Fear is a complex emotion. It can either give you the motivation you need to be stronger or kick your ass and make you run in the other direction.
Right now…it’s kicking my ass, but I can’t run. My feet are planted on the concrete floor, my insides pulverized, and I’m not sure if I want to scream or throw up.
“No,” I whisper.
“Leandra—” Alexius tries to pull me close, but I’m frozen solid. I stare at the man tied to a large metal chair, the chains around his feet glinting under the light. It’s my father. How can that be him?
His head is hanging down, blood dripping in ribbons from his nose and onto his torn, pale blue shirt, seeping through the woven fiber of the cotton fabric. His dark hair is matted against his forehead, and sweat beads down the side of his face.
It’s when he lifts his head and our eyes meet that I truly feel the horror of this moment—a moment I didn’t think would ever come. I’ve never thought about the day I’d see him again because a part of me hoped he was gone for good.
His jaw hangs crooked, thick strings of spit and blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. But his gaze is a dark pool of vacant amusement as he stares at me. Suddenly, I’m back in the past. I’m that little girl again—the girl staring up at her dad, wondering what it is that he wants her to do with his friend. I’m the girl who ran from her father that day…which is exactly what I need to do now.
“No. No. No.” I take a hesitant step back…and another. “What the fuck is this?”
“Listen to me.” Alexius reaches for me, but I jerk away.
I point at my dad, still staring right at me. “He’s supposed to be in prison.”
“Your father got out on parole.”
“Parole?” I snap my gaze to Alexius. “That’s not possible.”
“My uncle made it possible.”
“What?” I take another step back, struggling to keep my heart from crawling out my throat. “Why would…what does your uncle have to do with my father?”
“He set up the whole thing and pulled every string to get your father out.”
“I don’t understand.” From the corner of my eye, I see Isaia get off the platform, slowly approaching. “Um…why…why would Roberto do that?”
Alexius inches closer, like he’s afraid I might run if he moves too fast. “My uncle only did this because he knows the best way to get to me is through you.”
I shake my head lightly, unable to form a coherent thought. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re not just my wife, stray. You’re my weakness too, and my uncle knows it. He knows there is only one thing that would be far worse than death for me, and that’s losing you.”
The acidic taste of bile rises up my throat, leaving a rotten taste in my mouth. Nausea follows it, and I clutch the fabric of my shirt over my belly, struggling to breathe through the bitterness.
Alexius drags a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. “Word got to your father that you’re a Del Rossa now. A Dark Sovereign wife. He started using that to his advantage, making deals and forming alliances, saying his son-in-law is Alexius Del Rossa.”
“Oh, my God.” I suck in a breath, but the air doesn’t reach my lungs, my gaze cutting back to the man in the chair. I don’t even want to think of him as my father. It’s too close, too personal like that. I hardly recognize him. He’s older than I remember but not as skinny. Clearly, he’s been fed more in prison than he fed himself when he was free. He didn’t care for food back then, only caring about his next goddamn fix. He thought his daughter didn’t care for food either.
There’s a sharp pain in my gut, and even though we just had dinner, I can remember what it felt like having to go to sleep hungry every night. I remember clutching my tummy, hoping the hunger pangs would die and the grumbling noises would stop. I would wake up in the morning, my stomach burning with nausea and my head throbbing.
A pained whimper escapes me, and I have to plant my palm in front of my mouth. “This isn’t happening,” I mutter.
“Your father told everyone about you and me and how he has access to the Dark Sovereign through you. It’s given him a fuckton of street credit, Leandra. And the plan was for him to get close to you, blackmail you, extort you as far as he could, and then…” Alexius stops short, his throat bobbing as he swallows.
“Then what? Kidnap me. Kill me. What?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I won’t let anyone fucking hurt you or take you from me. Roberto managed to get your father out on parole, but he fucked up by underestimating us, and we found a way through the cracks in his plan.”
Rome walks in, the collar of his black trench coat straightened to cover his neck. The confusion I feel is sickening, and I’m sure all the blood in my body has been drained.
“Rome helped us,” Alexius explains. “He knew of his father’s plans and agreed to help us so we can protect you.” He moves close and places his hands on my shoulders as if shielding me. “I need you to understand that I would much rather have put a bullet in your father’s head and end his miserable existence than put you in this position. The last thing I want is to put you through this. But I made you a promise, and that’s why he’s here. That’s why you get to decide today.”
“Decide what?” I search his face, my heart pounding like it’s moments away from ripping through my chest.
He steps up close, cupping my face in both his palms, forcing me to look at him as he wipes tears from my cheeks. “We have two options here, Leandra. We have the ties to make him disappear, make sure where he’s going no one will ever find him. Or we kill him.”
My heart splits open, adrenaline flooding my veins. “Kill him? You want me to decide what happens to him?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You have to, Leandra.”
“No!” I cry. “I’m not God, Alexius.”
“Yet he played God over more than two dozen kids’ lives without fucking blinking.”
“I know what he did,” I snap back at him. “I was there, remember? I’m the little girl he tried to whore out to his friend.”
“Yeah, and you ran. You made a split-second decision and ran. Thank God for that. But do you know who wasn’t that lucky? Who didn’t get away?”
Tears lap across my lips and down my chin.
“Brandon Morris,” Alexius bites out, barely containing his anger. “He didn’t run. He couldn’t run. Instead, he got to star in underaged porn along with Pippa Coleman, two days after her tenth birthday.”
My stomach churns. “Stop.”
“Kendal Roberts couldn’t run. So she got locked up in a room with a man the same age as her motherfucking grandfather.”
“Alexius,” Isaia calls. “Stop.”
