of my ancestors. The ancestors are easier to look at. I didn’t know them. They don’t mean much to me. But I move to the one of my mother. My father commissioned it when they got engaged. Or so I’m told.
I look up at her blue eyes. I inherited them but that’s where the physical similarity ends.
Her blonde hair only one of my brothers and my sister inherited. They’re all dead now apart from Dante.
The blood of the De La Cruz brothers crusts on my skin as I stare at the painting, undoing my tie, willing myself to remember.
Bear in mind, they didn’t spare your mother.
And therein lies the problem. I don’t remember. I don’t remember a fucking thing. My own mother and looking at this painting she’s a stranger to me.
“Is it done?” Charlie asks. He’s talking to Dante. Dante is the reasonable one. I’m a fucking walking disaster.
“The girl and the kid are still alive,” Dante mutters, obviously annoyed by the fact.
I force the anger I feel at not remembering down into my gut, to a place I can manage it. Barely. I move past the painting, through the living room toward the dining room. I stop between the pillars that hold up the vaulted ceiling.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asks when I don’t speak.
Charlie Lombardi, an attorney with a penchant for uncovering details most want to keep hidden, was a friend to both of my parents and a man my father trusted.
I nod, take in the large windows, some still devoid of glass that let in the sun.
“Diego and Angel De La Cruz are dead,” I say.
He studies me. I’m sure he wants to know why they’re not all dead.
“Good,” he says.
“You should have killed them all. Finished it,” Dante says.
I turn to my younger brother. Just one year between us. Every time I look at him, I think how grateful I am that he’s not dead. That he wasn’t here when it happened.
“I’ll finish it my way. In my time. This is up to me. Not you.”
Dante snorts. “I’m going to get something to eat.” He disappears into the kitchen.
Charlie gestures to the men working at the windows. “This project will be finished today, I’m told. You sure you want to be here?”
“It’s where I belong.”
The house has been in my family for generations. The bigger windows are an addition my father made at my mother’s request. It was too dark for her otherwise. Even here, in southern Italy on her own island, she needed more sunlight.
My uncle told me that. Said she always hated the dark. Got depressed in winter and on the rare rainy summer days.
And so, my father had the windows made bigger, but he fucked up. Sealed our fate. Gave his enemies an easy target because the bullet proof glass that was to be put in wasn’t. Another betrayal.
I killed them too. The pigs who sold him that glass.
I will kill every mother fucker who betrayed us. Who had a hand in my family’s massacre.
“We’ll meet representatives from the families tomorrow. Everything is arranged,” Charlie says.
“How did they take the news?” The news that the Grigori family wasn’t wiped out as Marcus Rinaldi would have you believe. That they missed two sons. The ones who will avenge the murders of our family.
Charlie smiles wide. “They’re thrilled the Cartel is out of the picture and that you’ve returned to take your rightful place,” he says, the note of sarcasm in his tone subtle but unmistakable.
“I bet.”
“We know the two who sided with Rinaldi. We still have the majority of support on our side.”
I nod, walk toward the stairs. “They’re either with me or against me. There will be no middle. Not this time.”
He doesn’t reply. But this is where my father went wrong. This is where he made the mistakes that cost my family their lives.
“I’m going to change. Are you staying for dinner?” I ask.
He checks his watch. “No, not tonight. I’m meeting with a few people.”
“All right. I’ll see you soon.”
I head upstairs and walk into the master bedroom. It’s one of the few rooms that’s ready. I toss my tie aside, unbutton my shirt and tug it out of my slacks. I look down at it. Even on black, blood shows. Luckily it was never my favorite suit.
There’s a knock on the door and I turn to watch a soldier manhandle the girl into the room.
Scarlett De Le Cruz.
Only daughter of Manuel De La Cruz.
Her uncle is right. I should kill