Torture to Her Soul(25)

As soon as I say it, I glance up, my footsteps faltering when I see Ray standing at the nurse's station. Just as I spot him, the nurse on duty points my direction. Ray turns, eyeing me right away.
Karissa stalls beside me, stepping closer to my side as he approaches. I put my arm around her, instinctively, protectively, but more so to lean on her.
I'm unsteady on my feet.
Ray momentarily ignores her presence when he stops in front of us, focused fully on me. His eyes study me, picking me apart, like he's looking for weaknesses. "Leaving already, Vitale?"
"Yes," I say. "What are you doing here?"
"Just came to check in on you," he says. "You sped away last night, wasn't sure what happened, but I heard you'd been shot."
"Just a flesh wound," I say. "I've had worse."
"That you have," he says, nodding. "Well, come on, let me give you a ride home."
I start to argue, but I don't have a leg to stand on. What can I say? We have no other way to get anywhere. I stagger onto the elevator as Karissa stays at my side, the three of us heading to an awaiting limo, the driver still waiting behind the wheel.
It's strained, the whole way to Brooklyn, as I sit in the back of the extravagant vehicle beside Karissa, right across from Ray. Nobody speaks. Nobody knows what to say. My mind is a jumble of thoughts, my body in agony, my chest heavy from the implications.
When we pull up in front of my house, Ray clears his throat. "Can I have a moment of your time, Vitale?"
Hesitating, I relax back in the seat, motioning for Karissa to go ahead inside. She leaves, closing the door behind her, and we sit in silence for a moment. I stare out the window, my eyes drifting to my car in the driveway, the side of it ravished by bullet holes.#p#分页标题#e#
Ray looks apprehensive, his eyes shifting from me to my car in the driveway. "Who did this?"
A lie is on the tip of my tongue. I try to swallow it back, but it springs free. "I don't know."
I've never lied to Ray before.
"You don't know?"
"No," I say. "They blindsided me, stole my wallet and my keys, then panicked and shot me."
"And you don't know who it was?"
"No," I say. "I don't."
His eyes meet mine again, guarded, as he seems to consider all of it. He doesn't believe me, I see it in his eyes, but he, too, knows I've never lied to him. He doesn't want to think things have changed between us. I don't want to think it, either, but I feel it.
I feel the shift before he even addresses it.
"You're getting soft, Vitale. You let someone shoot you. You let them rob you and get away with it."
"Just because they got away last night doesn't mean they'll get away with it," I say. "I always get my revenge."
"Revenge," Ray echoes, letting out a dry laugh. "I'm starting to think we have different definitions of that. I thought revenge meant payback, justice, an eye for an eye… a family for a family… not taking the easy way out."
Easy. I shake my head. "That's where we differ, Ray. You seem to think what I did was easy for me, that letting go of a plan I spent almost two decades plotting was easy, but you're wrong, because there was nothing easy about it. I still feel like I failed, like I didn't get any justice for Maria."
"You didn't," he says, matter-of-fact, those words piercing me like a knife to the chest. "You pissed on my daughter's memory by letting Carmela live."
"Yeah, well, that's only temporary."
After last night, there's no way around it.
I can't let Carmela continue to walk the streets after what she just did. I tried to give her a pass, a chance to flee for Karissa's sake, but it's too late now.
She made a grave mistake.
"And their kid?" Ray asks, turning to look at me. I don't look his way, but from the corner of my eye I can see his serious expression. "Karissa?"
"What about her?"
"You're just going to let her live," he says. "You let her go on breathing, living in that house that should've been my daughter's, sleeping in your bed, sleeping with you, giving her the life my daughter should've had, the life my daughter could've had, would've had, and you're going to fucking give it to her? Her?"
Every word from his lips stabs at me, eating away at my insides like festering poison, tearing me apart one syllable at a time. He's not saying anything I haven't thought myself more than once, the sense of betrayal already existing inside of me, but the accusatory tone in which he spews it only stirs it up more.
I feel like I'm going to pass out.
"The daughter of my daughter's murderer," he mutters. "That's who you chose, who you let replace her."
"Nobody will ever replace her," I say, having to force the words out through the swell of emotion in my chest. "I'm not trying to replace anyone, but I can't help how I feel about Karissa."