“Screw the Dio Lavoro,” I state, agitation ripping through me. “He’s still your son! It’s doesn’t make him a disappointment!”
I wonder when it became so wrong to love the person your heart desired. I’m astounded at how hard it is to love the one you want because your family would think it sinful. I’m fearful at what future we are really headed for if we aren’t allowed to be free with our hearts. First me, now Manuel – apparently no one’s safe.
“If anything, you two are the biggest disappointments I see in this family,” I assert my hate of them more. “You are the most bigoted, homophobic, fucked-up men ever!” I know I have to leave. I’m being suffocated by their attitudes, and I want nothing more than to escape. However, as I turn to go, my father calls my name, and I turn back to face him. “What?”
“You should know that by the end of tonight, Zane Maverick will be dead.” He watches me, purposefully looking at me for some sort of verbal reaction, but I’m stunned into silence. “There are no second chances anymore. If you don’t poison the fucker, Giovanni will make it a lot more painful for him.”
I gulp, my eyes water, and I’m left to watch Zane’s fate be finally be sealed. I imagine Giovanni getting his opportunity to kill the man I love and that threat he made will come true – I will be left crying over his dead body. If this happens, I will never know what love is because I will fear it. If my father can kill my first true love, what’s to say he’ll refrain from doing it to my second – if there is one.
“The option is entirely yours, Sis,” Giovanni responds to my silent response. He mocks me with a sweet nickname, emphasizing the wording as if to have more impact. He even walks toward me, putting his arm around me like we’re actually friends.
“Get off me,” I hiss and shrug him away. “You really think I’m going to let you get anywhere near Zane?” I shake my head, laughing at his lunacy. “You have another thing coming.”
“On the contrary, Bambina,” my father steps in, tearing my attention away from Giovanni’s conceited arrogance. “He’ll be watching to make sure it happens.”
My eyes bulge at the thought, and I’m spiraled into a twilight zone where my breathing is limited and my blood slows its pulsating journey through my body. Everything I have built up for is finally toppling, and falling down from around me, and it looks nothing like I had imagined. I thought I had time to live a perfected double life. One where I keep the man I love happy and my family happy and when crunch time did arrive there would be no reason to kill again. I stupidly figured I would escape slaying a man I so desperately loved. Now, however, if I don’t, he’ll suffer for ever knowing me.
“He’ll know something is up,” I state, unable to accept an audience. “He’s not stupid, Papà, he’s been onto you for years. You really think he’ll just accept my brother’s presence around?”
“I don’t know, Amelia, this is where you get clever,” my father remarks. “You lured Jimmy and Marius into some sort of ideal situation and killed them both in one day. Be that spontaneous again and make Zane’s count.” He stops all together, gives me a moment of his pure interest, before barreling on. “Hell,” my father begins as his hands come crashing together, “how about you ask him here for a meal? Tell him the threat’s gone and we want to accept him into the family.” The smile my father offers sends a ripple of fear up my spine, every hair standing on end in its path. “That last dinner party went splendidly; I wouldn’t mind Zane dying before my eyes while I prepare to feast.”
I have to tell myself not to cry. The mantra sings in my head along with the one my father taught me. The pair together are a twisted melody with a haunting that will never cease. Don’t cry. Don’t feel. Don’t cry. Don’t deviate. Don’t cry. Kill Zane Maverick. I know the song will forever be with me, forever a reminder of what I’ve done. It’ll forever be my greatest punishment.
“There is no way to make you reconsider now, is there?” I ask, wondering if I can twist my father around my little finger in one more bid for salvation.
“No,” my father’s response is blunt. “I don’t want anyone having any opportunity to divulge what goes on in my house or my family. He is a direct threat that must be eliminated, and I am done waiting for you to do your job, Amelia. I did not come back to offer bargains, nor did I come back to heed to your emotional welfare. He dies or-” he stops himself and chuckles a little before continuing, “Or he dies. There is no alternative.”