“I hope it hurts,” I whispered as I leered into his face, watching sweat pop out across his skin, brow crumpled and damp like a used napkin. “I hope I nicked your goddamn heart because it’s the only time I’ll ever come close to making you feel something for me. You used me like a tool. You made me believe heavy-handed force and negative reinforcement was some fucked-up love.”
“That’s all you’re good for,” he grunted, twisting to get away but only increasing his pain. “Killing men and doing dirty deeds for real blue bloods.”
“I would have done that and more if you’d loved me,” I said, realizing the truth of the words as they fell from my mouth.
I was light headed with pain and blood loss, with the agony of losing my father and Bianca in one swift blow. It nearly killed me to realize I’d been the orchestrator of my own heartache.
Why was it that everything seemed so clear now––Bianca, Brandon, my true desires and needs––when it was too late to grasp them?
A bitter laugh escaped me like a cough. “Now, I’m done. I’m not yours to use or know or even fucking look at anymore. You’ll have to get your own fat, weak hands dirty for a change.”
“You still haven’t learned. I’m the one in charge, not you.”
“You’ll never learn,” I hissed as my fingers knocked against the bones of his ribcage and slid deeper. “So you’ll die alone and hated by your own flesh and blood. But I can learn and I will.”
“I’ll destroy you,” Bryant said and even shot through the chest, wobbling on weak knees, he managed to be haughty and threatening. “I’ll destroy them. That bitch Bianca and her little brother. That disgusting group of miscreants who are the only people you can even pay to associate with you. I’ll end them all.”
“That’s an awful lot of blood on your hands,” I quipped blandly, but I was a predator and my young had been targeted. Adrenaline surged through me and my hand found Bryant’s throat of its own accord, squeezing so tightly, he turned pleasingly purple in the face.
“There are more ways to end a man than death,” he rasped.
There was.
I knew all of them because Bryant had taught me well.
Fear skittered down by spine, but I steeled myself and focused.
Leaning so close I could feel Bryant’s wet, rattling breath against my scared cheek, I made sure my eyes were all he could see. I wanted him to read the savagery there, the pure, cold intent of the killer he’d created.
“You touch a hair on the Belcantes, I’ll finish the job and shoot you through the head, do you understand me?” I said slowly, clearly. “You forget, dear dad, I know where all your skeletons are buried. I put them there myself.”
“Mutually assured destruction,” he whispered, his bloody hand scrambling to peel mine off his thick neck.
“So be it then,” I growled. “You come for mine, I’ll end you, even if it means the end for me. You took everything from me, Bryant. I don’t have anything left to lose, and that is a very dangerous thing.”
For the first time all night, Bryant looked momentarily unsure, his eyes cutting to the left over my shoulder as he tried to calculated the truth of my words. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, he knew of all the people in his life, I was the most capable of destroying him.
That was the problem for people who created monsters, it was only a matter of time before they turned on their creators.
There was something about seeing him across from me like a mirror image that chilled me deeper than his disregard, horrified me more than the violence between us. I felt suddenly sure that I was staring through the looking glass at my future, a villainous man with a black heart and only selfish intentions, corrupted by greed, power, and vengefulness.
How fucking empty it seemed looking a Bryant then, an aging man with a massive family who respected him out of fear instead of love. Who wouldn’t give him a fucking nickel willingly let alone their love and trust.
It reminded me of Bianca’s word about choosing grace over violence.
Done with this, with Bryant and anything associated with him, I threw him away. I dug Eamon McTiernan’s old, silk handkerchief from my pocket to clean my hands as I watched him stumble to regain his footing and then land hard on the floor, breath forced from his lungs on a wet exhale.
To my right, still prone on the ground, Carter began to stir.
I stared at him for a moment, the brother I’d wronged who had just tried to exact retribution on me, and I made the first decision borne of grace that I’d made in a very, very long time.