Daniele hovered in the center of the living room, the tablet still in his hand. His small face showed confusion. I smiled despite the darkness swirling in my insides. “You were right. Your mom and Uncle Andrea were playing.”
“I heard screaming.”
I chuckled, even as my throat tightened. “Yeah. They were chasing each other and Mom got startled.”
Heading to his side, I stroked his head. “I’m going to take you to bed now. You can keep playing if you want.”
He nodded. I lifted Daniele and carried him upstairs, relishing the feel of his warm body. He called to the good part of me, a part Andrea wouldn’t get to see today. After I put Daniele in bed, I left and locked his door.
I returned to Gaia’s bedroom. Before I dealt with Andrea, I checked on Gaia again. She still lay where I’d left her. Her eyes begged me to spare Andrea—the man she’d been fucking behind my back for eight years.
I turned my back on her, not able to bear the look in her eyes, and went to Andrea. After unfastening the handcuffs, I grabbed him by one wrist and dragged him after me, enjoying the sound of his muffled cries. He struggled like a madman. I pulled him down the staircase, when Faro entered the lobby with his keys, our most-trustworthy doctor behind him.
Faro’s eyes dipped to Andrea’s bleeding form, widened, then shot back up to meet my gaze. The doctor’s face remained unmoving—he knew the rules. None of what he saw would ever leave this house.
“Gaia’s upstairs,” I said. “Treat her, make sure she and the child are all right. And don’t leave her out of sight for a fucking second. She threatened to hurt the baby.”
I didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, I wrenched Andrea toward the basement door and shoved him down the stairs. The sound of his fall ended with his muffled cry when he landed at the base. I followed after him. Steps rang out behind me. I didn’t have to turn to know it was Faro.
Andrea lay in a crumpled heap at the base of the steps, groaning. I grabbed him again and dragged him toward a soundproof room where I hoisted him onto a chair.
Faro regarded me cautiously. “Is he a rat?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But he’s a man who fucks his sister.”
Faro’s eyes shot open wide as he scanned Andrea’s naked body. “Cassio—”
“Don’t,” I growled. I didn’t want compassion. It was worth less than the dirt under my shoes. Compassion was for the weak and stupid. Maybe I was the second, but definitely not the first.
“Fuck,” Faro said, shaking his head. He knew what would have to happen, what I needed—wanted to do.
I stepped close to Andrea and ripped the tape off. “Now we’ll talk.”
Andrea spat against my chest. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Oh, there is.” I grabbed his throat. “How long have you been fucking my wife?”
Andrea smiled grimly. “She’s been mine before she was yours.”
“What does that mean?” I shook him hard.
His eyes rolled back briefly before they met mine. He’d lost a lot of blood, was losing more with every passing second. He wouldn’t leave this basement alive. “We’ve been together since Gaia was fifteen. We’ve been fucking since she was sixteen.”
Rage boiled up in me like an unstoppable wave. “You’re lying.”
“Why? Because she bled your first time together?” He laughed nastily. “There are doctors for everything.”
Almost eight years. That was how long Gaia had been cheating on me. I’d been faithful even when she hardly tolerated my presence most days and had only slept with me once or twice per month. I didn’t care. I kept my marriage vows, and she trampled on them from day one. I trusted her and Andrea, had let him become her only bodyguard because she asked me to. I didn’t give a fuck about what had happened before our wedding night, if she’d been a virgin or not, but every betrayal since then cut me like an acid-coated knife.
My hands balled to fists.
“Remember the bikers,” Faro said, but I barely heard him. “We need info.”
Andrea swallowed. “If you want an heir, you need to keep Gaia alive because Daniele and Simona aren’t yours. They are mine.”
Static rushed in my ears. I threw myself at him, raining punches down on his face, his chest, his stomach. I beat every inch of him I could reach.
“Cassio, stop!” Faro gripped my shoulders, but I shoved him away with a roar, more animal than man. He collided with the wall and crumpled to his feet.
Then I whirled on Andrea again. His gaze said he knew he would die.
