Page 123

“No.” I raise my hands in the air. “You always talk about bravery and how it takes a true man to see his actions through until the end. So, fight me. No weapons, no tricks. Just us, the way you taught me.”

“You want to challenge me?” He stresses the words, his eyes alight with a cold assessment. “Careful. I ran rings around you in your prime. You’re no longer the kickboxer you were, and even then, you couldn’t touch me.”

“You told me I wasn’t good enough for you to bet everything on.” I roll my shoulders and drop into the stance he drilled into me when I was young and desperate and willing to do anything to earn his approval. “You said you were the real deal, and I was just a failed legacy. Show me it was the truth, or admit that everything you carved into me was a lie.”

Bruno’s gaze roams across my face, my hands, and the shape of my stance. Then he sets the scalpel down on the tray with a soft click, shoves Lucia away from us both, and raises his hands.

“Marco.” Lucia’s voice doesn’t waver, but I note the terror in her eyes. “You don’t need to fight him⁠—”

“Keep behind me, against the wall.” I don’t look at her. If I do, I’ll lose the thread I’ve latched on to. “I have to do this.”

I feel her nod, but my attention stays on Bruno. He observes our exchange like a man confirming a suspicion. “She’s your weakness.” He speaks the words aloud, though they seem meant for himself.

“Yes, she is. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I shift my weight forward and bring my fists up, settling into the stance Bruno drilled into me before I was old enough to shave. “Now come on, old man. Enough talk.”

“You always did have to prove yourself.” He circles me quickly, light on his feet in a way that reminds me of how great a fighter he used to be. “That’s what made you so easy to break. You craved goodness so badly, needed validation like oxygen. You never understood that you were worth more to me broken. That shattered version was where your real value lay. Heck, you could’ve been my lieutenant in all of this.”

He rushes forward with a low kick to my left leg, followed by a jab that splits my lip.

Copper floods my mouth and dribbles down my chin.

“You picked me up when my father died.” I take another hit and feel my eye starting to swell. The skin pulls tight. “You made me believe I was worth something. You made me believe I was part of your family.”

“I also convinced you that you were most worthy when you won.” Bruno throws a combination of a hook and body shot.

I roll the hook but absorb the body shot against my ribs. The world goes white with pain. He needs to believe I’m weakening, so I let him commit too far forward.

“Being worth something and winning were never the same thing.”

I swing, and my fist connects with his jaw. The crunch of bone and the familiar shock of the impact travel up my arm.

He staggers, recovers, and comes back at me.

“I loved you.” My words splinter. “You were the closest thing I had to a father. And you drugged me, let them brand me a cheat, and burned my career to ash. Then you threw me away like I was nothing.”

“You were nothing.” Bruno’s face is bloody now, his movements slower, his breath coming in ragged pants. “You were always going to be nothing. You’re a fighter with no killer instinct and a man with no stomach for what it truly takes to win. I gave you everything…the training, the connections, the name you made for yourself…and you couldn’t even be grateful enough to become what I needed you to be.”

I drive my fist into his stomach, then into his chest. Bruno goes down and I follow, my weight pinning him to the blood-slick floor as the cold tile presses up against my knees.

“I was grateful.” My hands close around his throat, and I feel the pulse of him beneath my fingers. “I would have died for you. You destroyed me anyway. You convinced me I deserved to lose my whole identity.”

“Don’t you understand? You needed to be destroyed first to become what I needed you to be.” Bruno’s voice is raspy, and his wide eyes are fixed on my face. “I wanted to forge you into a sharper, more formidable weapon. One built to survive in this world and take what you need. You should be thanking me.”

My hands tighten around his neck. Bruno’s face purples, and his hands claw at my wrists. Somewhere behind me, Lucia calls my name, but she seems so far away. Her voice is barely a whisper against the roar of blood in my ears and Bruno’s voice, still talking, still explaining, still pretending he did any of this for anyone but himself.

“Marco.” Lucia’s voice—closer now—cuts through the noise. Not a plea. A warning.

Her voice loosens my grip for a fraction of a second, which is all the time Bruno needs. His hand shoots beneath his lab coat and comes out with a scalpel, slashing upward toward my throat. I jerk back, the blade kissing the air an inch from my jugular, and my gun skids from my waistband across the tile.

Bruno scrambles free, blood pouring from his mouth, and lunges, not for the exit but for the guard’s pistol on the floor. His fingers close around the grip. He raises it toward me, his arm shaking, his smile a red ruin.

“I made you,” he rasps as he levels the barrel at my chest. “And I can unmake you.”

The shot comes from behind me.

Not from Bruno’s pistol, but from mine. The one that skidded across the floor, already in Lucia’s hands.

Bruno’s body jerks. The weapon falls from his fingers. He peers down at the bloom of red spreading across his white coat, then past me to where Lucia stands barefoot on the cold tile in her hospital gown, grasping my weapon with both hands, her arms straight, her aim steady despite the tears streaming down her face.