Her face was ghostly, her eyes too green, the red of her lips turning pale, almost white, or maybe blue. The room became too still. Terror struck like a blow to my heart. There was no fear, only a condensed peace. It created the sort of quiet that would entice a soul to slip through without much effort.
“I’m dying, Brando,” she whispered, her voice eerily calm. Not an ounce of fight or fright. “I—I love you.”
“No.” I held her closer. The sound of my voice was foreign, as though it came from some distant place, strong and secure. “No. Do you hear me? I won’t allow it! I won’t let you.”
Whatever power I held, I held it close to my heart. I refused to surrender it. Never would I surrender her. I had made my decision. I was stronger than the vision. I broke it into a million pieces. I reached in and shattered the heart, ripped out its lungs and spleen, broke the very legs it walked on in two.
The pain had been an anchor. Now she was numb, her face too untroubled. I wouldn’t allow it. I disturbed the silence, taunted it, made it difficult to slip through without a fight.
“Hear me!” I shook her, squeezing her arms, demanding that my strength flow into her veins. “I won’t let you! You’re all I have. You’re the only one that has ever belonged to me. Mine, all mine. You’ve always been mine. Don’t. Don’t take that away from me. Scarlett! Do you hear me?”
Please.Please. Please.My baby.My baby.
No. I refused.
She’s yours, so stop fucking begging.
“You won’t leave me!”
“Let her go, nephew. Let her go!”
I had been shaking her, refusing to let her give up. Her eyes held mine, but there was nothing there.
Tito took her wrist in his hand. As he looked her over, the old doctor began to curse in Italian. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. Only the two of us existed in the night. I was the only barrier that stood between her and the dawn. Blocking it. The pressure was massive, and I fought against it. It would take us both, not just one.
“Pick her up! Bring her, nephew. Let’s go!Adesso!The ambulance is here.”
The blanket. I reached for it on the floor, covering her with it. Then I rushed outside, the medics taking her from me.
“You must get to the hospital!” Tito screamed at me, before jumping in the back.
“I will bring him, Uncle!” Rocco shouted.
“Signor? Signor?” The lady with the white hair stood in front of me. She still fiddled with the cross around her neck. “Signor—tu la should—baci ora.”You should kiss her now.
Rocco said something urgent to the woman before she took off running like a bloodied beast was on her heels, squealing as she did.
Chapter Twelve
Brando
After writing down instructions, I couldn’t take my eyes from my bloodied hands. Turning them to and fro, I wiped them on the white of my shirt, but I couldn’t tell if the stains were new or old. The blood had dried black. Some parts of my shirt stuck to skin. Others were still soaked and cold.
The scarlet taint refused to leave my hands. Not a dream then.
The nurse had brought me her wedding rings. They sat at the top of my little finger. Every facet was covered in blood but still caught the light and shimmered. It was like looking at fire and ice.
I had become calculatingly calm. All that I felt was pushed down in a cage. I fed it to the beast to keep him complacent. Her beast. She had once told me that when I became calm but calculating, the humming in her blood turned scalding hot. She could feel my rage like never before. If our connection truly existed in her blood and other blood replaced hers? What then? I had raw instinct for her, something she felt beneath her surface, and it seemed one served the other to form a bond comparable to nothing else.
I swallowed down the thought, that she couldn’t feel me, forcing it in the cage.
“Any word,fratello?” Rocco said, putting a hand to my shoulder.
My brothers waited in a separate room, along with a few strangers anticipating news of their own.
I shook my head, no.
Donato approached next, nodded, and then went to find Dario and Romeo. I had ordered him to find someone to clean the blood from the room.
