“I will not give you my forgiveness,” said Serafina. I signaled Samuel and Danilo to take Remo to the torture room. Once they were gone, I approached Serafina.
A hint of conflict shone in her eyes. “He will eventually ask for forgiveness,” I said.
Serafina gave me a strange, disconsolate smile. “I don’t want him to do that because it would be false.” She paused. ” Will you castrate him?”
I preferred not to involve women in the gruesome details of our torture practices, not even Val. I respected her , but she tended to be struck with pity even for someone like Remo. However, Serafina deserved an answer, and I could not imagine her being overwhelmed by pity for her tormentor.
“Tomorrow. Not today. It would hasten his death too much . Danilo and Samuel will do it. I’m not sure you should watch any of this, but maybe you should. Today will be easier to digest than tomorrow, so stay if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you,” he said before heading toward the screens where he could watch us handle Remo.
I gave a sharp nod to the guard sitting next to her before heading toward the torture room. My heart rate quickened, a strange event. Usually it took a while for torture to get my heart rate up. Not today. It almost felt like the first time my father had made me participate in torture sessions.
When I entered the room, Remo lay on the bare stone floor while Danilo and Samuel kicked him over and over again .
He did not resist the blows, only stared at the camera in the corner, as if he knew Serafina was watching him. Pietro drew his knife and slashed Remo’s chest. Then Samuel did the same, followed by Danilo.
When it was my turn, I squatted down next to Remo.
He smiled, revealing his blood-covered teeth. “That gives you an erection, doesn’t it?”
I turned a cold smile on him as I pulled the knife from its holster. “Let’s see how long you maintain your arrogance.”
“Do you really want to talk about arrogance with me, Dante?”
I thrust the tip of the knife under his armpit, knowing it was one of the most sensitive spots. Remo stiffened but made no sound; his gaze did not break from mine. He was familiar with pain. His father had probably conditioned him like mine. It was going to be a challenge. “In the end everyone was begging.”
Remo’s mouth widened. “Would you?”
I would die before I begged anyone for mercy. “Don’t compare me to you. We are nothing alike.”
Remo laughed. “Oh, but we are. That glint in your eyes, I see it every time I take a knife to someone’s skin. It’s the fucking best. Do you really think you’re something better just because you hide your monstrosity behind a fucking three-piece suit?”
“Remo, you will meet my monster, don’t worry. Unlike you, I don’t rape women to get a rush of power.” I pushed my knife deeper into her cavity, then signaled Danilo to come forward with the lighter.
A few hours later, I cleaned my hands.
Samuel shook his head, muttering. “When are you going to beg that son of a bitch? Fuck him.”
I cast a glance at Remo, who lay unconscious on the bloody floor. He was unconscious again, but had made no sound except for occasional gasps or gnashing of teeth.
Samuel went out into the hallway and I followed him, then locked the cell.
Peter and Danilo waited in the hallway, both sweaty and disheveled, just like Samuel and me. My shirt was sticking to my skin and blood was getting stuck under my fingernails.
“He’s a tough bastard,” Peter said and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, then lit it.
“Maybe the pain doesn’t bother him, but he’ll show a reaction when I force him to watch as I cut off his cock inch by fucking inch,” Danilo growled.
It was already late. “I’m going to sleep here. I won’t leave until Remo is dead.”
Peter, Danilo and Samuel nodded. “One of us should stand guard at any time,” suggested Pietro.
“I’ll start,” Samuel said quickly. “I’m too restless to sleep anyway.”
“All right.”
We headed for the sleeping area and lay down on the cots. I closed my eyes. Despite the satisfaction I had felt from torturing Remo, I couldn’t wait for him to die, for all this to finally be over.
A cry woke me up. I heaved myself up onto the cot, disoriented for a second. Peter met my gaze from across the room. Danilo was not there.
I leapt to my feet and ran toward the torture room.
Fuck, Remo had freed himself? He was badly injured.
I couldn’t imagine that he had the strength to stand.
When Peter and I burst into the room, Danilo stopped in the middle.
What I saw made me freeze. Serafina was inside the cell, protecting Remo with her body, her clothes soaked with his blood.
“You should not be here, dove. This is not a woman’s thing,” Peter tried to reason with Serafina. He could not see what Danilo and I were doing. That Serafina had chosen a part and it was not ours.
“Where is Samuel?” I asked. I had not seen him anywhere.
I could not imagine Serafina hurting her twin, but perhaps I had underestimated Remo’s manipulative skills and the power he had over her.
Serafina slipped her hand under her cardigan and pulled out two guns, pointing them straight at us.
