“…you and I and Father, we all burn. Like we should have.”
“My sister and Bennie?” I ask.
“Safe and sound. They’re staying in California until arrangements are made for your brother. Not your father, though.”
I nod. I understand.
The explosives weren’t only set at the shipping yards, and Cristina’s family’s home wasn’t the only one my brother burned to the ground.
The house Upstate is mostly gone. Lucas arranged for that, too. And my father went down with it. Strangely, the only wing that survived was Lucas’s.
“I can take care of the Clementis,” Tobias offers when we exit the hospital.
Three dark SUVs pull up and I walk to the second one. I open the back door and turn to him.
“I have no doubt, but I’ll be dealing with them myself. Especially the old man.”
We climb into the SUV and it takes all I have not to look back at the building inside which my wife, my soon to be ex-wife, lies.
I shift my gaze to my hands instead, peeling off my wedding band. Without a word, I drop it into my pocket, the one closest to my heart. The one inside which hers sits.
32
Cristina
Five Months Later
The house is gone. Everything inside it destroyed. With all the gasoline Lucas had used to fuel his hate, he wiped out every last remnant of my family. Every single memory of us.
We were happy once, all of us. Happy in our home.
I look up at the treehouse. That survived, at least.
Five months have passed since the fire, but I swear I can still smell the smoke while standing in the cleared lot.
Damian lost his ships and his house Upstate. His father is dead. Burned in the fire. Lucas killed him, too. At least Michela and her son are safe.
I know the only reason my uncle is still alive is because of me, because he is my uncle and Liam and Simona’s father. No matter what kind of man he is, I know losing him would devastate them.
When I was discharged, I went to see him. He could barely speak he was so heavily medicated, but I needed to see him. I had one question to ask him and after he answered it, I needed him to know that I didn’t forgive him. I was finished being manipulated and used by him.
He knew Lucas had the doctor insert that tracker in my arm and did nothing to stop it. Did he know what Lucas intended to do to me? He said no when I asked him. Said he’d never have gone along with that.
I’m honestly not sure I believe him.
I don’t feel sorry for him or the shape he’s in. I’m not really sure what that says about me, but I’ve buried my head for so long I just can’t anymore. If this is who I am, a woman who knows right from wrong, who understands that blood doesn’t exempt one from betrayal and looks with eyes wide open on the violence done to a man and doesn’t feel remorse, then that is who I am.
I was young when this started, a child when my uncle took me into his home. He used me. He used me all my life, and even as I got older, even as questions came, I never asked them. I accepted the life I was given. Even the roses that arrived like clockwork on my birthday. I never asked. I stole the notes and the ribbons out of the trashcan and never asked why someone hated me enough to send me dead flowers to mark each passing year. Never asked about the men who were in my house the night of my father’s murder.
I was too afraid of so many things but mostly of losing him too. Him and Liam and Simona.
After the accident, I’d been alone, really. My father was dealing with his own guilt, his own pain at the loss of them, and he couldn’t take care of me, too. He couldn’t take my pain. I understand it.
But I’m done walking through my life with my head down. I’m finished being weak.
Inside the envelope Damian left that day were divorce papers. He’d already signed his name. The settlement is a very generous one. I’d be stupid not to take it.
Along with that was the deed to this ruined house. The land. Damian signed it all over to me contingent on the divorce. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, though. I don’t want