My own monster rose from his slumber.
Scarlett gasped, and whether she did it intentionally or not, I felt her hands as they came down over her stomach. “Nemours.”
It wasn’t Nemours. It was the prick that I had stopped outside of the diner in New York. I had mistaken him for Nemours too—the resemblance was almost astounding, but searching his face through clear eyes, I realized that his nose hadn’t been broken.
He had an electrical cattle prod in his hands.
Before I could reassure her that it wasn’t Nemours, he lunged forward, like a dueler, close enough that the electric currents running in the prod were audible. He could speak English, but he chose to speak French. The words were rushed, almost manic, and were starting to rise louder than the music.
I was able to slide down the wall with her some, closer to the street, but his frantic eyes didn’t miss it. He stabbed the cattle prod into the wall next to us, caging us in.
His voice and Scarlett’s clashed before Scarlett was able to rush out, “He’s telling us to stay put.”
More French flew back and forth. There were pauses in the conversation to let one or the other get a word in edgewise, but then it would flame up again, and it sounded more like an argument.
“He’s accusing you of having an affair with his—w-wife. That you stopped them on the street and he knew it was true. You didn’t d-deny this and neither did s-she. Now she has left him. For another that is not you—”
Nemours’ Twin made a motion to the back of his head with his free hand, his voice becoming even angrier.
“Vincenzo,” she breathed. “I think he means V-Vincenzo.”
Fuck me.
Vincenzo had been keeping tabs on the woman. I didn’t for a second believe the woman was his wife. A deeper sense told me he was lying through his teeth.
People were starting to get curious. A thin crowd had begun to form at the edge of the alley, faces peeking in and then whispering to companions. Nemours’ Twin was getting antsy and coming closer with the cattle prod.
Another shadow emerged out of the darkness. Nino. Before he could take Nemours’ Twin, the man pressed the prod to his neck. He made a noise that sounded like “ugnh” and then dropped to the ground with the heft of a filled sack.
Scarlett gasped. I reacted. I’m not sure the French knew what had hit him, but once was enough. His eyes crossed before he dropped to the ground beside Nino, and the prod rolled away from him.
Nino’s functions were starting to return a few second later, and he was lashing out, attempting to get in a few licks on the French while he was out cold.
Guido and two other men came along, separating the two. One man helped Nino to his unstable feet. A fiery welt was starting to rise where the prod had zapped him. The other man dragged Nemours’ Twin deeper into the alley.
“You go on,” Guido said to me in Italian. “I will take care of this.”
Scarlett still had her back pressed to the wall. Her arms were out some, her hands needing to find purchase, something solid to hold on to. I approached slowly, but close enough to catch her if she went down.
“Baby,” I said softly. “I’m going to take you home.”
She shook her head, and some of the strands caught the brick of the building, standing out like dark spider webs.
“That wasn’t Nemours,” I said.
“I—” She swallowed hard enough for me to see the bob of her throat. “I know that now. I didn’t, at first. The nose. It’s different.”
She would know his features better, having met him in her nightmares sometimes.
“We’re going home,” I said.
“No,” she said and then held up a trembling hand. “I know he was lying about the woman. I could feel it, though he was telling some truth.”
“I had mistaken him for Nemours, the day I made you come home from shopping. He passed with a woman—” I cleared my throat “—outside of the diner we had eaten at.”
“You thought the woman was me?”
“Yeah.”
