“Give it up, Hilda! Trade me for safe passage. You don’t have any other options,” Cora sounds desperate, but she’s still trying to find a way out of this.
Through the crack in the door, I can see my wife to the right, Hilda’s over by the desk to the left. There’s a body on the floor, Lina, her sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.
One less Schmidt to deal with,I think before I kick the door open and squeeze off four shots in Hilda’s direction.
Cora…
The gunfire outside is deafening, the shattering of glass and men shouting, so it takes a second to realize Dario has kicked his way through the door and he’s firing at Hilda. I drop, making myself small to keep out of his way.
There’s blood on his dress shirt, a lurid, vivid red against the white and spreading over his shoulder. He’s already hurt.
With the unnatural, snake-like speed I would expect from Hilda, she’s behind the desk and firing back with terrifying skill and precision. Her expression is perfectly composed like this happens every day. Like she didn’t just murder her own daughter. Dario hit her at least once, I see a bloom of red on her thigh, though it doesn’t seem to be bothering her.
From my position halfway under this heavy couch, I can see them both, and I see the moment Hilda shoots Dario’s right hand and his Ruger goes flying. It hits the wall and spins on the hardwood floor, just on the other side of the wood and leather nightmare currently keeping me pinned.
Dario grabs a silver tray off the bar and spins it in Hilda’s direction as she uses her last two bullets to deflect it before we all hear the empty click of her gun.
“You’re finished here,” Dario says viciously, “step the fuck away from my wife and I might let you live.”
She laughs. Shelaughsand yanks the goddamn sword off the mantle. Iknewit wasn’t for show. “You are useless, you silly boy. You have no weapons and you are bleeding out on my expensive silk rug. I am going to drive this very sharp blade through your useless heart and myLiebsteand I will be leaving.”
Bucking and yanking on my handcuff, I’m trying to drag this couch, a nightmare dead weight over to find his gun on the floor while my husband fends her off with a chair, smashing it into her shoulder as she gracefully tosses the sword to her other hand, sweeping it wide and nearly taking him out at the knees.
Grabbing the first thing I can find - a glass vase - I hurl it at her, it uselessly smashes against the wall as they move seamlessly into new positions in their efforts to kill each other. The wound from Dario’s hand and another on his shoulder are streaming blood, he even slips in it once and I bite back a scream. I yank against the couch as hard as I can, kicking the wooden armrest the handcuff is attached to and nothing is getting me closer to his gun.
Dario is younger and stronger and if he wasn’t bleeding out in front of my eyes, he could take Hilda, but her wound seems to barely bother her and the sword swipes are getting closer.
“Mutter! Meine geliebte Mutter,my dear mother!” I scream it as loud as I can and Hilda falters, just for a moment. “Gerhard wouldn’t want us to be apart, I’m yourLiebste! Bitte Mutter,please Mother, let’s just go.”
Her hand holding the sword droops. Just a little, the tip of the blade lowering. Dario gets inside her guard and grabs her wrist, driving the sword up through her neck.
“Fuck you, and fuck your Elektra complex,” he hisses, watching her wide, pale eyes grow blank. “She’s mine. Go join the rest of your family in hell.” He pushes the blade in harder and I close my eyes against the waterfall of gore.
Yanking the weapon from her hand, Dario throws it across the room and staggers over to me. “Oh,Bellissima,you’re bleeding.”
Looking down at the cuts from the handcuff, I laugh and laugh as he stares at me.
“My husband, you’re bleeding and you need to put a tourniquet on your arm right now.”
“I’ll find the key to the cuffs, it’s-”
“Dario!” Okay, that came out kind of loud and shrieky but he needs to put something on those wounds. “Please babe, please patch yourself up. I can wait.”
Then - after my husband nearly died trying to save me - only then, does the door slam open again and Giovanni is there with a gun in either hand. He rapidly canvasses the room, noting the two dead women, me chained to the couch, and his bleeding brother.
“Edoardo!” Giovanni shouts over his shoulder, “In here, bring your bag.”
Slumping against the couch, I’m grateful for the sight of Edoardo stopping the flow of blood from my husband as Giovanni walks over, squatting next to me. Smiling as he pats my shoulder gently, he asks, “How are you, my dear sister-in-law?”
Giving out a weird little bark of laughter, I manage to nod. “Not bad, how are things with you and Ekaterina?”
“Well…” he’s found the key for the cuffs and frees me, wrapping some gauze around my torn wrist, “She’s waiting for you back at the house. She thought you might enjoy talking to another female who wasn’t murderous or insane.”
“Yeah.” Crawling toward Dario, I settle next to him, holding his uninjured hand. “That would be nice.”
Kissing my husband on his bloody cheek, I whisper, “I thought you failed your fencing course at the Academy?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
