I laughed. “Then why are you still alive? Why do you still have the strength to come here with your shameless, thick–skinned lies?”
“Do you really think a simple ‘I’m sorry‘ can erase the fact that you killed six of my children and made it so I can never be a mother again? When you had me kidnapped and violated for Peaches, when you made me a surrogate breeding machine for her, did you ever think of this day?”
don’t understand,” I said, my voice dripping with contempt. “After everything you’ve done to me, all the monstrous things, how do you still have
the audacity to say you love me?”
Dante clutched his head, tears of agony streaming down his face. “Wife, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’ve already killed Peaches. I tied her up in the
basement, found three times the number of men who violated you, and made her go through it. I made her miscarry six times before I killed her. I‘
ve already avenged you. Please, don’t leave me.”
I stared at him. He thought I was softening. He started to reach for my hand, but I slapped him, hard, across the face.
My face was a mask of disgust. “You make me sick. Peaches was evil, yes, but she was just an accomplice. The real executioner was you! All the
real, physical pain I suffered, it was all because of you.”
“I’ll say this one last time. We are divorced. Or you can consider me dead. This life, the next life, I never want to see you again. If you have even a
shred of guilt left in you, then stay far, far away from me.”
With that, I turned my back on him and walked away.
I don’t know when Dante left. A month later, I heard the news. He had gotten into a final, bloody confrontation with his rival. He was stabbed eight
times and fell at the same harbor where I had once saved him. His men tried to pull him from the firefight, but he gave up, staring into the distan-
ce, murmuring, “My wife will come save me. She will come…”
Shortly after, the news broke that both major syndicates had been taken down in a massive international police raid. Dante was reportedly killed in
an explosion, his body never recovered. His rival and all their men were arrested, facing international justice.
Dante had left his entire fortune to me in a will prepared by his lawyer. I donated every last cent.
He had tried to atone with his death, but I could never forgive him.
I looked out at the rising sun, the air filled with the clean, warm scent of sunlight. For the rest of my life, I would live, and I would be radiant.
