave. Gathering everything my father has ever bullied into my mind and engrained into my learning, I pull my shirt closed and slowly rise to my feet and walk over to Big Al. There’s so much blood, I have to be careful not to step into it. As I step before him, he finally looks up to me and I throw him the dirtiest look possible.
“La pratica rende perfetti,” I hiss as I look down at him. He wants to challenge my ability to kill for my family, for those I love, I’ll prove to him that practice makes perfect. It doesn’t matter how the kill happens, just as long as it does.
And from the mess of carpet, it happened.
I gather my things absentmindedly. I pick my shoes up, one covered in blood, the other clean. I collect my purse and throw all my items into it. I make sure there is nothing left behind. I ignore Big Al’s final breaths and pick up his car keys from the dish by the door and begin to leave, throwing my final comment over shoulder.
“Ciao, Coglione.”
***
When I finally make the drive home, I try my hardest not to cry at the tenderness of my entire body. I don’t think I’m seriously injured, but then again, I’m no doctor. The bastard threw me around a little, hit me here and there, but I’ve survived worse, and a bath and a cleanup job will do me wonders.
I begin to head for the stairs, my bag clasped to my chest to stop my jacket from falling open. I keep my head down, trying not to make any noise. I can feel the tears beginning to build now that I’m in the sanctum of my home. The full velocity of what had transpired comes at me full throttle, and I’m ready to fall apart.
“Amelia?”
Busted, I think, as I stop at the bottom of the stairs. I look up and see Enzo and Manuel standing at the top of them. I find my neck hurts just looking up the vast staircase, and I look away. I saw their faces for a brief second before looking away, and I can tell there’s no disguising my current look.
“I’m fine,” I say, but my voice is much hoarser than it has been before. I turn away, keeping my hand at my chest, the other stabilizing me some. I want to groan out in abject pain, but that will only make them worry.
“Manuel, go and grab me some sweats and a top for her to get changed into and meet me in the grand room.” Enzo throws his instructions around as he begins to bolt down the steps toward me. The moment he touches me, I lose all control. “C’mon,” he says softly, keeping me close as he guides me through the house.
“Where’s Papà?” I ask roughly and am thankful for Enzo keeping me standing.
“He’s on his way back from a business meal,” he states, and I hear him exhale deeply. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” I comment dryly and look up at him. “I didn’t want you to see what he tried to do to me. I called your guys; they’re going there to clean up and send someone to pick up the car.”
“Was driving wise?” Enzo jokes, trying to lighten the mood as he helps me down into a chair. “Look at you,” he speaks softly. The tone itself brings me to tears again. He is so like my mother with his temperament that it’s hard not to want to just be vulnerable and allow all walls to drop. “Amelia, what did he do?”
I look down ashamedly and now the tears finally fall. “He tr-tried to rape me.” I swallow difficultly and look back up to him. “He knew what I had done, and he knew what I was going to do, so he attacked me and then tried to rape me.”
“How did you get away from him?” he asks me, taking my hands as he crouches down in front of me.
I now look away to my stilettos that I had dropped on the floor. My white and black Jimmy Choos are a vast contrast from one another. While one is immaculate, the other is stained red. I look back and tearfully wait for my brother to look back at me. Once his head turns, I’m defeated by the whirlwind of emotion I’ve caused to course up through him. He looks so angry, incensed by my assault. Regardless that my prior intent was to kill a man, my mistreatment enrages Enzo.
“It was the only thing I could do, Enzo.” My voice sounds foreign to me. It’s stolen and replaced with this meek and mild victim. I guess until now I thought I was invincible, and Big Al has brought about my realization of my own morality. “He was so close to doing it,” I whimper. “I just saw my shoe and slammed it into his throat.”
“Quick thinking,” Enzo notes, putting his hand to my chin to force me to keep my head up while he checks out the bruising to my cheek and jaw and the cut on my lip and forehead. “Did he hurt you anywhere else?”
“Yeah,” I admit and drop my hand slightly to hug myself.
“Here,” Manuel comments, rushing back into the room with a pair of my yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt I stole from Zane back when we first dated.
“Let’s get you changed, but I’m sleeping outside your door to make sure you’re okay.” Enzo’s comment isn’t something to reckon with. He will be there with or without my permission. I can see there is more concern over me than he letting on, but he won’t smother me with it because he knows I will bolt. “Let’s get you changed and cleaned up.”
I nod and stand up, finally placing my bag down onto the table. My body feels like it’s on fire with tenderness, especially at my side, and I just feel completely helpless. “I need help,” I tell my brothers. I’m not ashamed for them to see me in my bra. Especially not right now, with my body screaming at every movement. “Can you just be ready with the top, please?” I ask feebly and hope that once Enzo’s cleaned me up I can take a bath and crawl into bed.