“No. She needs to hear this.” His eyes slay me as he pins his red-hot gaze on mine, his jaw set and nostrils flaring. “Nathan Garrison couldn’t run. He tried to fight back, but that cost him an eye because he got his face bashed against a wall before some sick fuck raped him.”
I look at the man in the chair, the words coming out of Alexius’ mouth erasing everything familiar about him. The longer I listen to my husband listing these heinous crimes, the torturing of so many children, the less this man looks like my father, and the more he takes on the features of a monster. His depravities rot away his flesh, the scales of his sickness covering him in shadows. Even his eyes seem to turn black, his cheeks a sickening gray.
“Sophie Reed couldn’t run,” Alexius continues. “So she ended up with a needle in her arm and woke up in a pool of her own blood staining the dirty sheets she slept on.”
I move closer to where the monster sits, my thoughts stacking up like a row of dominos, every block morphing my fear into empowerment.
“Samantha Vanguard. Hillary Rose.” Alexius’ voice rolls like thunder in the distance. “Timothy Sutherland. Leroy Jones. Kira Ward. Mia Lancaster. They all disappeared. They were never found. And for the last fifteen fucking years, their families have been living with this open wound that oozes with suffering because they never got any damn closure.” His angered tone echoes around the room, crashing against the concrete walls. “You wanna know what all these kids have in common?” Alexius snarls and points at my father. “Him. He groomed them, whored them, assaulted them, kidnapped and sold them. For what? Not for food for his starving daughter. No. For drugs. To get high. And the worst part is, they couldn’t convict him of all the crimes. Lack of evidence, they said. For the missing kids, they said no body, no crime. It’s disgusting.”
I was so young I didn’t know the details of my father’s case or understand any of it. All I understood was the accusations my mother would spit my way, telling me everything was my fault, that my father left because of me, and that she was unhappy because of me. I believed it then, but now…I know better.
I stop in front of the monster and can practically smell the sulfur leaking from his blackened soul like pus from an infected sore and leprosy that’s eaten away his humanity over the years.
Up close, I can see all the scars on his face. Prison hasn’t been kind to him, not that he deserves any level of kindness.
His jaw hangs awkwardly to the side and makes a crunching, slurping sound as he tries to speak but fails.
Alexius moves in next to me but doesn’t reach for me or touch me as I stare down at the monster. “Nicoli broke his jaw. We thought it best if the fucker couldn’t talk to you. Fuck knows what he’d be spitting at you if he could talk.”
I’m thankful for that. I’ve managed to forget the sound of his voice over the years, and I’d rather not be reminded and forced to think of all the vile things he said to me whenever I mentioned that I was hungry or cold or when I was sick with a fever. Or the sound of his disgusting grunts when he was fucking my mother in the living room while I was locked in the bathroom, listening to their sex parties and orgies with people he’d get off the street.
But none of that matters anymore. My own pain isn’t the driving force. It’s the names—all the names Alexius had said.
I glower down at the monster, feeling nothing but hate and disgust. “For so long, I wondered whether things would have been different if I didn’t run that day.” I clench my fists. “If I had just waited another ten, twenty, thirty seconds. Would you have gone through with it if I had given you more time to change your mind? Would you have stopped your friend?” Tears drip down my cheeks, the salty drops lapping between my lips. “If I had waited just a few more seconds…would you have seen all your mistakes? Would you have had some kind of divine revelation, turned your life around, and become a real father who loved his daughter more than he loved his next goddamn fix?” I hiss, my lips curving into a snarl as I keep my eyes on his. There’s no change in his expression as he listens to me speak, no signs of regret or remorse. It’s all just hard lines of evil, a man bathed in the vile acts of a monster.
Alexius pulls a gun from behind his back, and I don’t even flinch at the sight. I’m no longer scared. I no longer feel fear. What I do feel is this deeply rooted hunger for…vengeance.
“It’s your decision, stray,” he says, placing the gun’s muzzle against the monster’s temple, his finger firmly on the trigger.
For a moment, I look up at Isaia, his worried gaze silently asking if I’m okay, and I reply with a barely perceptible nod.
“I know you have it in you, stray. You’re not that helpless little girl anymore,” Alexius murmurs, and I look at him, his face stricken and eyes determined. “You’re my queen,” he breathes. “You are…a Del Rossa.”
It’s a rubber band that snaps. A resolve that slams against my bones. His words reach all the way to my soul, my veins exploding with an energy that floods my system, and strength that burns my blood.
Alexius is right. I’m not Leandra Dinali anymore. I’m no longer the woman Alexius found in that shitty apartment, saving me from a fate determined by a past molded and shaped by my parents.
I’m me. Leandra Del Rossa.
I lean down, bringing my face close to his, tilting my head to the side as I make sure he looks me in the eye. I want him to see me, to really see me. I want him to see that the little girl he said was the biggest mistake of his life, the daughter he called a waste of space and a leech, a pathetic piece of shit who would never be something, is now…something. I’m more than something. I’m strong. I’m fierce. I’m gentle and kind. I’m a friend. A wife and soon-to-be mother. I’m…a Del Rossa.
I lean closer, smelling the rancid stench of blood and the flesh of a man who will burn in hell. “Say hi to Mom for me.”
I straighten and look at Alexius. “Do it.”
He nods, and I turn around, walking in the other direction, wanting my back to be the last thing the monster sees before he finally pays for his sins.
A loud crack erupts. It’s a thunderclap that slams against every bone in my body, sending a tremor shaking down my spine. It’s the death rattle of a demon. A sound I’ll never forget because in the rumbling echo is the final confession of a monster.
