Chapter 1 Prologue

• PROLOGUE
• VINCENT
• “Sii veloce!” My father’s mocking snarl echoed across the dock separating us. Although I couldn’t see his face clearly under the evening sky, I could hear his sneer. “Be quick about it!” He repeated. The only thing standing between me and the rescue was the wharf layered with shards of glass he expected me to walk across barefoot, to save my mother. The last time, I had twenty seconds to run over burning coals, and even though I passed the test, I couldn’t walk for weeks. I had feared my feet would be amputated. “If you’re not here in the next two minutes, your mother will land at the bottom of the sea.” This was no idle threat.
• I knew better now.
• My mother was always used as bait, to teach me my much-needed ‘lessons’. He was training me, teaching me valuable life skills you see? These lessons would toughen me up so that I didn’t remain a whiny, sniveling mamma’s boy. His words, not mine.
• I loved my mamma more than life itself and my papà wielded it like a weapon. Holding her very existence over my head like a dagger that could drop at any second.
• My mother was the only person who had ever cuddled me and told me she loved me. She’d sneak in morsels of food to feed me when he’d locked me in the dungeon or cold room as punishment for standards I didn’t meet. Leaving me to starve for days on end.
• At an early age, I’d detected there was no love lost between my parents. My mother was a casualty of a rival war and after butchering her entire bloodline, she became his spoils of war, forced into marrying a brutal monster that had solid ice in place of a heart.
• While he saw these as lessons, I saw them as torture.
• If I did anything that displeased him, he’d force me to sleep outside in winter. It didn’t matter if there was a blizzard or a storm. And after enduring the cold night, he’d drag my frozen limbs into the house and whip me with a riding crop. Tears were forbidden. Whimpering or any sound I made during punishment only, amplified my suffering.
• I still haven’t found a word to describe the pain. The emotional trauma. The burning hatred I harbored in my soul for my own father. Day by day, the anger and rancor ate at me, nibbling my nerves raw. He’d not only created a monster but he’d fed it with his depravity.
• When my mother did something to displease him, he’d tie her to a chair and have sex with another woman, dragging me in to literally hold a candle as he pounded into some unfortunate puttana. Sometimes he’d bring in three or more and go at it all night. I was not allowed to look away or leave. Not until he gave the order. The same went for my mamma. On the worst days, he’d tie my mother to the bed and call his bodyguards to have a turn. They would abuse her all day and all night. She didn’t bother pleading with him. She’d learned the hard way, her desperate pleas fell on deaf ears.
• He wasn’t past forcing himself on my mother. It didn’t matter where, The driveway, the kitchen, the staircase. He’d rip her clothes and-
• Santi del cielo.
• No child was supposed to see his father violate his mother in such a vile, depraved manner. No child was supposed to see what a saw. Suffer what I endured under his hands.
• I was forced to watch.
• All this happened when I was only five.
• It didn’t stop.
• Until I failed her.
• It was a windy winter evening when my heart was ripped out of my chest, never to return.
• Rain fell like sheets, the fierce wind whistling through the woods surrounding our sprawling estate.
• “Svegliati!” Papa snapped, throwing a glass of water in my face. “Before the sharks have your useless mother for dinner.” He laughed and stuck his cigar back in his mouth. “I tied weights around her ankles so you might be too late,” he added with a careless shrug. “The sea might do the work for the sharks after all,” he chuckled, strolling out of my room with a glass of cognac in his other hand. “
• Tugging on my boots, I hightailed it down the stairs and found the front door securely locked. I searched for the keys frantically, when finally, the guard at the door threw them at me at my father's command. My legs leaped down the front stairs as I bolted to the shore, his taunting echoing in my ears.
• “You won’t be able to save her this time, cosa inutile!”
• I ran until my lungs ached, fighting against the torrential rains.
• She needed me.
• She was busy dying and I was asleep.
• But sleep was a luxury to me. I wasn’t allowed to sleep until I earned it.
• I should have known.
• Should have suspected that he was up to something.
• Stripping off all my clothes and going against the waves as I dove in and searched all night for my mother. My muscles screamed, but I couldn’t stop. It was like I was possessed.
• I can’t say how long I floundered in the water, desperately searching for the only person who meant something to me. I had to find her. I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Not until she was safe with me. Though I knew she’d never be safe, I had to try. The storm had abated but still, I swam against the waves until my body was numb. My body was exhausted and in excruciating pain but I couldn’t rest. Not until I found her.
• “Looking for something, mio figlio?” My father’s voice carried over the wind.
• Turning around slowly, my heart stopped when my eyes fell on the person he held against his chest, a dagger pressed under her chin.
• “Mamma!”
• As I staggered towards them, the dagger sliced through her vocal cords letting the air out of her lungs and she wheezed back, frothing gore before she could scream. His blade slashed down her chest and he tore her open in a fountain of flashing red.
• As his blade carved out my heart, it was as if he’d carved out mine too.
• And one day, I would return the favor.