Enzo takes the oversized t-shirt from Manuel, and as I finally allow my blouse to part, I shrug it off. I look down, only to be confronted with purple and black bruises coloring my skin. I close my eyes and quickly put my hands up the best I can to allow Enzo to drop the shirt over me and cover my body. When it comes to removing my skirt, I feel a little more shy, considering my panties were torn. I look to Manuel and motion for him to turn around before I make quick work to lose my skirt and put my pants on. My body does protest, but being covered again gives me back a sense of safety and security.
“Maybe you need a hospital, Lia,” Manuel counters, his voice horrified at the sight of my skin.
“I am not going to a hospital.” My statement is said with such harshness, I know Manuel won’t argue with me. “I just want to clean myself up and go to bed.”
“Which we will let you do as soon as I’ve cleaned those cuts on your face,” Enzo states, not allowing me to disappear quite yet. “I’ll go and grab the first aid kit.”
Enzo disappears and Manuel moves to sit in the seat beside me. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t look at him, and I don’t try to make conversation. I just stare forward, wondering how in the hell this could have happened.
In record speed, Enzo is back with the kit and places it on the table. These aren’t the first wounds he has had to clean, nor will they be the last. As he gets everything out and ready, he looks at me out of the corner of his eyes, and I just stare back, waiting for his numerous questions.
“Will you please l
et me teach you some self-defense now?” Enzo asks, dousing a piece of cotton ball with antiseptic liquid.
“I kneed him in the balls, doesn’t that count for something?” I ask meekly. I knew this would arise; he and Bruno have been encouraging me to learn self-defense for ears. But for the same amount of time, I’ve refused, believing I was far more superior to that. The look Enzo fixes me with amuses me, and I roll my eyes, much to the detestation of my facial muscles. “Fine, but when I’m not feeling so tender.”
“I’ll give you three weeks and then we are going to teach you intense self-defense. I’ll even let Giovanni be your first test dummy.” His comment forces me to laugh, but I abruptly stop. “I think we need to avoid the humor for the evening, eh?”
I nod graciously, and he begins to clean my battle wounds.
“What the hell?” Giovanni’s voice cuts through the room. “Who in the hell did you piss off?”
I look over just in time to see my father step into the room and take me in fully. His eyes widen and I know I can’t tell him the truth. How do I tell my darling father I was almost raped by his right-hand man, who secretly wanted to one up the Dio Lavoro and prove his worth in the mafia community? I can’t.
“Amelia,” my father begins to speak.
“It’s nothing,” I remark and look back at Enzo. “Just clean me up, please?”
“It is something. What happened?” my father asks, coming into view more. I can see worry etch across his face and watch me with total concern. It’s almost laughable.
"He flipped out," I comment dryly as Enzo presses more cotton ball doused in antiseptic to my forehead. "It must have been a reaction to the poison or something."
"Your neck," my father states, his eyes darken considerably. I haven’t seen the bruising on my neck or face so I have no idea how much the coloring is coming out. "He put his damn hands on you, Amelia."
"He's dead," I reply back, keeping it on point. "Job done. You can't do anything worse to him than I already have." I hiss as Enzo wipes the cut again and close my eyes as they water.
"I was told this wouldn't happen," my father speaks through clenched teeth. "You're never meant to get hurt." I could almost think for a moment that my father cares, but just as it always has been, the caring family man dies out and back comes the leader of the Abbiatis. "There had better not be anything that could have linked you to that crime scene."
I roll my eyes. "I called your guys. They are working on cleaning it up." I knew the concern wouldn't lay solely on me. It's probably best I prepare myself for being below my father's number one priority - never get caught. “So don’t worry, I took a beating, but Big Al is dead, your secret’s safe with me!” And just like that my nerves disband and I feel an overwhelming need to escape the room. I swat Enzo away, telling him to stop, and I begin to rise. I do it all too quickly, but my ribs stop me as they begin to feel like they’re being attacked all over again. I hiss and drop back down to my seat, breathing through the pain the best I can.
“How bad?” my father asks, coming to my side.
“Nothing that won’t heal,” I brush off, to diffuse his worry. Finally standing, I move away from everyone, but my father stops me. “I just want to go up to my room.”
“How does this happen, Bambina?” he asks me, and I shake my head. Apparently, in doing so, I only make him think it was all my fault. “I don’t understand how he got this physical with you. You’re supposed to spike his drink or something! Not get so carried away with your sexual needs that he learns the whole truth before you’re able to kill him! I knew this was a stupid idea.” He puts his hands onto his head and curses. “Fuck, Amelia. You are just supposed to lure them in, not get greedy! I learned from Jimmy’s death that you really liked to fuck them around before you kill them, but to allow Big Al to get this far? What did you do that provoked him? Did you tell him, or did he catch you trying to poison him? Were you stupid and reckless with this one?”
As his questions fly at me, I flip. Just like that, all my rational senses defuse, and I lash out.
“Big Al tried to rape me! Are you happy now?” I scream at him, and instinctively his hands come to grab me. I start pushing his hands away, agitation taking me over. “He knew the game before I had even started playing it. He knew what I was up to, and it took me slamming my fucking heel into his neck to stop him from raping me and sending me back as a gift to you!”
