Tainted Faith

Epilogue

Liliana glared at her Roderigo as soon as he stepped into the lounge of her new home - Barbato's home - with blood staining his clothes. The rest of her cousins were all here in the house somewhere and had been for weeks, and her aunt had arrived only a few days ago, but Marco was the only one currently sat in the lounge with her when Roderigo finally made his appearance. How long had it been since she'd last seen him? She couldn't even remember at this point. 

"You dick," Liliana cursed at him instinctively, just the sight of his bruised face enough to incite her anger. "Where the fuck have you been?" 

Marco somehow managed to only seem slightly surprise by her words - though his surprise was conveyed only by the slight raising of an eyebrow as he turned to look at her. In a typical Marco fashion, he kept any thoughts he had to himself. 

To Roderigo's credit, he had the intelligence to seem mildly wary, holding his hands up innocently as he stepped further into the room. 

"Liliana-" 

"Why didn't you respond to any of my messages? I thought you were dead. The last I knew you'd gone out with Mar and his brothers and then you never returned! You're such an ass-" 

Roderigo's eyes widened a fraction, and he quickly looked towards Marco as if for help. Marco, smartly, did not intervene. 

"All you needed to do was send me a short text. You were the only one I reached out to after the wedding, the only one I had seen since Belize, and then you just up and left without a single word! What the hell Rigo?" 

"Did D'Onofrio not tell you what I was doing?" 

If possible, Liliana's anger doubled. She felt as if flames were about to burst forth from her ears, as her whole upper body flushed. 

"Why didn't you tell me what you were doing?" She hissed, her upper lip curling into a snarl. "I sent you so many texts." 

"I hardly check my phone when I'm doing a job," Roderigo explained weakly.

"Bullshit." There was no doubt in her mind that Roderigo had kept in contact with both Marco and Marcello throughout his entire disappearance. How could he not if he were supposedly working with the D'Onofrio's? "What have you even been doing all this time? Valentino died over two weeks ago-"

"I've been cleaning up lose ends." That was all he said, in that gruff, detached voice of his. Liliana's stomach rolled, and she eyed the old and fresh blood stains that ruined his clothes. The dark bruises that had formed on his face were at least a few days old. 

Liliana didn't know who usually held such a role amongst the D'Onofrio family, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was one of the two brothers now currently indisposed by their injuries, one of the men that had died in the attack, or one of the many traitors that had sided with Dino D'Onofrio and Valentino Fiorenza. The fact that Roderigo, a man who hated the D'Onofrio's, had been working with her husband for the past few weeks had Liliana lost for words, even if Marcello had already told her so.

Before anything else could be said, Marcello entered the room with a large tray of food in his hands. His movements were slow and stiff and her scowl was instantaneous as she eyed her stupid, thoughtful husband and redirected all of her anger towards him. She didn't dare scold him for placing strain on his injuries in front of her cousins, however. Her husband was a proud man, and while she had no problem snapping at him in the privacy of their bedroom, or even the company of his own brothers, she would not embarrass him in front of her family. The gleam in his eyes as he stared right back with an impassive expression revealed Marcello knew just as much she wanted to yell at him.