Thank fuck for Zane Maverick – a voice echoes in me, and I am pleased I found love with him. I cannot think of anything worse than being a killing machine with no hope of salvation.
“Well, thank fuck he did!” I let it slip, and I don’t stop. “Because if he didn’t and you carried on your bidding then I would be royally screwed, Papà. I might love him, but you and I are at an agreement where he is concerned. This, right here,” I take my pause to point to Benji before I continue, “this is about showing four stupid men they cannot change the path the Dio Lavoro has laid. You have shown one how wrong it was. I want the last to show that even though he has to die, I want Zane Maverick dead at my call. No one else gets to undermine me with that.”
I have been perched on this pedestal for years, guarded by all those around. Never allowed to leave, always expected to perform the Abbiati way. But if this is falling from grace, then I never want it to stop. I'm in love with this danger, this freefall, and this rush of absolute pure adrenaline that is fixing my addiction. I'm in love with being in love. It makes me wild and unpredictable. At worst, it makes me volatile and territorial. It fills me with howls of protection, needs of vengeance, and opens up the dark recesses of me. I would do anything for love – even kill. My love for Zane has driven me crazy, but I am after blood, after revenge, after the chance of getting Zane spared. My father doesn’t get to rid me of that opportunity first.
This feels like my only way to come into my own. This will, no doubt, seal my fate and enable me to show my father I am not the letdown he has currently defined me as.
"You let me have them," I begin to speak again, this time at a lower key. I tell myself to be calm, to not be a loose cannon. "These are three hits I want my mark all over. I want my face to be the last they see."
“Why?” my father’s response is a bark of a word, but he awaits my justification casually.
“Because I don’t like being undermined by my own family, let alone people like Benji and Big Al, Papà. I wanted blood the moment Enzo announced Zane’s shooting. I wanted revenge on the son of a bitch who tried to ruin this. If I’m going to lose my status in the family and lose the love of my life with it, I want to go out with a bang. Grant me some last glory if you’re going to throw me aside.” I don’t deter from my armored tirade against my father. If anything, I’m stoic and push forward fearlessly. “You ruined every aspect of my upbringing, at least grant me this before I try to find some sort of life after being your secret weapon.”
“Fine,” my father speaks and then looks down at Benji’s body. He points at it before he speaks again. “That’s one down, three to go where they’re concerned. Zane is another casualty in your end game, Amelia.”
“I don’t think this is a wise idea,” Enzo interjects finally, showing his disapproval. “I think we’re exhausted and thinking irrationally over the matter here.”
“This is what your sister wants.” My father cuts Enzo off with a sharp tone. “What she wants, she gets this time.” He then looks away from his son and levels a gaze upon me. “Four more kills and you’re done, Amelia.”
Three wanted murders, one unwanted, and I’m out of a job – this just got real.
***
I go outside into the darkened backyard. I do the one thing I’ve been itching to do all day – light up a cigarette. It’s a dirty habit, I know, but my stresses are rolling tides waiting to consume me whole. I rarely turn to smoking as a way to ease my anxieties, but for now, it feels like the right thing to do. I allow the small cancer-inducing stick to take my worries and burn them away into wisps of white puffs of smoke.
I lean forward against the black iron railing and look out over the night covered yard. I can see shapes in the blackness, shadows cast around, but other than that, I am looking at absolute nothingness and I couldn’t care. My thoughts are so crowded and running a million miles a minute, I don’t need anything visually stimulating to look at.
Enzo and Carlo have been given the dirty job of hiding Benji’s body. I have to work fast so that Big Al and his other goons do not catch wind that my father knows of their death ploy against Zane. I’m down with that. I will work on Jimmy and Marius tomorrow. Big Al can wait for a grand finale. I have no plans for their deaths, but I know that it starts at sunrise.
“You’re stupid, you know that?” Giovanni announces from behind me, and I turn to watch him approach me across the back porch.
I laugh and take another delicious drag of nicotine. “And you’re a pain in my ass, Gio, but I tolerate you being around.” I lean against the railing behind me and look at him. “What do you want?”