Page 133 of Valentino

I don't turn my head. I hear the weight of Enzo's steps, and I hear the two guards by the wall straighten before he says a word.

He walks into my line of sight long enough for me to see the rope in his hands.

Thick as my thumb. Knotted down the length. Old fibers, stiff from use.

Then he passes behind me.

Slow.

He didn't delegate this. A Don with a hundred men in the house, and he brought the rope himself.

I'd respect it if it weren't my back.

"You understand," he says in Italian, "this isn't about whether you were right."

"I understand," I say. "Your son was filth, and the debt stands anyway. We covered this part already."

One of the guards shifts.

Enzo doesn't answer.

Behind me, the rope drags through his hands with a dry rasp.

I decide before he swings.

He doesn't get a sound out of me. Not a grunt. Not a hiss through my teeth. Nothing. He can have my back. He can have my blood. He can take whatever his grief needs from my body.

My voice stays mine.

The first strike cuts from shoulder blade to hip.

Pain comes white and immediate. My jaw locks. My hands grip the arms of the chair until my fingers cramp.

No sound.

I think of my father alive.

Getting out of the car at the end of the day, the way he did every evening when I was a boy. September sun. Dust on his shoes. My mother in the doorway with flour on her hands.

The second strike lands.

I hold his face.

The mustache he refused to shave after everyone told him it made him look old. The tired set of his eyes. The way he'd cuff the back of my head when I mouthed off, then pull me against his side before I could decide if I was in trouble or loved.

The watch on my wrist was on his when they shot him.

My mother cleaned the blood off before she gave it to me. I was twelve. I thought pain had introduced itself properly.

The third strike proves me wrong.

Something tears across my left shoulder. Heat runs down my back toward my belt.

I breathe through my nose.

In.

Out.