I lightly rested my hand on my gun, but could not bring myself to point it at my niece. Remo was struggling to stand and had no weapon.
“Samuel will be all right. He’s passed out behind the couch,” Serafina said.
Pietro’s face contorted in horror and realization. “Fina, you’ve been through a lot. Put the gun down.”
Serafina took the safety off. “I’m sorry. I was faced with many difficult choices during my time as Chief. Today was the worst. I pulled the gun at the same time Danilo did. Serafina pulled the trigger and Danilo gasped, his hand reaching up to grab a bloody spot on his arm.
“Not a move.”
Remo moved closer to Serafina and his eyes met mine.
He looked almost stunned, as if he, too, had been caught off guard by events. “We just want to leave. No one has to get hurt,” Serafina whispered.
“Where,” croaked Pietro. “You don’t owe this man anything. He raped you. I know emotions can get mixed up in a situation like this, but we have people who can help you .”
Serafina’s eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head.
Samuel staggered in, looking dazed.
Serafina’s face contorted painfully before she looked at me. “Please let us go, Uncle. This war is because of me, and I can tell you I don’t want it. I don’t want to be avenged.
Don’t rob my children of their father. I will go to Las Vegas with Remo, where I belong, where my children belong. Please, if you feel guilty about what happened to me, if you want to save me, then do it. Let me go back to Las Vegas with Remo. This does not have to be an endless spiral of bloodshed. It can end today.
For your children, for mine. Let us go.”
His eyes pleaded with me, but I looked away and looked at Remo. My hatred burned stronger than ever, realizing that he had taken more than we had ever anticipated. “Are you speaking in the name of the Camorra?”
“Yes. You violated my territory and I violated yours. We are even.”
“We are not!” roared Samuel, stepping forward, staggering.
Remo raised the gun a couple of inches and my fingers on mine tightened. All it took was one bullet-for what exactly?
To turn Remo into a martyr for whom his brothers and the Camorra would go to war? Because killing him would not bring Serafina back to us.
“You kidnapped my sister and broke her. You turned her into your fucking puppet. We won’t be done until I stand over your gutted corpse so my sister is finally free of you.”
Serafina looked close to tears. “Sam, don’t do this. I know you don’t understand, but I have to go back to Las Vegas with Remo, for myself, but most of all for my children.”
“I knew you would have to get rid of them,” Samuel said. Perhaps the twins had changed Serafina’s feelings for Remo, intensified whatever twisted bond they shared.
Children changed everything, I knew.
“Send them with him to Las Vegas. They are Falcone, but you are not Fina. Get rid of them and him. You can start a new life,” Pietro said.
Serafina shook her head. “Where my children go, I will also go . Don’t you think I have suffered enough for all your sins?
Don’t turn me into another pawn in your chess game. Set me free .” He turned back to me. “Let’s go away.
You have failed me once, and now I am lost to you. But please allow me to take my children to a family that will love them.
Allow me to bring my children home. You owe me that.”
I owed her protection on her wedding day and a quicker rescue, but this I did not owe her, and yet I felt like I did. “If I allow you to leave today, you are a traitor.
You will not be part of the Outfit. You will be the enemy. You will never see your family again. There will be no peace with the Camorra. This war has just begun.”
“When will this war ever end, Uncle?”
I met Remo’s gaze. He did not regret anything. This war between the Camorra and the Outfit would never end, certainly not during my lifetime.
I had often imagined freeing Serafina by killing the man who tormented her. She had been my driving force.
Everything passed in the background, Samuel’s stunned expression, Pietro’s anguish, Danilo’s fury as I stared into my niece’s eyes.
This was about revenge. Revenge for her. Revenge she did not want.
I had to release her, not for her, for Val and my children, for Ines and Sofia. We had to let her go because Serafina was already lost. Maybe we had lost her the moment Remo had captured her. Perhaps all the months of hope had been wasted. Serafina had made her choice, and today I had to make mine.
I was not going to drag the Outfit into a bloody war with the Camorra for her, not when she had chosen a life with Remo. Nino and his brothers would have retaliated if I had killed Remo. I would have gladly done it if it had served its purpose, but it was not possible. Serafina would never have come back to us, and her children had always been Falcones anyway.
I would have protected the people who wanted my protection, who needed it more than Serafina.
“Go away,” I said coldly.
Danilo gasped, shock crossing his unshaven face.
“You can’t be serious, Dante. You can’t let them go.”
I understood Danilo’s anger, his need for revenge, but neither he nor I could get what we wanted, not today, maybe never.
