He Faked My Death, So I Let My Family Bury Me novel · Chapter 24 of 32
Chapter 24: What She Meant
Nobody at the table spoke.
The candles guttered in a draught from the broken roof.
Ficarra looked at my sister.
He looked at her for so long that one of his men shifted his rifle.
"Go on," he said softly.
Venera put her hands flat on the white cloth, next to mine.
They were shaking.
She did not hide them.
"It was your wife's birthday," she said. "At your house in Bagheria. Papa took me to be polite, because the war had not started yet."
"I remember."
"I'd been drinking."
"I remember that too."
"She came to me in the garden in front of everyone, and she said I was a spoiled girl who had never carried a thing in her life. She said it loudly. People laughed."
"My wife was not a kind woman when she drank," Ficarra said.
"No."
"Go on."
"She said my sister was the only one in the family worth feeding."
I felt it land.
Venera did not look at me.
"I had the gun in my bag. Papa had given it to me that spring, for protection, and I took it everywhere. I took it out and pointed it at her, and the laughing stopped. She said, you wouldn't dare. And I did."
"You told us it went off."
"It didn't go off."
"You said you meant to frighten her."
"Papa told me to say that," Venera said. "In the car, with the blood still on my dress. He said, cry, and say you only meant to scare her. He said everyone forgives a girl who cries."
I closed my eyes for a moment.
I remembered the sofa, and her sobbing, and my mother fainting in her chair.
I remembered thinking, she's so young.
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