"We will now have a moment of silence for Matteo Costello," said the priest, kissing the cross and marking the trinity on his chest, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
It was the day of my father's funeral. The day we laid him to rest. I was at loss for words. For weeks, I hadn't been able to say anything to anyone. It was like I'd suddenly forgotten how to speak.
I watched my father die in my arms, just like he watched my mother die in his arms. And I knew that I was never going to be the same again.
I stared at the gravestone of my father, thinking about the afterlife. Was he in heaven with my mother? Was he trapped in limbo? Was he in hell for all the people he killed? Did redemption even exist for people like us? For mafioso? Would God ever forgive him for his sins?
I screwed my face, feeling completely at loss. Completely empty, hollow, numb. Feeling like a dead man walking.
There was nothing left for me in this world. Absolutely nothing. Having lost both my parents, and now I had the burden of the responsibility of carrying on the legacy of the Sicilian Mafia. I didn't want this for myself. I wanted Fizz to put a bullet straight through me, throwing me in a grave right next to my father.
But I had to remember what my father said to me. The last words he said with his dying breath. How he was certain I would do him proud. How I had to stop letting the other motherfuckers get to me.
I knew I had to keep on going.
For the sake of my mother…
For the sake of my goddamn Pops.
"Are you okay, bro?" Fizz breathed, shakily putting his hand on my shoulder.
I turned around to face him, my eyes burning into his. A massive void within me.
"I'll be fine," I breathed. "I just have some unfinished business to take care of."
Fizz gave me a feeble nod, before turning to the gravestone. "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon."
Verily, we belong to Allah, and verily, to Him do we return.
***
I also put Jamal to rest that night. Shooting him at the back of his head, before he even saw it coming. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to live with seeing his face every day, knowing that I was supposed to kill him instead of my father.
But there was one last thing I had to take care of.
I'd got a location on Tariq Iqbal. The motherfucker who left his family alone in his apartment. I had one of my men track him down, planting a device on his car. I didn't want anybody else to take care of him but me.
It was me that was going to deal with this bastard once and for all.
I could care less about keeping him alive. Ninety grand was small change, petty money that I didn't care for. I already had way more money than I knew what to do with. Millions and fucking millions.
I drove down the motorway, leaving Manchester to Birmingham, following the beep, beep of my Satnav as I chased the motherfucker down. Feeling the wind lap in my face, watching the trees fade and the hills overlap in the background as I continued to pick up speed.
Seventy miles per hour…
Eighty miles per hour…
Ninety miles per hour…
One-hundred miles per hour…
Picking up speed with every passing second.
And then before I knew it, after two hours of driving, I'd arrived in Birmingham. Carefully driving through the city center, past the Bullring, past Grand Central, past the Mailbox. Wondering where the hell this motherfucker was planning on going.
And then he stopped driving, and pulled up to a graveyard.
This must have been where Lorenzo and Kane put the poor mother and kids to rest.
I parked up at the end of the street, narrowing my eyes as I watched the bastard get out of his car, locking the door behind him. With his black tufty hair, stubbly face, disgusting dilated eyes that knocked me sick. He was just as much of a monster as I was.
And there was only one place where monsters belonged.
I followed him carefully into the graveyard, watching him locate the headstone of his family, kneeling down on the soil, pressing his lips to the rock.
"I'm so sorry, Habibi…" he breathed. My darling. "I was in over my head. I had no idea they were going to come to the apartment. I'm going to miss you and the children so much. Please forgive me."
He rocked himself backwards and forwards, screaming.
"I don't know how I'm going to live with myself, knowing that I'm the cause of this. Knowing that you all died because of me. And there's no way that I can put this right."
He trailed off his sentence, heaving.
"I don't know what to do, my love. I can't afford to pay them back. I can't stay in the UK, it's not safe for me. But I have nowhere else to go…"
"You can join them, motherfucker," I hissed, clamping my gun to the back of his head.
He froze to the spot in shock, raising his hands in the air. Slowly moving his head and body anti-clockwise at an agonizing pace, before he stared at me dead in the face, a terrified expression in his eyes, the gun pressed against his temple.
"You're not sorry, motherfucker," I sneered. "You're just looking for someone to blame to feed your guilty conscience."
"I-"
"You can try fooling your dead family," I breathed. "But Allah can see right through you."
He swallowed down a lump in his throat, sweating profusely.
Knowing that it was the end of the road for him.
"See you in hell," I snarled, pulling the fucking trigger.
Leaving him to die in his own pool of blood.