The Reaper (Dark Verse 2)

“Well, well,” Lorenzo Maroni guffawed. “Look who turned up from the grave. I thought I’d buried you, old friend.”

“Always the theatrics, Lorenzo,” her father commented, sounding amused.

Lorenzo chortled. “You should’ve left the sleeping skeletons alone.”

“Why did you call us?” Gabriel cut through the bullshit.

Her father shook his head. “I wanted to ask about the trade. Weapons and children these days, isn’t that right, Lorenzo?”

“Not this old tune, Reaper,” Lorenzo looked down at his friend’s cane. “You remember the last time you threatened to expose me?”

“Very clearly,” her father stated. “You’re not the only ones I called for this meeting.”

Morana watched, surprised, as Dante stepped into the warehouse and leaned against one of the pillars, casually smoking a cigarette. “Hello, father.”

Tristan inhaled above her, his heart still steady against her ear. Morana felt her own start to palpitate. She had a bad feeling about this.

Lorenzo Maroni looked slightly startled for a second before he recovered. “Good to see you, son.”

Dante gave an empty smile, one like she’d never seen on his handsome face. “I wish I could say the same, especially after seeing the results of your depravity the last few days, father.”

Lorenzo stilled before turning to the Reaper. “Why call us here?”

Her father leaned on his cane and stood him, his body lean in front of Lorenzo’s stock. “To tell you that for the last few years, I have dismantled your business. To tell you that I have been planning this for over twenty years. You are true evil, Lorenzo. And you don’t deserve to live.”

Before anyone could move, her father twisted the top of his cane off, bringing out a hidden blade, and sliced it across Lorenzo Maroni’s throat. Morana barely contained a gasp, her fingers fisting in Tristan’s t-shirt as he took aim and steadied his gun on the scene, watchful.

“That’s for Elaina,” her father stated, his voice cold. “That’s for killing my love and my baby, for taking away my little girl, Lorenzo.”

Dante simply smoked in the corner, seeing his father gurgling, seeing his knees shaking, seeing his crisp white shirt turning an ugly red.

Maroni fell forward on her father, taking out something from his own pocket. It was a blade that he stabbed him with as he went down.

“No!” Morana whispered before she could control it, her eyes widening.

Maroni clutched his neck, trying to talk, his eyes popping out. Her father held the gaping wound on chest and continued talking through labored breaths. “This is your justice,” her father went on, bleeding out. “You bleed to death while your son watches without remorse. That’s what you’ve created.”

Gabriel, who had been staring at his old partner in shock, suddenly bent down and shook the dying man. “Where is my daughter?” he demanded, shaking him. “Is she alive? Damn you, Lorenzo, tell me where is she?!”

Maroni gurgled, choked, his eyes bulging, and fell limp to the ground. At a few minutes after midnight, Bloodhound Maroni died in a pool of in his own blood.

Morana observed all of this in stunned shock. All of this happened not ten feet from where she stood.

Tristan twitched against her. “Stay here,” he whispered into her hair before stepping out into the melee. She saw as Dante glanced up to see Tristan come out, his eyebrows raised but otherwise silent. He threw his cigarette away. Both men stepped up to her real father in sync, bending down to see his body.

Dante patted his chest clinically and took out an envelope, exchanging a look with Tristan.

Her father croaked out something that Tristan bent to listen to, before he and Dante stood up and walked to the warehouse door, talking quietly. Morana didn’t know what was in the envelope and at the moment, she didn’t really care.

Gabriel continued to shake a dead Lorenzo, asking about his daughter’s whereabouts.

“We both know the pain of losing a daughter,” Gabriel muttered on his knees in Lorenzo’s blood. “Except you know your daughter is safe and I don’t. Now I never will.”

Her father didn’t answer.

Gabriel started to laugh, the sound gaining volume, becoming more and more hysterical.

Morana stepped out from behind the pillar, watching him, aware of both Dante and Tristan turning around to watch him as well.