“Let me go free,” Serafina said again.
“Go away.” ” Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Not for this.” I had allowed a girl to be given to a monster many years before, a monster she had not chosen. Aria had survived. Serafina had chosen her monster, her destiny. It was no longer my responsibility.
Many in the Outfit would have been outraged by my decision, but it was my last gift to my granddaughter.
Serafina and Remo left.
Anna, Leonas, and Val would be safer now.
A sense of finality, of total shock hovered in the room.
“How could you do this?” roared Danilo, contempt distorting his face.
“You left her at the mercy of a monster. You should never have let her go,” agreed Samuel.
Peter said nothing, but his expression expressed the same accusation I had seen in theirs.
“She chose him over us. He asked me to leave.”
“You should have forced her to stay. You should have put a bullet in Falcone’s head, or let me do it if you didn’t have the guts to do it,” Danilo muttered.
Samuel nodded, leaning against the wall because he was still weak from the tranquilizer.
“Be careful,” I said softly. “I assure you I will not hesitate to put a bullet in your head if you disrespect me again, Danilo.”
Danilo swallowed hard. He was young, driven by anger and wounded pride, a dangerous combination. “You promised I would take revenge for what was taken from me.
You promised that I would be the one to kill Falcone, but today you let him go. You let our enemy leave our territory. This is betrayal of the Outfit. The Camorra would have been weaker without Remo Falcone.”
“The Camorra would have sought revenge.”
“And now they won’t?” asked Samuel abruptly. “We tortured that bastard to death. The Falcone people will attack our territory again.”
“Maybe, but now they have more to lose.”
“You mean my daughter and grandchildren,” Pietro said softly. “What I’m wondering is, would you have let Anna leave with a Falcone if it had been her instead of Fina?”
“Right now, Fina is under Remo’s control. His power over her is too strong to be broken. She would have resented each of us if we had killed the father of her children. We would have had a potential spy in our own ranks. And you saw what she did. He shot Danilo. He betrayed the Outfit for Remo.
He drugged his twin sister. If I had stuck to the rules, I should have declared her a traitor and then subjected her to your judgment, Pietro. Your people would have expected you to punish her for what she did, otherwise you would have lost their respect.”
“I would have resigned my position as Sub-Chief then. Samuel could have taken over.”
“Then it would have been his job to punish his twin.”
Samuel and Peter exchanged a look. Neither of them would have hurt Serafina, and neither would I. Still, our world was harsh, with even harsher consequences if I broke the rules.
“I couldn’t allow that. I need you. The Outfit must be strong.”
“We would have been stronger with Remo dead,” Danilo said bitterly. “You took revenge on us.”
“You took revenge. You tortured him for two days.”
“And what good did that do? The bastard didn’t cry, didn’t beg for his fucking life once. I bet he’s laughing at us now,” Samuel said.
Peter approached me. “You still haven’t answered my question, Dante. Would you have let Anna go if she had loved the enemy?”
I wasn’t sure.
Peter shook his head. “I lost my daughter today. I will never get her back.”
I touched his shoulder. “You don’t know. Remo Falcone is a monster. Sooner or later he will realize that.”
Danilo huffed. “Aren’t we all?”
I gave him a hard look. On any other day, he would be dead already, but the emotions were still strong.
“I will not wage a war on two fronts. The Camorra and the Family are only loosely cooperating right now, but if they both attack with all their might we will have a hard time keeping them at bay.”
We entered the hall where Peter grabbed his coat and signaled Samuel to follow him.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to tell Ines that our daughter is gone, that you abandoned her for no good reason.”
“I’m going back home. Or do you need me for something else?” asked Danilo, in a sharp voice and hard eyes. “After all, I have a duty to the Outfit.”
“No,” I said, struggling to keep my emotions in check.
Danilo left without another word, and Samuel and Peter followed shortly after. I ran a hand through my hair, following with my eyes the trail of blood on the floor that Remo had left . Was that the best thing for the Outfit? I believed it was. Remo had given his life for his brother. What was he going to do for his children?
I had thought about the way he had looked at Serafina when he had called her an angel. In some twisted way, he was taking care of her and would take care of the twins as well.
Now he had something to lose, and that would make him more moderate. Since Luke had children, he had restrained himself with rash actions as well.
But even if it was not the best solution for the Outfit, it was the choice that would keep my children and Val safe. I would always have preferred them to the Outfit. One day Leonas would take over, but I had to make sure he was protected until then.
I grabbed my keys and coat, headed to my car and returned to the mansion, knowing full well that I would be greeted by chaos.