Page 64 of The Forever One
His own fucking brother.
“Aleko, my brother. Don’t be such a fucking pussy.” Yiannis raises his gun, probably thinking his men would follow his lead. Just as his gun is halfway up, Enzo gives the order and every one of the Kastellanos around us goes down.
Including Yiannis.
It’s like watching a real live Cain and Abel show, except I have no fucking clue why Aleko turned on his own damn brother. The guy is psycho, I can’t imagine he draws the line at human trafficking.
My gun is pointed at his head, his men dead all around, and he just grins as he looks down at his older brother before spitting right over the bullet hole between his eyes.
“My moral compass may be skewed, but children as sex slaves is a hard pass.” Then, like he doesn’t have a care in the world, he flicks a business card at my feet and walks away, speaking over his shoulder. “The Kastellanos are dead. Do with the territory what you will.”
I stand corrected. Psychopaths do draw lines in the sand.
I’m still watching Aleko walk away when Enzo picks up the card, reading it out loud.
“What does it say?” Lowering my gun, I turn to my second in command only once Aleko is no longer visible.
“It’s Ugo’s location.” It’s my turn to grin.
Gotcha, motherfucker.
We’re in our car, heading for Ugo’s hideout in the heart of Brooklyn, as Enzo orders J’s crew to get their asses over there right fucking now.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re screeching our tires on the driveway, surrounding the beat up house as we ride on the burned lawn—evidence of years of neglect.
Rushing out of the car, my gun locked and loaded and giving zero fucks about neighbors and witnesses, we run into the house ready to shed blood.
But just like every other fucking time, the place is empty.
“Goddamn, motherfucker!” I punch a hole in the wall and turn to J, who’s holding a coffee pot.
“It’s still hot.”
Bastard was tipped off.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
RIVER
Somehow, Lina persuaded me into believing that going for a run with her would be a great mind soother. “It’ll be freeing,” she said. I’m pretty sure she was taken over by the devil, who clearly hypnotized me into agreeing, because it’s anything but freeing.
Freeing my lungs from my body as they try to escape the torture I’m putting them through, maybe.
Truthfully, the reason I’m doing this is because she’s rarely at home lately and I hoped we’d be able to talk about what’s been going on with her. I didn’t account for the whole running thing making that damn near impossible.
When we left the house, crossing over the road and finding a route through Central Park—with our trusty bodyguards following at a safe distance, of course—I tried to speak, to ask questions, but her responses were minimal. I found myself making a lot of effort and my only reward was a lack of oxygen. Lina even went as far as popping an AirPod in. I mean, she offered one to me so we could listen to the same thing, so it’s just a case of accepting what she’s offering for now.
With her being home, I’ll see if Stefano can whip us up some snacks for a movie night. Hopefully that will help her open up some more. She won’t get to choose all the movies, because I may be grieving for a different thing than Lina, but I’m still grieving too. This movie night is for both of us.
Lorde begins to play through the tiny earbud in my ear,Glory and Gore, and, for the first time in too long, I smile. If there was a soundtrack to my life—and Lina’s—then this song would definitely feature heavily.
My thoughts wander and Lina slows down to match my pace, but only a little. I can walk for miles in my heels but make me run and apparently I’m useless. The last time I ran was on the day Kai passed, almost a month ago, but I didn’t really give the whole running thing much thought then. My focus was on my destination and the way Marco’s voice shook.
Briefly squeezing my eyelids together, I lightly shake my head to remove the visions of blood… so much blood… Kai’s blood. It’s something I compartmentalize for later, when I can cope with those feelings in the arms of my husband.
Considering Marco is a dominant, controlling, and kinda possessive asshole most of the time, he’s been amazing through all of this. He encourages me to talk about all the things on my mind, the good, the bad, the ugly, and he asks me about my life before him, wanting to hear about the memories I have—Kai included. The night of Kai’s funeral, I expected Marco’s jealousy to shine through as I recounted the time Kai broke his wrist when he fell out of a plum tree. Kai was determined to pick the biggest one because he said I deserved only the best and, even though Marco made a joke about Kai needing to compensate with big plums, it wasn’t in bad taste or with any malice.
Marco’s understanding and complete devotion is like nothing I ever thought I could have. I saw it in my parents when they were alive. They were so in love, going as far as to run away and live like hippies together. They argued, they had disputes, but at the end of the day, they were always laughing together.