Rose Thorns & Love Letters

43 ➪ Love, Queenie

•Phoenix•

1878
I love you, I'm sorry.
Love, Queenie

____________

I push the wrong end of the cold weapon into Camilla's pulse and watch as her eyes gloss over. Her breathing hitches and I force a cunning smile to break out on my face.

I will my eyes not to flicker down to her quivering lip but they do anyway. She quickly takes her lip between her teeth in hopes to hide her fear but my figuring is too quick.

She is terrified.

"The Junior's Junior," I hear her father finally connect the dots. The smile on my face transforms from something cunning to something pleased. I managed to pinpoint the exact moment fear bled into his voice.

"Happy to be at your service." I am speaking to her father but my eyes are on her. Always on her.

I had to improvise. This was not my plan. The moment Camilla barged into this door and proclaimed her own father as a murderer. Not only a murderer—her mother's murderer, I knew that painting her walls red with her father's blood would not make her despise me like she should.

Like she needs to.

Blowing her father's brains out might make her shed a tear or two but she will not hate me. I need her to hate me. For her sanity and mine.

I have never been a good man and I will never hide from that truth. But something about taking advantage of the woman in front of me any more than I need to gives me an odd feeling I can't quite place my finger on.

She is not responsible for her father's mess. I was selfish by using her to get directly close to her father and I would be selfish for keeping her close to me for personal reasons.

I don't do personal reasons.

The sound of Marcello's void spluttering of words fills the otherwise silent words as I stare into the eyes of the woman that once trusted me. The look in her eyes kicks at the organ most responsible for my life and I feel myself losing control.

Sheer betrayal. That is all I see in her eyes. She will thank me for this later. That is what the persistent voice in my head keeps telling me.

Though, another voice in my head, a quieter one, mocks me for knowing that I am being selfish in this situation. It knows that I am doing this to protect myself not the woman before me.

Marcello knows that my strengths are limitless and my weaknesses are few. He knows that there are only a few things in this world that I would not terminate in a single heartbeat of mine.

And he knows that his daughter is one of them.

It is clear to anyone with eyes that Marcello does not give a fuck about his daughter. So if eliminating me means dangling her right over my very nose, he will do it without a second thought.

______________

•Camilla•

I close my eyes as I envision myself in my happy place. In the arms of my mother. It seems that my fate is not any different from hers after all. I am certain that this is how I die.