By Fate I Conquer (Sins of the Fathers #4)(2)

I took a step back, shaking my head. What was going on?

Nevio practically leaped at the man on the stretcher, like a cat pouncing on an injured mouse, and sliced the blades in a slashing motion across his cheek. A scream rang out and I whirled around, my heart pounding, my vision becoming blurry.

I didn’t stop running until I reached a dark corridor. My breathing was labored. I tried to process what I’d seen, to understand the meaning of it all. Dad had gifted Nevio a man to deal with…

I knew Dad was feared in Las Vegas. He was Capo of the Camorra after all, but he’d always made sure I didn’t know too much about his work. Since I didn’t go to school or had contact to people outside of our world, I’d never heard the details of the rumors.

But even with my limited knowledge, I could only assume Dad had given Nevio that man so he could hurt him badly.

I counted to seventy-five before I crept back to the cell, driven by curiosity and fear alike. Dad always said we needed to face our fears or they’d control us. I slipped into the adjoining room. Goose bumps flashed across my skin when I approached the glass. Beyond it, Nevio still knelt beside the man on the stretcher but everything else had changed drastically. Blood covered Nevio’s face, clothes and the floor around him—even his feet. The man was a gruesome mess, and at first glance I was sure he was dead but then his eyes peeled open in his bloody face with the flappy skin. He was whimpering. Nevio smiled cruelly and brought the knife down on the man’s face again. An earsplitting scream rang out. I whirled around breathing raggedly. Cold sweat broke on my skin and my heart raced so fast I was sure I might have a cardiac arrest soon. I needed to check in one of the medical books in our library if it was even possible to have a cardiac arrest as a young person if you didn’t have a heart defect.

“If you always give up control like that when you torture, then you won’t get any useful information out of them,” Dad said disapprovingly.

“And an onslaught of immense pain like this in such a short period of time isn’t as torturous as dosed amounts of agony over a longer period,” Nino drawled.

I shivered.

I needed to leave. I needed to stop this. I needed…I needed.

“What is going on here?” Mom’s shrill voice pierced my ear.

“Oh fuck,” Dad muttered.

I turned to find Mom in the other cell. She looked completely disgusted, furious and terrified. She stared at Nevio with horror-widened, blue eyes. Last time I’d seen her, she’d been happy and tipsy, nothing of that remained.

He only grinned. “Dad gave me the best birthday present ever.”

Mom swallowed, disbelief reflecting on her face as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Dad stalked toward her, grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the cell despite her struggling. I quickly dashed under the desk that was pressed up against the wall and huddled in the shadow it provided, making myself as small as possible.

A moment later the door swung open and banged against the stone wall. Dad dragged Mom inside. He closed the door and pressed a button on the keypad beside the door. Suddenly the sounds from the neighboring cell ceased and I assumed Nino and Nevio wouldn’t be able to hear us anymore either.

Mom ripped away from Dad’s hold. “How could you do this?” she screamed, her skin red, and tears streaming down her face. “What is wrong with you?”

I’d never heard Mom raise her voice against Dad.

She began beating her fists against his chest. “What. Is. Wrong. With. You? How could you give a twelve-year-old boy a present like that?”

Dad grabbed Mom’s wrists, his expression scary.

I didn’t understand what was going on. I’d never seen my parents fighting. I’d never seen Mom freak out like this either. She was always so calm and understanding.

“Do you really want Nevio to become as messed up as you?”

Mom! My breath hitched and I had to force myself to stay motionless.

Dad jerked Mom against his chest, smiling in a way that made my heart beat very fast. “Maybe you are blind to the truth, Angel. But I am not. Maybe you cannot see or won’t see that our son is a monster. I don’t have to turn him into one. He’s messed up and I’m trying to channel his monster before it goes rampant in a way none of us want. For fuck’s sake, look at him.”

Nevio was running the tip of his blade along the man’s belly with a curious expression.

“Stop it. Stop it now!” Mom whispered harshly.

Dad looked down at her for a long time, before his mouth set in a tight line. “Go upstairs. I’ll stop it. For today. You can’t stop who Nevio is becoming, who he has been all his life. It’s in his genes.”

“Maybe we can get help.”

“We are his help. He doesn’t need anything else. Now go up,” Dad growled.

He’d never ordered Mom around like that, and I shivered.

Mom ripped away from his hold and stormed outside. Dad released a harsh breath then he stalked out of the room. I crawled out from under the desk and stumbled to my feet then toward the keypad, pressing the button that Dad had. He appeared in the neighboring cell a moment later.

“The show is over,” he ordered.

Nevio shook his head, still hurting the man with his knives. “I’m not done yet.”

He sounded so eager, so…wrong.