Another's Demise

Taunts That Live On

Alara

"Focus," the low measured voice of my father cut through my concentration. I felt the burn of metal against my hand as I cast a wary look over at Vincent Torres, who only months ago I had not known was my biological father.

But it was not his voice that I heard.

Though his mouth opened and closed into that grim thin line, close to disparagement but not quite comfortable enough to give in to the look of a disappointed father. He still knew that though in name he was my father, the wilted chasm of my heart still mourned Damon Mortello.

My hands tightened around the gun, my eyes narrowing as I primed my finger against the trigger.

One shot.

The echo of a bullet, the heat of the barrel slinking its way over to me, that familiar burn a comfort I shouldn't relish.

Mere seconds after the first shot was made, I turned at stuck the adjacent target, moving silhouettes, but I could only see one figure dancing before my eyes.

"Good," again it was the distinct timbre of my father's voice, from beyond the grave he was instructing me. I remembered the bullet eating through his skin, that crazed smile pushed to the limits, lips cracking and blood pooling across his white shirt.

"I will make you my Blood Queen," were some of his final words. I closed my eyes and all I could see was blood, coating my hands, thick and red, coagulating against my skin, trying to pry through, sink into my veins, finally making it so he was my real father.

I never thought Damon Mortello loved me, I never deluded myself into the precarious emotion that was love, I only had once and that had been destroyed by roaring flames, and a smoking gun.

Every time I thought that I would clamber through this, clutch onto the fraying strands of sanity, I saw the lack of weapon in the cold dead hand of the only father I had known.

Watched the precise anger flare in his expression.

He did not hesitate.

He was unarmed.

And that detail could never be washed from my memory.

"Good," I almost didn't hear it, the change in the voice, back to the lightly accented voice of Vincent Torres, "Now, Alara,"

I could not even look at him.

I could not even be near him, near any man who could take the role of father, because as awful as it was, as malicious as he had been Damon Mortello was my father.

He had raised me, he had taught me how to hold a gun, had taught me to never stand down.

Yes, it was all a lie, an attempt to forge me into this heretic's version of a Queen, that ruled over the blood of her enemies, but there were those fickle moments, precious now more than anything, when for a fraction of a second I could have convinced myself, that there was something close to love in those eyes.

"I don't want to hear it," I snapped, already knowing where the conversation was veering towards.

I flicked the safety of the gun down and laid it carefully next to the other weapons before turning to Vincent.

"You can't avoid him forever, you-"

A sick twisting of my stomach pierced through, "Why do you even give a shit?"

He paused at that.

A tense look in his eyes, a worn face, the chaos that had ensued after the death of the Mortello Gang Leader, and the revelation that it was Carlisle Grayson behind the attack and attempted kidnapping of the Blood Queen, had been hell for the Leader of the Falco Mafia.

It hadn't helped that I, Alara Mortello, had cried at the corpse of Damon Mortello, who had now been scorned by the underworld.

Everyone knew of his allegiance with Cameron's father, everyone knew of his sins, but no one had known him as I had.

Theo was taking it worse than I was, he hated that he wasn't there, and though he and his father had never seen eye to eye, he understood that wretched feeling that curled inside of me.

You could not help who you loved, who you cared for.

"It would protect you-"

"I," my voice was deathly cold, "Know exactly how to protect myself, without a Man's name after my own."

I had revoked my name, Alara Grayson no longer existed, Alara Torres didn't either.

Vincent's face sharpened, his eyes cold losing the false semblance of care, he had an agenda he had things to do, an image to paint.

And it was unheard of for the heir of one of the largest Mafias to refuse to take the family name.

To stick with the name of the scorned Damon Mortello.

But that was who I was.

Alara Mortello.

Nothing more.

And nothing else.

"You do have a Man's name after you-"

I laughed bitterly, "Mortello is my mother's name. Cassandra, who hasn't spoken to you since-"

I had touched a nerve, I knew that my Mother and Father separated amicably, but Cassandra Mortello had loved Damon, more than she had ever loved Vincent Torres, even I knew he was different with my mother, he was cruel to Theo, and could be so cruel to me, but to my mother, to Cassandra Mortello, he would have given the world.

"Do not bring your mother into this," his tone was lethal, but I was past the point of no return.

When you have nothing more to lose, you become the deadliest thing in the room.

I had no lover to lose, no father to protect.

The closest I had to anything was Theo and Ma, but both of them could protect themselves, they were more than what they were to me.

Theo had taken those loyal to him in the Mortello Gang and joined forces with the Wolfsbane, Kayla and Owen Ross's gang.

Our Father's death had done something to Theo, there was an unbidden hatred that flowed through him, and for one terrifying moment, I thought I had lost him too, to all those dangerous emotions.

Nothing to lose.

"My Mother can speak for herself, she doesn't want anything to do with you."

"Cassandra is not-"

"Keep lying to yourself, Father," I spat, watching the fury burst across his features.

It had been the first time since Damon's death that I had called him that.

I did not allow him to respond.

I felt his stare follow me as I walked out of the training room.

I gripped my jacket and turned out of the doors, the cold air hissing through my hair, pinching my cheeks red, as the first tear fell, frozen before it could even meet the ground.

"I will make you, my queen."

The ghost of his voice murmured in my ear. I had heard the whispers of the gang, the shame I had brought the entire Falco Mafia for taking my name back.

I was Alara Mortello.

And I would remain.

Alara.

Mortello.