Chapter 203
Chapter 203
“You’re insane,” I said, but my eyes were calculating distances, angles, possibilities. The room was small, maybe twelve by fifteen feet. Victoria stood behind Aria, using her as a human shield. Twenty feet between us with no cover.
“Insane?” Victoria laughed, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. “Perhaps. But I prefer to think of myself as focused. Single- minded in my devotion to justice.”
“Justice for what?”
“For my lover you bastard! For the man you murdered in cold blood!”
The timer read thirteen minutes and forty–two seconds.
I kept my gun trained on Victoria, looking for an opening that didn’t exist. “I’ve killed a lot of men, Victoria. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Your father. The man who loved me more than life itself, and the man you butchered like an animal!”
Recognition hit me like a punch to the gut. I remember. A territorial dispute that got out of hand whe he refused to pay tribute to the De Luca family.
“My father was a stubborn old man who couldn’t accept that times had changed.”
“He was a good man! A man who built his empire with honor and respect, not fear and violence like you all expected him to.”
“Honor?” I almost laughed. “My father ran young girls prostitution rings, Victoria. He trafficked girls barely out of high school. That’s not honor, that’s sickness.”
“Liar!” Victoria’s voice cracked with rage. “He would never-”
“Check the files the police found when they raided his warehouses. Oh wait, you can’t. Because I made sure those files disappeared to protect those girls‘ identities.”
For a moment, Victoria’s mask slipped completely. I saw confusion there, doubt, the first crack in her certainty.
“You’re lying,” she said again, but with less conviction.
“Ask yourself why no one else from my cather’s loyal organization backed your play for revenge. Why his own men scattered to other families instead of following you.”
The timer read twelve minutes and eighteen seconds.
Above us, the gunfire was getting closer. Luca and his team were fighting their way down to the basement, but they wouldn’t make it in time.
“Even if that’s true,” Victoria said, her voice steadying, “it doesn’t change what you did. You killed him. You destroyed my future.”
“I killed a predator. Just like I’m going to kill you.”
“Not before you watch her die.” Victoria pressed the gun harder against Aria’s temple, making her whimper. “Tell me, Dominic, what’s it like to love someone more than your own life? Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Love?”
“Let her go, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
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“Oh, I already know everything I need to know. I know that the great Dominic De Luca, the man who feels nothing for anyone, has finally found his weakness. And I know exactly how to exploit it.”
Aria’s eyes found mine again. She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t read her expression in the dim light.
“You want to know the real reason I’m doing this?” Victoria’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s not just about my father. It’s about what you did to me.”
“I never touched you.”
“No, but you might as well have. Do you remember that night at the casino? Six months before you killed your father?”
I searched my memory, trying to place the reference.
“You were there with some blonde. Expensive dress, fake tits, the usual arm candy. I was there with him celebrating my twenty–fifth birthday. We have broken up for months.”
The memory came back slowly. The Bellagio, a high–stakes poker game. I’d won big that night, cleaned out half the table.
“I saw you across the room,” Victoria continued, “and I thought… I thought you were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Dangerous, powerful, just like I remembered you.”
“Victoria…”
“I asked your father to arrange a meeting. I missed you. Seeing you there again, I wanted you just like I did in high school. Did you know that? I begged him to introduce us, to consider an alliance between our families.”
The timer read ten minutes and fifty–three seconds.
“And do you know what he said?” Victoria’s voice was getting higher, more unhinged. “He said the De Luca family was beneath me. That you were nothing but a rabid dog who needed to be put down before you bit someone important.”
“So you decided to bite first.”
“I decided to survive! And when you killed him, when you took away the only person who ever loved me unconditionally, I decided to make you pay.”
“By torturing innocent women?”
“By showing you what it feels like to lose everything!” Victoria screamed, spittle flying from her lips. “By making you choose between your empire and your heart!”
The sound of footsteps echoed from the hallway. Luca’s voice, shouting orders. They were close.
“You hear that?” I said. “My men are here. This is over, Victoria.”
“Oh, it’s over all right.” Victoria’s finger hovered over the detonator. “But not the way you think.”
“Boss!” Luca’s voice came from just outside the room. “We’ve cleared the upper floors!”
“Stay back!” I shouted without taking my eyes off Victoria. “Building’s rigged to blow!”
The timer read nine minutes and fourteen seconds.
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“Touching loyalty,” Victoria said. “But ultimately pointless. In nine minutes, this entire place becomes a crater. You can try to save her, but you’ll die in the process. Or you can run, and live with the guilt forever.”
“There’s a third option.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“I kill you, disarm the bomb, and we all walk out of here.”
Victoria smiled, the expression grotesque on her blood–spattered face. “The bomb is motion–activated now. If my heart stops beating, if I drop this detonator, if I move more than three feet from this position, boom. We all die instantly.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? Are you willing to bet her life on it?”
I looked at Aria again, saw the tears streaming down her face. She was staring at me with an expression I recognized. The same look she’d had the night I found her in that alley, beaten and desperate. The look of someone who’d accepted their fate.
“You can’t save me and yourself,” she whispered. “Just go!“.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Dominic, please—”
“I said I’m not fucking leaving you!”
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Victoria clapped her hands together, the sound sharp in the confined space. “How romantic! True love conquers all, is that it? Well, let’s put that theory to the test.”
The timer read eight minutes and two seconds.
“I have a confession to make,” Victoria said, her voice taking on a sing–song quality that made my skin crawl. “About your mother’s death. About the night that turned you into the monster you are today.”
My blood went cold. “What about
my
mother?”
“You were seventeen when she died, weren’t you? Shot down in the street like a dog. And you blamed yourself, didn’t you? Thought it was your fault because you weren’t there to protect him.”
“Get to the point.”
“The point is, you were right to blame yourself. Because you did kill her, Dominic. Not directly, but you might as well have pulled the trigger yourself.”
The room seemed to tilt around me. “You’re lying.”
“Am I? Tell me, what were you doing the night your mother died? Where were you when he needed you most?”
I was with Sofia Marconi. The daughter of a rival family, sneaking around behind my father’s back because I thought I was in love. My father had forbidden the relationship, said it would bring nothing but trouble.
“I see you remember,” Victoria said with satisfaction. “You were with that little Marconi whore, weren’t you? Playing Romeo and Juliet while your mother walked into an ambush.”
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“How do you…”
“Because I set it up, you stupid bastard! I was working with the Marconis even then, feeding them information about your family’s movements. And when Sofia told me about your little romantic meetings, I knew exactly how to use that information.”
The words hit me like physical blows. Every breath felt like swallowing glass.
“I arranged for your mother to get word that you were in trouble. That the Marconis had captured you and were holding you for ransom. What choice did he have but to come running to save her precious son?”
“No.”
“Oh yes. She walked straight into our trap, all because she thought you needed her. If you’d been where you were supposed to be, if you’d stayed loyal to your family instead of chasing after forbidden pussy, your mother would still be alive today.”
The timer read six minutes and forty–seven seconds.
“You see?” Victoria’s voice was triumphant now. “You killed her just as surely as if you’d put the gun to her head yourself. And now, you get to kill Aria too. By choosing love over duty, just like you did all those years ago.”
I stared at Aria, seeing my mother’s face superimposed over hers. Two people I’d failed to protect. Two people who would die because of my choices.
“Let’s see how much she’s worth to you,” Victoria said, raising the detonator. “At least, you’ll die knowing the truth.”
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