“You think I don’t know what you are?” I cried out. “You think you managed to pull the wool over my eyes? I know you’re behind all the evil shit at Hallow Hall. I know you profit off the misery of all those poor women.” I struggled to my feet. “You think I came here to be your daughter? To embrace you?”
I laughed, and Sergei stared at me.
“Why did you come here then?”
“I came here to kill you. I’ve been waiting three years. I’m done waiting. Tonight, the last monster behind that hellhole dies.”
“Sergei! Why’s she calling you a monster? What’s happening?” Rada screamed. She was losing it and Sergei couldn’t care less. In the distance, the choppy sound of helicopter blades beat the air. Sergei’s escape route was opening up, and I couldn’t let that happen.
He ignored his fiancée, stared at me hard. He shook his head. “You call me a monster? What about that man you married? What about yourself?”
“She’s no monster, she’s an angel of vengeance descended from above.” Massimo called, stalking out from the door onto the roof. He had a gun trained on Sergei. “And as for me, yes, I am a monster, but I’m the man your daughter loves, and that makes me God’s favorite monster. Thank you,micetta,for separating him from the fucking smoke below, I’ll take it from here.” There was blood on Massimo’s ear and his mask was gone. Had one of those shots hit him in the ear? Panic threatened to engulf me.
Sergei waved his gun at Massimo. “Don’t come any closer.”
Sergei’s movements were erratic and full of fear. Massimo’s confidence was a stark contrast. He walked unerringly toward him, his gun never wavering.
“Let’s both take the shot. I trust my aim more than yours, old man.”
Sergei grabbed for me, but I scuttled back. He swore and grabbed Rada instead, dragging her up by the hair.
“Drop the gun or she’s dead.”
I staggered to my feet and put a hand out toward Massimo. The fear and betrayal on Rada’s face broke my heart. How many lovers had Sergei used and discarded? Just like my mother...
Massimo didn’t take the shot. He waited.
“Let the girl go, she isn’t involved with any of this. Besides, you kill her and you’ll follow seconds later. I don’t miss.” Massimo’s words were a promise.
“Please, I was putting strays down since before you could walk!” Sergei shouted, and then cried out as a shot sounded. I screamed, scared that Massimo had decided to shoot through Rada after all, but Sergei’s gun fell to the ground, and he clutched his hand to his chest, blood staining down his front. Rada fell to the ground, crying, and Sergei staggered back, turning and running now toward the helicopter that was coming in to land on the roof.
Massimo was a blur of movement sprinting toward Sergei, ignoring the terrifying blades chopping the air on the roof, which were getting lower and lower.
The helicopter touched down just as Massimo disappeared around the other side. Men in dark suits swarmed out. Had he seen them? What if they got behind him? Hurt him?
I couldn’t let that happen. I took off around the other side of the helicopter, swiping Sergei’s fallen gun from beside a hysterical Rada.
I saw them all at once. Sergei was posed on the step of the helicopter, new gun in hand. His men surrounded Massimo, one right behind him with a gun pressed to his back. His gun was on the ground.
I bit down my scream of fear, and the world seemed to grow very still.
“Sorry, I can’t have you talking shit about strays. I’ve always been one, and now I’m in love with one.” Massimo grinned at Sergei, seemingly unafraid of the threat all around him. Massimo’s hand twitched at his side, a strange and purposeful movement, and suddenly the men around him were falling to the ground. I looked around wildly, wondering just whom Massimo had stashed around the property. I couldn’t see anything, but those sniper shots had been professional work.
The man who was standing right behind Massimo, gun pressed into his skull, barely had time to realize what had happened before Massimo twisted, throwing the man’s arm up and sending the gun flying into the air. It sailed away over the side of the building, and the man watched it go, before convulsing. Massimo sunk a knife into his throat, sudden and final. Massimo pushed him backward and he fell, then Massi turned back to Sergei.
A gunshot sounded and knocked me out my stupor. Sergei was the last man standing, but he still had a gun. His shot had gone wild, however, thank God. He pointed his weapon at Massimo again and I knew I had seconds to act. I ran forward, Sergei’s gun in my hand, extended toward my father’s back. I didn’t trust my aim, but I didn’t need to. He just had to know that he was cornered. I pressed the gun to the back of Sergei’s head before he could take another shot, and he stilled. Massimo grinned at me and walked unerringly toward me, reaching my side in moments. Sergei remained frozen in fear at the end of my gun, his foot still poised on the step . . . and his freedom.
His voice rose over the noise of the chopper. “What do you both want? Money? You can have it. Power, to inherit the family? You can have all of it,” Sergei bargained.
Massimo considered his words. “There is something I want from you. Sara Lucciano. Do you remember her?”
“What? Who? No, I don’t.”
“That’s a shame. She died in one of your institutes twenty years ago. Died in childbirth... or so I was told.”
“Who was she?” I asked Massimo, before realizing. “Your mother?”
Massimo nodded.