CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
“TURNING TO SOMEONE BAD, HOPING THEY’LL DO SOME GOOD”

SCARLETT DEL GATO

Eden didn’t lie to me when she said that I wouldn’t miss the neighbourhood wherein Diablo lived. The entire area was enormous, and the houses were definitely something one would call ‘typical dream houses’ where white picket fences and beautiful houses stood behind them with the prettiest gardens with the prettiest and colourful flowers.

The only question was: Where—in this enormous neighbourhood—was Diablo’s home?

No house stood out from the rest of them because every damn house had a tall picket fence, every house had gardens, and every house was about two to three-storeys high, making it harder for me to find what I was looking for: Diablo’s house.

I was driving around in Joshua’s car, examining each house carefully to see if one might stand out than the rest of them, but to no avail. There weren’t really cars parked outside. They were all parked in double-door garages, and I didn’t see any white cars representing the White Pistols.

I felt bad when I just left Eden’s house without any explanation to why I wanted to go to Diablo’s house, but it was necessary to be distant with her. If she knows what I’m planning, she might tell the boys and then they’ll be here in no time, trying to stop me. It’s better if she knows nothing it all.

I was driving for another five minutes, ready to give up my search when a white car drives out of a driveway in one of the houses I just passed, and out of the front gate. It was now tailing me, it seems.

I guess it was the right neighbourhood after all.

The white car stops beside Joshua’s, rolling down its window so I could get a better look at the driver.

It was Diablo.

He sticks his head through the window and it looks like he was in some kind of hurry to get out of here with the way he was drumming his forefinger and thumb against the steering wheel. “The brothers are on their way.” He says without greeting me. “You better get into my car.”

I frown. “I can’t just leave the car here in the middle of nowhere.” I protest. “They’re going to think I was kidnapped, again.”

Diablo flashes a grin. “That’s the whole point. We can’t have them on our trail and we can’t let them know where the mansion is.” Diablo says. “So, hurry or my brother will take back the deal he made with you.”

Sighing, I climb out of Joshua’s car and make my way to the passenger side of Diablo’s white car.

He drives immediately when I get in, barely giving me a chance to wrap the seatbelt around my body. I wanted to be prepared this time in case he slams on the breaks again and causes me to head-butt the headboard.

Once we were about ten minutes into the drive, I finally turn to look at Diablo who was focusing on the road in front of him.  “Diablo, I swear if you lied to me about my brother, I’ll kill you all myself.”

My threat was supposed to be scary and meaningful, but Diablo just chuckles and shrugs it off like it was nothing at all.

“Sweetheart, if the brothers find you, we’re all dead anyways. That’s why we had to leave the car behind. We can’t risk them finding where we are.”

“How do you know they’re after me anyways?” I ask him.

“I have men everywhere letting me know.” He replies, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “By the way, how did you know where I lived seeing that we’re here asking questions all of a sudden?”

“I found out on my own.” I lie to him.

He didn’t need to know that Eden was the one who told me where he lived.

“I was desperate.” I shrug. “I just want to see my brother.”

He nods. “What are you going to do after you see that your brother is alive?” Diablo asks without looking at me at all. “You cannot go back to them because they’ll force the answers out of you. They won’t let this slide.”

I know for a fact that Giovanni won’t let this slide. He probably already found the letter by now and he’s surely plotting how to get me back to him. If he knows what I know, he’s going to go all bat-shit crazy on everyone.

“I know.” I release a harsh breath. “But if the brothers see that I moved on and that I don’t need them anymore, they will eventually just let me go and things will go back to normal. Like I never existed.”

It was a bitter pill to swallow: the truth.

It was going to be one hard thing to do, telling the brothers that I don’t want anything to do with them anymore because I love them all, but it had to be done in order for me to protect him. To protect them from the White Pistols and what they’re planning for the Castigliones.

“But I’m going to propose a truce between the White Pistols and the Castigliones.” I continue. “Once that’s settled, the brothers will eventually forget about me and move on with their lives.”

Diablo scoffs almost harshly. “My brother doesn’t want peace. He wants to see the Castigliones six feet underneath the ground.”

I swallow hard, knowing it will be one difficult mission trying to get Vincent to agree to this truce. That is if he’ll even listen to my proposal first. If he listens at all.

“But I can at least try.”

We pass a series of trees and more trees.

We were out of sight now, on a deserted road.

It feels as if we’re going to go back to where I was first taken by Vincent.

“Don’t you want peace, Diablo?” I ask him, looking at him in the corner of me eye. “Aren’t you tired of this war going on between the two of you?”

Diablo chuckles lightly. “You don’t understand, do you sweetheart?” He looks at me with anger-filled eyes. “This isn’t a war Scarlett, this is business. We’re fighting for our place in this town.”

