First Comes Blood by Lilith Vincent
19
Chiara
Sunlight dances on the surface of the water. The swimming pool is vivid blue and casts refracted light on my wedding dress. I stare at it, remembering ribbons of blood blooming through the water. Mom’s been near me all year, but now I can feel her hovering closer than ever.
I look up at Dad and Salvatore, dressed for the occasion in suits and suspicious expressions.
“Sorry I’m late,” I tell them.
Salvatore’s eyes narrow at my attempt at levity. Now I’m the unpredictable one, and he’s the one warily watching me and wondering what I might do.
His eyes scour my wedding dress and snags on the engagement ring that he gave me, and I gave away. He flinches, almost like he’s hurt.
“Where have you been?”
My heart squeezes painfully. I was half in love with Salvatore when Cassius carried me out of that church. Our marriage would have been a disaster, but one filled with passion. Heat. Need.
And blood.
The others are raw and bleeding with Salvatore’s loss. There’ll be a power vacuum in this city once Dad is dead, and the most powerful men in Coldlake will be at war.
“With your friends.”
“Why did they let you go?”
I think about that carefully. “I guess they thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Since when did those three ever care about what’s right?” Salvatore sneers.
But I’m not here to discuss Cassius, Vinicius and Lorenzo with Salvatore. The four of them have got nothing to do with why I’m here.
My problem is standing before me in a black suit, eyes narrowed with mistrust, silent at Salvatore’s side. I try to imagine him as a man-shaped target at the other end of Lorenzo’s shooting range, but the adrenalin coursing through my blood tells me he’s not.
He’s Dad.
He’s a living, breathing human being, and the man who brought me into this world. I watch him closely, wondering what he felt in the moments before he murdered Mom. Did he hesitate, and ask himself what the hell he was doing? Or did he plan what he would do in cold blood if she stood in his way?
Did Mom recognize the footsteps behind her or the scent of the man wielding the knife? On the one hand, I hope that Mom didn’t know it was Dad, but that would mean her last thoughts on this earth were that Lorenzo was killing her.
No, baby, I hear her murmur in my ear, calm and sweet. My last thoughts on this earth were of you. Only of you.
I breathe in sharply and blink to clear my eyes. I was loved, I think fiercely.
If I never feel that deep and pure kind of love ever again, at least I had it once in my life.
Even if I die today.
“When you first became Mayor of Coldlake, did you set out with good intentions, or did you let yourself become corrupted along the way?”
Boredom and impatience flash across Dad’s face, and he starts to turn away. Just like that, he knows I’m not here to marry Salvatore, and so I have no purpose to him.
No value.
His own daughter.
I pull the gun out of the bouquet and hold it up. Lorenzo’s gun, feeling heavy but secure in my hand. My finger over the trigger just how Vinicius taught me.
Squeeze don’t pull. Three times in the chest and once in the head. Do it quickly. That’s what Cassius would want, so I can safely return to him.
To all three of them.
But it can’t end like this, when Dad hasn’t even bothered to say a word to me.
My hand starts to tremble. “Stay right there. I want to talk, and you’re going to answer my questions.”
He’s going to talk, even if it kills me.
Women who don’t do as they’re told by men like you end up dead.
Dad turns back to me. “You can’t always get what you want, Chiara, and I’ve got better things to do.” He turns to Salvatore. “Well? I won’t blame you if you don’t want her anymore.”
Salvatore casts his eyes over me. “Did any of them fuck you?”
Any of them. If he only knew what I’d done with his ex-friends.
“Did all of them fuck you?”
I still have the gun pointed at Dad’s chest but my gaze flickers to Salvatore for just a second.
Yes, all of them.
And I liked it.
His lip curls. I’m ruined. I’ve lived past my usefulness. Dad shakes his head and starts to turn away again.
I step forward, the gun shaking in my hand. “No! You’re going to talk to me. You owe me this.”
Salvatore gazes between me and Dad, and silence stretches. Water laps at the edge of the pool.
Just do it.
Doit.
But he was supposed to beg for my forgiveness.
That’s what I wanted, I realize. Not to kill him.
To force him to see me.
To make him show me his pain over killing Mom. He has to feel sorry for killing Mom. He can’t be human otherwise.
I beg him with my eyes to give me something. Anything.
I don’t want to do this.
I won’t do this if you just give me that.
Please.
But Dad’s lips stay closed, and his face is blank and cold.
With a growl of frustration, Salvatore produces a gun from inside his jacket, lifts his arm and takes aim at my stomach. “She’s probably already pregnant. Useless.”
The sky breaks open with an enormous crack.
A force hits me so hard I’m knocked backwards. I look down, and blood is running down the front of my dress and staining the white tulle. The gun slips from my fingers and clatters on the tiles.
Dad stands there with his hands in his pockets, no expression on his face.
Nothing.
I stagger backwards, and my foot slides off the rim of the pool. Dad’s cold face is the last thing I see before the water swallows me up.
I’m going to die just like Mom did.
The water wraps around me, feeling like my mother’s arms. It’s over, baby. It’s all over.
I can feel her already. I can hear her.
Don’t cry. I’m here, don’t cry.
All the pain, all the heartache, spreads out through the water. I slip into the darkness, and let it take me.