I see the shock on his face and decide to carry on.
“He nearly got me as well, by the way.” I lay another brick of truth in front of him. “If I hadn’t have had that opportunity, then I dread to think of what mess I’d have come home as. He was so close to making it happen,” I tell him, letting every truth out. “And for once, I realized my name wasn’t going to save me. The fact I’m your daughter wasn’t going to help me out. What I’ve done for you in the past didn’t stop him either. I’m not some invincible little princess like you made me think I am.” I look at him, bearing my soul and hatred all at once. “I’m just as expendable, as twisted, and as helpless as the rest of them, and I’m just sorry it took me this long to realize it.”
I begin to break down before my father. Years of abusive torment and empty threats so powerful I cowered to my father’s every whim are now destroying me from the inside out. I was full of confliction and lacked the ability to just say no, but now it’s all killing me. Slowly, piece by piece, my soul becomes weaker and weaker. I’m so oppressed in this family, that it’s suffocating me, and my only reason to live, my only source of oxygen, has a limit on his time alive.
As I falter, my father steps in, putting his arms onto my biceps, and I react as if he’s burned me.
“Don’t touch me!” I bellow and hit his hand away. “Don’t ever touch me again. Can’t you see it?” I ask him, my malicious nature consuming me whole. “We don’t want you here! We don’t even need you. Enzo is a better father figure to me than you ever have been. He loves me; he doesn’t want me around to do his dirty work.”
I get no option to say another word as my father leaves the room. He doesn’t depart on a nasty note, or repay with a kindly spoken threat. More worryingly, he just leaves the room. Giovanni follows out after him. The silence is golden. But now we’re alone, I decide to leave and go lick my own wounds for the evening. But there is just one more thing left for me to do.
“Oh, Enzo?”
“Yeah?” he asks me back, looking up at me.
I keep my face stone cold; I feel nothing anymore toward my heritage, my family, or my fate. “I want out.”
***
“What the actual fuck?”
“Hello to you, too,” I mumble as I cross the room and throw my things down onto the chair beside Zane’s bed. I put my hand onto the top of the chair and now finally take note of how much my body aches. The drive here must have taken the majority of my adrenaline because now I feel spent, weary, and a wreck. “It’s nothing,” I feign, using a lie, and I’m not even sure who I’m saying it to more – Zane or myself.
“Amelia, this isn’t fucking nothing,” Zane argues as he sits up. I don’t feel an overwhelming need to jump in and stop him; he looks like he’s in less pain than he did only days ago. He’s also in his own clothes, which makes me think he’s doing far better than he possibly is. “What in the hell happened between the other night and now?”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” I comment dryly and look to him. “It’s all superficial. In a few days you won’t even notice it.”
“If you don’t tell me what happened, in a few days I’ll still be asking,” Zane remarks back at me. He cocks a brow, waiting. “Amelia, what in the hell happened?”
I have to think quickly, and I do.
“Giovanni got drunk,” I lie, knowing Gio is my only hope of a sincere fib. “He got annoyed at me for a comment I had made earlier, and with everyone out of the house, he finally took it out on me.” I look to Zane and sigh. “Enzo came home just in time. It’s taken care of.”
; “I could fucking kill that brother of yours,” Zane grunts, his teeth grinding together.
“Not in your current condition.” I go sit beside him to try to settle him. “He’s been taken care of but not just by my brothers, by my father, too. He isn’t our worry for a bit.”
“Don’t even mention your father,” Zane adds viciously. “I could kill him too. He doesn’t deserve to live after everything he has you do. He doesn’t even show remorse when he says he loves you. I love you, but it doesn’t mean I’ll extort you and then shun you all at once. I love you, Amelia, there are no conditions.” He tries to keep himself calm, but he’s clearly struggling. “Mark my words, one day he will meet me again, and I will show him what I’ve been waiting to do.”
“What’s that?” I ask, not sure if I truly want to know.
“That he isn’t indestructible.” He looks at me. “I’ve been planning that day for a long, long time.”
I look away, unable to meet his gaze. Once again, I’m shown my true reality and he’s in a hospital still. I am an affascinante assassino. Well, according to my father anyway. He made me into this and called it my birthright. This is the fate he has given me, but there is only one issue with that – he doesn’t know my true fate has a beating heart and a bullet made for him.
The silence that settles apparently gives Zane a moment to take in my full outward appearance.
“You look tired,” Zane comments, his eyes swarming all over my face.
“I didn’t sleep very well,” I tell him and offer a smile. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, so quit covering up.” He then shifts onto the bed, leaving room for one more person. “Come and lie with me. I’ve had you sitting beside my bed or sitting on it and had enough. Crawl under the covers and lie with me for a little while.”
I give him a wayward look, wondering if he’s being serious. However, when he pats the bed I realize he is. I cave quickly and go to his side. I kick off my pumps and climb onto the bed beside him. He settles quickly, forcing my head onto his chest. I wonder how much grief this is causing his body, but he doesn’t make a fuss, just hugs me closer than ever before.
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