“Sounds a lot like war to me.” I tell him, picking at my nails the more we drive because the closer we get to our destination, the more nervous I was starting to become. “They hate you and you hate them. Your father and theirs are fighting all the time, but for what? Can’t you live together in peace? Can’t you work together to make one big business out of it all?”

“The only reason our father hates theirs is because their father decided it was a good idea to blow up my father’s girlfriend,” Diablo says, “the Castiglione brother’s father’s wife.”

I recoiled, nearly doing a double take and straining my neck in the process to look at him. “What do you mean? Did Giovanni and Vito’s dad blow up his own wife because she was having an affair with yours?”

Diablo nods and I see him ground his jaw tightly.

“I won’t exactly call it an affair. Vito and Giovanni’s dad treated her like shit and when their father found out about the affair—especially that it was with my father—he got pissed. He said some things like ‘if I can’t have her, no one can’ and then blew her up to make it look like our father did it.”

“But why didn’t Vito tell me about it? I would’ve understood better if he told me about the affair.” I ask Diablo, feeling nauseous all of a sudden.

“It’s because they don’t know about the affair.” Diablo says. “Vincent and I didn’t know about it either, but when this hatred between them got worse and worse by the day, our dad finally told us the truth about it all. Their dad took the love of my dad’s life, and now my dad wants to take the town.”

“But where’s your mom then?”

“She died when we were very young.” Diablo shrugs. “Our dad raised us by himself and then he met her, but it didn’t last long before… you know…”

I nod slowly, feeling sick to the stomach. “Before she died by the hands of her own husband?”

“Exactly.”

I release a harsh breath, taking in everything Diablo just told me.

Poor Giovanni and Vito don’t even know that their dad was a murderer. He killed his own wife just because he didn’t want her to be happy—especially with the man he hates the most in the world. Diablo and Vincent’s father.

My thoughts get interrupted when Diablo’s car stops in a driveway of yet another mansion. We stopped in front of a tall chain-linked fence.

It didn’t look anything like the Castiglione mansion. The Castiglione mansion had a fountain you had to drive around just to get to the garage, but Diablo’s mansion didn’t have anything for that matter. It was just a huge driveway that leads to the garage.

He turns off the ignition and gets out of his car without waiting for me to follow. He already slammed his car door shut when I was still struggling to unclick the seatbelt wrapped around my body.

I finally managed to untangle myself and get out of the car.

He leans on his car’s hood and takes out a cigarette from the packet before he lights one and puts it in between his lips.

He jerks his head toward the front door. “You can go inside.”

He exhales the smoke.

I frown at him. “You’re not coming in with me?”

“No. I’m going to go back. There are some things I need to do first.” Diablo shifts from one foot to the other, taking yet another long drag from his cigarette before exhaling the smoke into the night breeze.

“And what is that you have to do first?” I ask him, folding my arms across my chest, rubbing my arms when a chilly breeze hit my bare arms.

I should’ve left with a damn jacket. I thought to myself.

“Don’t you have a brother to see or something?” He asks, avoiding my question by asking another question.

I shake my head at him, ignoring his question before turning on my heels. I make my way to the double-oaked front doors of the White Pistols’ mansion by myself, feeling his gaze on my back the entire time.

The mansion was huge in front of me, but it was nothing compared to the Castiglione’s. The White Pistols’ mansion had a Victorian touch whereas the Castiglione’s had modern touch.

Theirs was still beautiful nonetheless.

When I opened the front door and walk into the mansion, the first thing I see is Vincent. It was like he was expecting me with the way he had his arms folded across his chest and his eyes already on me.

“You’ve made your choice… good.” He nods in approval. “Now let’s get this over with, shall we?” He asks.

His voice was too calm for my liking.

Something was definitely wrong.

“There’s something I want to discuss with you first.” I tell him, closing the double-oaked doors behind me before I make my way toward Vincent. “I’m here to propose a truce.”

“A truce?” He laughs like it was stupid to talk in the first place.

We started to walk.

His hand was on my lower back when he led me to the upper parts of the mansion. It was a million stairs later by the feeling of it, but we made it to the top eventually and he led me to a room which door was still closed.

“I don’t like this war going on between you and the brothers,” I tell him when we paused in front of the door, “I can tell that you and the Castigliones have a past, but I’m sure you can live in peace if you surrender first. Your crew nearly killed us while driving home the other day, after all.”

Vincent laughs bitterly, the piercing sound of his laugh echoing throughout the entire mansion. “As if we’re going to surrender.” He shakes his head. “But I did expect you to come here with one of your many proposals.”

“Will you at least consider the possibility of the two of you living in peace, without there having to be bloodshed? Surely you thought of it befo—”

“I will live in peace once the brothers die, once the entire Castiglione family is wiped clean from the earth.” He cuts me off.

