“You should have given her back when you had the chance,” I said. “I warned you.”
“And I thought you were nothing more than a joke. A bug that needed to be squashed.” Vincenzo sighed. “How about we call a truce? I have your wife, Alba Marini.” He tutted. “Doesn’t it bother you that the woman you have is going to have Serra blood in her veins?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said.
“And you think killing me is going to stop this?” he asked. You think it’s going to stop everything that is happening? There are powers at play you couldn’t even imagine.”
I fired my first bullet, and it took out his leg.
He was an old man, but I was not deceived by his age. What he had done over his lifetime would even shock the Devil. This man was pure evil, and he took pleasure in making those around him suffer. Killing him would do the world a service.
“You’re never going to know a moment’s peace,” Vincenzo said. “People will hunt you down. There is no running from this.”
I took out his other leg, and he fell to the ground on his knees. I felt nothing. No pity. No remorse.
Vincenzo had picked the perfect spot, because I had the image of my sister here, in the water, in my head. I had the memory of her, and it was a reminder of what he had taken. My sister, my family, my fucking dogs. All taken because of this sick fuck.
I took a step toward him, then another, and when he pulled out a gun, I was not surprised, but the gun fell to the ground as he screamed and grabbed his hand. I couldn’t help but have a little respect for the bastard, because he still wasn’t begging or pleading for his life.
“Do you think I’m going to run away?” I asked, closing the distance between us.
I fired my gun and shot him in the shoulder.
This time, he was screaming, and the sound was the sweetest music to my ears. “I’m going to stay right here, andeverything you touched will be destroyed. I will make sure your name means nothing. Everything you built will come crumbling down.”
He gritted his teeth and laughed. “Someone will come and they will do to you what you’ve done to me.”
“No, they won’t,” I said. “Because I will always be ready.”
And with that, I fired my gun, a single shot to the forehead, and Vincenzo Serra, the man who ordered my sister’s kidnapping, the destruction of my family, fell to the ground.
I didn’t expect peace.
I didn’t expect anything.
I had no plans for some great epiphany.
Death was never the answer. Yet, as I stared down at the man who had filled my every waking moment with a need to kill and was dead, I felt a weight was lifted.
The vow I made twelve years ago was finally fulfilled, and he was gone. My sister and parents, my dogs were still gone, but the man that had done it was now gone as well.
My cell phone pinged, and with it, the text from my wife.
The safe house was secured and my wife was waiting for me.
Epilogue
Odin
Ten Years Later
“Are you happy?” I ask, glancing down at the top of my wife’s head. She’s looking out into the distance at our three beautiful children, currently playing in the lake. Reese, our eldest son, is pretending to be a crocodile, while Milly and Thomas are running away, screaming in fear.
Alba tilted her head back to look at me, and offered me a smile. “Yes, I am happy. Are you?”
She always asked me the same question. It’s a habit we’ve gotten into the last ten years. The life I once promised her was not the life I could give her. We couldn’t go to my rebuilt home, where my parents once lived. There was no future there. No way of finding a future without the past coming back to haunt us.
The attack on the safe house and my realization in finally dealing with the Serra Mafia problem, helped me understand what I needed to do. To eradicate the problem, I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t walk away. There would always be people who were determined to own others, to control them, to hurt them.