His body jerks with each impact.
He spins around, eyes wide with shock and pain, hand reaching behind him as if he can pluck my blades from his spine like splinters.
A vicious grin curls on my lips at the sight.
For a heartbeat, everything is crystal clear. I see the exact trajectory for the next throw, the perfect path to his heart, the angle to sever the artery in his neck. My fingers slide over the new blades at my thigh, gripping four at once.
This ends now.
But the second my arm draws back, a loud wail stuns me still.
“NO!”
Annamaria’s scream tears through the church like thunder. And before I’m able to aim, Anna kicks herself free from Marcello’s embrace and throws herself in front of Matteo.
Time fractures.
My blades leave my fingers but my aim shatters. They miss his vital points by mere inches. Still, the hits are brutal. One dagger slams into his thigh, another into his abdomen, a third into his shoulder, and the last skims past his ribs.
Matteo collapses with a raw, guttural and satisfying cry, crashing onto the marble floor.
The sound of my sister’s distress, paired with his grunts of pain, echo through the church, mingling with my own ragged breathing.
And Annamaria—my sister, my blood—drops to her knees beside him.
She touches him.
Touching him like she means to protect him.
Everything in me stops.
My heart.
My thoughts.
My rage.
It’s like watching my world tilt off its axis.
Marcello finds his way to stand beside me to stare at our sister in utter disbelief. His face pales, jaw locked, confusion flickering across features that were never meant to show any weakness today.
Anna throws her arms out wide, shielding Matteo from us as she continues to shout words that don’t make sense to us. “Stop! Don’t touch him! Don’t hurt him!”
I blink, unable to comprehend any word spilling from her mouth.
My blades are still warm in my hands.
Anna’s tears spill onto Matteo’s shirt.
He groans, blood pooling under him.
And I stand there, rooted to the spot, realizing with horrifying clarity that Anna never wanted to be rescued.
And that’s when I see it.
The light coming from the candles snags on something at her hand, something I somehow overlooked in the chaos of adrenaline and fury. A large diamond, bright as a star. And beside it, a golden band hugging her finger like it belongs there.
My stomach drops when I see its pair on Matteo’s finger, too.
“Anna,” I choke out, the word scraping my throat raw. “Mind explaining to us why the fuck you’re wearing a wedding ring?!”
The End
