I closed my eyes again when Brando started to work on the finger. “Brando—Ow!”
“Sorry, baby.” He kissed the tip of my finger. “Once I secure the butterfly stitches, it’ll feel better.”
“I don’t believe men are born evil, Brando,” I continued, trying to ignore the fact that my finger was on fire. “I think we’re all born with the ability to be good or bad. It’s what we choose to be that directs our paths. I can stand here and tell you what I see and feel in you until I turn blue in the face, but unless you’re willing to believe it…” I shrugged. “You have to believe in what you are.”
“I don’t like feeling like this,” he said casually, so casually that my eyes almost flew open. But I was afraid that if I opened them to see him, he’d clam up. During our nighttime ritual, when I gazed at the stars and he gazed at me, he could tell me things because I could sit still and listen. “I’ll become him, no matter what I do. It’s in the blood. I know who I am, Scarlett. What I’m capable of. I know the monster in me, just like you know the dancer in you.”
I grabbed his wrist, stopping his administrations. “Who you are is who I love. That means you are good enough to love—to keep as close to me as skin. And you’re able to love in return. You love me.”
“No, I do more than love you,” he said, almost to himself. Then, “Maggie Beautiful loves him.”
“Perhaps he’s good enough to love too. Just not to live with.”
“I haven’t come to the final conclusion yet. Too naïve or too wise.”
“Too wise.” I smiled.
“Scarlett.” He said my name with such tenderness that I almost cried. I could feel all that he refused to show. “That woman died because of me.”
I squeezed his wrist. “No, she died because a man who chooses bad over good gave her something that made her mind play tricks on her. What happened,mio angelo, is not your fault.”
Brando took responsibility for Livio’s wife after she had been killed. He felt he should’ve advised her to keep her distance and not go against her father’s wishes. But she had made up her mind, just as Soraya did, and nothing he said or did would’ve changed the outcome. We had warned Livio and Santina, and little good did it do.
The butterfly stitches pulled my skin together, and though my finger had grown a pulse, the elements could no longer invade the cut and sting. My eyes were still closed, and I gasped when Brando’s mouth came against mine.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you so fucking much.”
Then he swooped me up in his arms, and sidestepping the mess, started to climb the stairs.
“Wait!” I said. “I need to clean that. I don’t want anyone else to get cut.”
Brando paused. We both stared down at the shards and wildflowers.
“What are we going to do without Eunice?” I hated that my voice seemed to catch in my throat.
“We’ll manage.” Brando’s eyes were on my face, hard and relentless. “What are you not telling me, Ballerina Girl?”
The door opened, Eunice and Burgess laughing through it.
“Oh,” Eunice said, sobering. “Let me finish cleaning that! Then I’ll bring some tea up.”
“Some tea would be great, Eunice,” Brando said. “But leave the mess. Aberto will clean it up.”
I started to protest, but Brando cut me off.
“He wants to,” he said. “He feels it’s his responsibility now. He’s probably trying to calm Maggie Beautiful down before he does.”
After we had taken a shower and gotten comfy in our bed, Eunice’s amazing cinnamon tea next to me, Brando turned his body to face mine.
“Home, Scarlett,” he said.
“You want to go home?”
“Yeah. I miss our house. The quiet of it. Our peace in this madness. I want to take you fishing.”
I smiled. “You do?”
“I’ve always wanted to. Me and Elliott used to go a lot. It was our thing. We’d fish all day and then build a fire at night. We’d eat all the fish we caught, right there by firelight.”
