Page 47 of Revenge

What now?

Am I going to let them plot Antonio’s murder?

My hand finds my belly. It’s unlikely, but possible that I could be pregnant right now with his child. Am I going to allow my father to kill my husband?

I struggle to my feet and rip my wet robe from my body. I have to stop this madness.

It has to stop here.

Antonio belongs to me now as much as he believes I belong to him.

We’re married.

And that’s when I realize something else. Perhaps the most important thing of all: Antonio cares about me.

He let my father go.

It wasn’t because he’s not a killer–he clearly is. I watched him shoot at least four men today. He hates my father–spent years of his life plotting his revenge against him.

And yet today he let him go.

I can only surmise it’s because I asked.

Because he cares for me. He hasn’t said so. He’s called me beautiful, made me feel beautiful, but he hasn’t said I mean anything to him other than as a conquest.

But if I were just a conquest, he wouldn’t spare my father. Especially not after realizing I’d betrayed him and wanted to escape.

And for the record–I didn’t want to.

I’d do anything if I could back in time and not deliver that message to the restaurant host last night.

To still be with Antonio on the yacht. Or off the yacht, for that matter. Where would he have brought me to live? What would our life have looked like?

All those questions make my heart strain, as if pulled long and twisted.

I turn off the water and towel off, then wrap up in a fluffy hotel robe and step out into the suite to confront my father.

“You have to let Antonio go.”

“It’s too late.” My father shakes his head. “The FBI is on their way to arrest Antonio right now. With the bodycount he left today, he’ll never see the light of day again.”

Chapter Eleven

Antonio

I light a match and flick it into the pool of gasoline and The Honeymoon bursts into furious flames.

I watch for a few moments.

I don’t know what I hope for–some glimmer of satisfaction at ruining Benedict’s beautiful vessel?

Instead, I feel nothing but the gnawing emptiness that’s been with me since the moment Dahlia jumped over the side.

My men and I motor away from the unanchored yacht, now a Norse burial ship, carrying the dead across the rainbow bridge, or wherever the fuck they supposedly go.

I lost three. We took out a dozen of theirs.

I should be satisfied that the battle was won, but all I taste is the ash in my mouth.