My fists burned with every new punch. I hit flesh and bone, even the floor beneath us in my blinding rage. I punched and punched until I couldn’t breathe anymore, until my knuckles throbbed with pain, until my ribcage ached under an invisible weight. Shoving away from the corpse, I sank down against the wall, chest heaving. My knuckles were split from impact with the stone floor.
I gasped for breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was calm. Andrea was a bloody mess. I didn’t have to check for a pulse to know he was dead. I’d killed many men with a knife, gun, hammer, razorblade, but never with my bare hands. I didn’t let rage dictate my actions. Today I had.
Faro sat across from me, eyeing me warily. “You all right?”
I stretched out my blood-covered arms. My shirt and pants were drenched. My fingers ached when I wiggled them. I smiled wryly. “My wife has been fucking her half-brother our entire marriage… Daniele…” My words died in my mouth, throat becoming dry.
Faro got up with a wince. He stepped over the corpse and almost slipped on the blood. “Fuck,” he growled before he stopped in front of me. He held out his hand.
I took it and let him pull me up, even as sharp pain sliced through my fingers.
Faro touched my shoulder. “Andrea might have said it to provoke you, Cassio. You don’t know if he said the truth. Daniele and the baby could be yours. Do you really think Gaia would have risked putting cuckoo’s eggs in your nest?”
“Don’t call them that,” I rasped.
Faro regarded me with penetrating intensity that set my teeth on edge. “Andrea knew what awaited him. A slow death, hours of brutal torture until he’d given up all his secrets. By provoking you, he got a quick death.”
I regarded the bloody mess on the floor. “I doubt it was the painless end he’d hoped for.”
“Not painless, no,” Faro said, following my gaze. “But fairly quick. Better than he deserved if you ask me.”
I leaned back against the wall, not sure where to go from here. My wife had betrayed me, had admitted that she’d rather see me dead, had threatened to kill our baby… if it was even ours.
My chest constricted until every breath was a struggle.
“What are you going to do now?” Faro asked. I met his cautious gaze. “With Gaia,” he clarified, as if I didn’t know.
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t—wouldn’t kill her. She was still my wife, still the mother of Daniele and Simona. My head fell forward under the force of emotions slamming into me.
“Cassio.” Faro squeezed my shoulder, his voice imploring.
“Call my father. Ask him to come over. He needs to know. Don’t alert anyone else yet. We need to come up with a story.”
“You’ll keep Gaia’s affair a secret?”
“Of course. I don’t want people to know. We’ll blame this on Andrea. Declare him a traitor, as he probably was anyway.”
“Gaia might know more. If she was his lover, they might have talked.”
I shook Faro’s grip off. A new wave of rage and despair rose in me. “I need to check on her.”
“Cassio,” Faro said, gripping my shoulder. “Even if you don’t kill her, you can’t trust her anymore. Your marriage is over.”
I didn’t say anything, only walked up the stairs. I found Gaia and the doctor in her bedroom. She lay in bed, looking drugged. The doctor was covered in sweat and had a swelling on his forehead. “She struggled. I had to sedate her and drag her to bed. She would have hurt herself and the baby otherwise.”
Doctor Sal scanned my blood-covered clothes. “Should I check on your injuries?”
“Is the baby okay?” I asked from the doorway, unable to go in, to go anywhere closer to my wife and the bed she’d betrayed me in.
“It is. Of course, it’s not ideal that I had to sedate her. If she’s still this hysterical when she wakes, we might have to restrain her. I can’t keep giving her sedatives in her state.”
“Can we get the baby now?”
Sal shook his head. “Theoretically. But we should give it another two to three weeks at least.”
How could I make sure the baby was safe? I’d have to keep an eye on Gaia 24/7 and hope she got over Andrea’s death. I knew I was foolish for hoping she could. And really, what could I hope for at this point? That we’d live under a roof, hating each other? Gaia would spend every waking moment wishing for my cruel death, and I’d spend every breath I took resenting her for what she’d done. This marriage was dead. It had been from the very start.
“Stay with her,” I said. I walked out and into the master bedroom where I showered quickly and dressed before I headed to Daniele’s room.