Page 276 of Breaking Rosalind
“I would never degrade an innocent woman for pleasure,” I snarl. “Neither would I steal another man’s wife and then force her to get implants.”
Tommy releases a flurry of dry coughs. Normally, I would rush to change the humidity of his bubble to keep him alive, but not today. I’ve extracted everything I need to take control of the Galliano empire and he’s finally released the location of where he buried Mom.
I’m ready to move on.
Tommy had been blackmailing Mom since he spiked her drink, raped her with Matty, and mailed her the polaroids. At first, all he demanded was the occasional secret meeting or dinner. When I grew up looking less like my brothers and more like a Galliano, Tommy gave her a choice. Either she worked in one of his brothels or gave him information about Dad.
Mom didn’t realize Tommy was working with Frederic Capello to take down our family until it was too late. After Dad died, Capello planned on murdering Benito, Roman, and me until Tommy got Mom to agree to swap her life for ours.
Rosalind and I have taken everything from that bastard. We killed his brother and his sons, destroyed his brothels and broke up his sex trafficking rings with the help of Cousin Leroi, Seraphine, and their team of vigilantes.
The last will and testament we drew up for Tommy named me as the sole beneficiary of his estate. Miranda and I already inherited everything Matty owned, but I declined my share. Millions of dollars sit in a trust fund for when she turns twenty-one.
“Now, will you let me die?” he rasps.
“That’s what we agreed,” I say with a smirk.
Tommy finally turns around to meet my gaze. Without his usual thick layers of makeup, he looks like a living corpse. His skin is stretched taut over sharp cheekbones, and he stares at me through eyes sunken deep into their sockets like twin pits of despair.
He flinches at the sight of Rosalind, one of the many women he wronged. While Tommy didn’t abuse her directly, he knew exactly what his brother was doing. I’m proud to say the bastard now has gynophobia.
Rosalind once beat the shit out of him and even encouraged him to fight back. Even after getting surgery to fix his kneecaps, he couldn’t land a punch.
But Rosalind isn’t his personal boogie woman.
Neither is Emberly, who pistol whipped him in revenge for the time he abducted her and threatened my unborn nephew.
Rosalind isn’t the woman who stood over him while he went cold turkey and waited for the drug to leave his system, only to give him enough to restart his addiction. She isn’t the one who spent hours subjecting Tommy to degradation, humiliation, and psychological torture.
“Kill me, then,” Tommy says.
“I only came to say goodbye and to let you know that your empire is in good hands. You will die, but I promised someone else the killing blow.”
His eyes widen. “Who?”
I turn to meet Rosalind’s smirk.
With a nod, she walks to the door, letting in the click-clack of heels. Keeping my gaze on Tommy, I savor the way his eyes bulge, his lips tremble, and his face contorts with terror as each approaching step echoes through the room like a countdown to his tortuous demise.
Dr. Cortese stops at my side, dressed in black and holding a small toolbox. “Hello, darling. Your little puppy is here to say goodnight.”
I walk to the door, where Rosalind awaits, giving my former chemistry professor her privacy. The air fills with blood-curdling screams, making my veins thrum with satisfaction.
Tommy wouldn’t admit to mistreating Mom while they were married, but we knew all about how he degraded Dr. Cortese. It’s only fitting that he dies slowly at the hands of one of his victims.
When I step out into the hallway, Rosalind takes my hand and pulls me into a hug. My nostrils fill with a magnolia scent that I’ll only ever associate with love.
Discovering the truth about why Mom left healed my lingering sense of betrayal, but my heart will forever carry the weight of the knowledge that she suffered in silence.
“Are you alright?” she murmurs.
I huff a laugh. “Why would I give a shit about Tommy?”
She draws back, her fiery hazel eyes meeting mine. Her brows arch as she studies my features for signs of denial. “Not about him. The funeral.”
Exhale a long breath, trying to expel the impending sense of dread and guilt. A dark cloud hung over the family after Tommy told us the truth about Mom’s supposed betrayal, and nobody has felt the same.
We ordered a beautiful memorial, but it was meaningless without knowing the location of her body. Tommy gave us the runaround, not remembering the location of her burial site or the name he put on the gravestone, so we only found her last week. Our twin cousins arranged for her remains to be transferred into a beautiful casket befitting our mother.