And so, with that thought in mind, I drag the blade down to his stomach, listening to his pain, and then I change direction. I take my time as I draw the dagger out and set the tip over his chest. Slowly, so slowly, I push it through his ribs and pierce his devil’s heart.
I can hear sound he makes, the gurgle of his last breaths as I lean over him bringing my face close to his, so he sees me. So he can have no doubt that it’s me washing my hands in his blood.
“Go to hell,” I tell him and push deeper as blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. I watch life leave him. His dead eyes look back at me, empty, dull, but knowing it was me who did it. Who stole his life like he tried to steal mine.
51
Dante
Gray watches Mara with intense curiosity. He doesn’t flinch at what she’s doing. At the blood. At the look on her face as she drenches her hands in Felix Pérez’s blood.
“Let’s go,” I say to her, extending my hand. She doesn’t move so I say her name. “Mara.”
She drags her gaze from Pérez’s dead face to look up at me. I try to dissect what I see in her eyes. It’s not triumph. There is no winner in this game. It’s not regret either. Maybe it’s relief. Maybe it’s acceptance and the knowledge that it’s over. Or maybe she’s still processing. Maybe her brain is still trying to make sense of what she’s done. Of the blood on her hands.
“You did good,” I tell her.
She shifts her gaze to my hand. Leaving the blade in the dead man, she places her hand in mine and I help her up. I notice she’s barefoot, her shoes a few feet away. I get them for her and help her put them on.
She stands tall beside me looking at Gray, her eyes hard. I wonder if she sees the familiarity of his features.
“You’re strong,” he says with a smile that isn’t unkind but doesn’t seem quite natural on him either.
Her expression doesn’t change. “I’m not going with you.”
Gray studies her, then shifts his gaze to me. “You were a boy when I met your father. Your brother, Michael, perhaps would have remembered me, but I doubt you do.”
Mara shifts beside me, turns her gaze to mine.
I see the questions in her eyes and pull her closer, wrap an arm around her.
Gray doesn’t miss this protective gesture as he turns his gaze back to her. “I only learned about your existence five years ago. If I’d known before, I’d have come for you sooner.”
Mara stiffens.
“It was David Grigori who told me, actually,” he says to me but only seems able to draw his gaze from Mara momentarily. “I hear he’s dead.”
He knows exactly how he died. I can see it in his eyes.
I nod.
“Good. Six feet under is where he belongs,” he says.
“What’s going on?” Mara asks me.
“Let’s get out of here. Go home. We can talk then,” he says.
“Home?” She asks him shaking her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Tell me here. Now.”
Gray sighs deeply, smiles again. “I met your mother when she was about your age. She was wild too. A free spirit. I’d never met anyone like her.”
Mara stiffens beside me. “I don’t know my mother,” she says, her words slow because her brain is adding two and two.
He nods sadly. “I tried to contact her but not until years later. Too late I realized.”
I tighten my hold on Mara’s hand as she seems to grow colder beside me. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m your father, Mara. And I’ve been looking for you ever since David Grigori told me you existed at all.”
52
Mara
I am reeling. My mind racing. If it weren’t for Dante, I’m sure I’d be on the ground right now. But he holds me up and I remember what he’d said a while ago. How he’d never let me fall.
Drake Gray’s home is on the outskirts of town weirdly close to Jericho St. James’s house. Although he doesn’t have the armed guards either Dante or Jericho had, twelve-foot walls surround his property and I get the feeling his security is just a little more discreet.
It looks like no one lives inside the house. He tells us that apart from a live-in maid and handyman, he lives alone. The house is so large most of it is not in use. He’s talking about it all as he shows us to an upstairs bedroom where we can get cleaned up. I notice how much of the house is dark, how many of the rooms we pass have furniture covered with dust cloths like no one lives here at all.
This man is my father?
Drake Gray, the buyer Felix Pérez had lined up, is my father?