“They have a lot of people fighting for them. You will never win this fight.”

Vincent smirks at me, his light green eyes piercing mine. I can only imagine what he would say next, and with the way he was looking at me, I don’t think I’d like his reply.

And I was right.

“That’s why we’re going to take them by surprise.” Vincent says. “I wanted to do it earlier but my brother has some kind of soft spot for you. He said to wait for you to arrive here first before we move on the brothers.”

Before I processed what he was saying, he opens the door to the room we stood in front of and he shoves me inside. He slams the door shut behind him, and not long after, I hear a set of keys and the lock being turned.

He locked the door.

No. No. No. No.

I was afraid of this.

I knew bargaining with Vincent was going to be a long shot, but now I just made it worse. They’re going to murder them all and I’m not even going to be there to help them or to warn them of their plans.

I knew this was a trap, but I still fell for it.

I wanted to knock on the door, demand him to change his mind about killing the brothers, but when I feel someone’s hand touching my shoulder, I yelped out loud and nearly head-butted the door in the process.

“Scarlett…”

The voice was soft, merely above a whisper, but even with the voice being soft, I still recognised it from anywhere.

I turn around slowly, pinching my arm to tell me that this wasn’t a dream, but when I lock eyes on my brother’s, it wasn’t a dream after all, but reality.

He was alive after all.

He was alive and Diablo didn’t lie to me, and neither did Vincent.

A sob escapes my lips as I watch my brother smiling at me.

His face was busted and his clothes were dirty and bloodied, but he still had a smile on his face.

“Antonio?”

Despite my brother being in pain and limping, he still pulled me into a tight hug, nearly crushing me to death, but I was so happy to see him that I hugged him extra tighter.

“I thought you were dead… I thought you died… Antonio… How are you here right now? I thought they lied to me!”

There were too many questions and too little time, but the only thing that mattered in that moment is that I finally had my brother back despite there being a million questions running through my head like how he’s here right now and how he managed to survive here this entire time.

“What a crazy time it was, little sister… but there’s no time to answer them all. For now, we have to figure out what we’re going to do to save them.”

“How do you know about that?” I ask him when I pull away from his embrace.

“Vincent kept telling me about the plans he has for them… He knows I love the brothers like my own, so he kept telling me about how they’re going to suffer…” My brother says, running a hand through his hair.

“And when he told me that you were coming here…I just—I can’t stomach the thought of them going to the mansion with you there—right in the middle of the crossfire.”

“So you know I’ve been living there with them this entire time? How?”

“I actually counted on that.” Antonio says as he limps towards the bed in the middle of the room before he plops himself down onto it. “Giovanni might be one heartless damn bastard, but I just knew that he wouldn’t just leave you there at the house.”

“He wanted to kill me at first.” I chuckle although that memory felt like an eternity ago.

“Let me guess, Vito changed his mind?”

“I wouldn’t be here right now if he didn’t, big brother.” I tell him before I plop myself down onto the bed right beside him. “When I heard the shot go off, I felt my entire world crumble right to my feet. I resented Giovanni… I blamed him for everything. I asked him why he didn’t just ask you why you did the things you did… but now it all makes sense because I found the letter you wrote.”

“I knew you were one clever girl.” Antonio says, ruffling my hair like a real brother does. “But I don’t blame Giovanni for being pissed. I did betray them. But if only I just could’ve told them the truth… they would’ve understood why I did it.”

“That won’t be a problem because we’re going to get out of here, Antonio. We’re going to save them and then when all this is over, you can reunite and be a family again. Restore the fidele.”

“Giovanni taught you well.” My brother smiles proudly at me.

I frown at him. “How did you know it was him?”

“Because, little sister, I can hear how your voice softens when you talk about Giovanni. I can see that you really care about him just by the way you’re talking about him.”

“You’re not angry at me for falling in love with the guy who I thought was the one who shot you in the first place?”

Now that I think of it, it’s kind of an asshole thing to do: falling for the guy who shot our brother, but now that I know that it wasn’t him, my soul can rest, but now their lives were in danger.

They were all in danger now, even the three J’s.

“No. I am not angry because he took better care of you than I did my entire life.” Antonio says, lowering his head in shame. “I should’ve been honest with you from the start… but now you’re in the middle of it all and it’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Antonio… Yes, you should’ve been honest with me, but this is not your fault at all. The White Pistols are bad people and they’re blackmailing us to do their bidding, but no more. If we work together, we can take them all down.”

My brother nudges my shoulder.

“Since when did you become such a bad bitch?”

I chuckle at my brother. “Since the day the White Pistols messed with the wrong girl, and now they’re threatening our family. I think being soft is out of the question, big brother. Now it’s time to be remorseless.”