I wished he had hit me hard enough to knock me out. Then I could escape this nightmare for a while. But he didn’t. And when our eyes met, I saw nothing in his, only a bleak void that cared about no one or nothing. He had become a zombie.
A final blow to the stomach doubled me over, sending me retching into the dirt around my feet. Nothing came but wracking dry heaves. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for some time. Small mercies. More than the blow itself, it was the meaning behind it. Livio knew what had happened to me. How Nemours had given me a similar punch to the stomach that led to my miscarriage. He was reminding me of the pain, of what it was to suffer. Though, if he knew any better, I had no need for the reminder. The gaping hole in my heart would stay with me until my dying day.
This, above all else, almost made me lose my nerve. He was being intentionally cruel. I remembered the loss all right, but for the most part, I was successful at forgetting the hand and the strength of the fist, both belonging to Nemours. Brando had buried his touch, replacing it with his own.
Don’t think about him! Don’t think about him!
If I did, I’d lose whatever courage I had left. In the midst of this bloodthirsty group, I knew that could be a very bad thing. There’s nothing an angry mob loves more than a weak victim cowering on the ground, covering head with trembling hands.
For the first time in my life, I truly felt the level of resistance that Maja had passed down to me. The strength she instilled in me was a lot like muscle memory. She had taught me to be vicious, to withstand the storm even when the body protested no, no, no, we can’t take anymore.
You can take more! And you will. Go about your business now. Keep your chin held high and your back straight. You are a ballerina, but so much more. You are a finely trained athlete, with the heart of a lioness. You are a woman.
I stand and dance on my toes, for God’s sake, I reminded myself, adding to her encouraging rhapsody. I could lift my head in the face of these monsters. No. No.I would.
Okay, so it was a weak thought, but no less true.
I stood, using my foot to cover the liquid that puddled in the mud for modesty’s sake. Then I lifted my chin and met Livio’s dead eyes. “Livio,” I croaked. No help for it. “Vaffanculo.”In casefuck youdidn’t do it for him, I gave him the chin flick. I did it in an aggressive, emphatic way, to show him I meant what the gesture symbolized. I didn’t give a shit about him or his fists.
Then, because I was a product of the eighties and grew up in the nineties, I made an L shape with pointer finger and thumb, setting them against my forehead, calling him a looser.
His face scrunched up, not understanding the hand gesture, but understanding enough to know that it was meant to show disrespect.
The dead space in his eyes filled with molten lava. Like a volcano about to erupt, I could feel the pulse of his rage beneath my feet, and my skin seemed to retract at the threatened blow.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the weather, considering, but it was well past warm. The sun was bright, almost blinding, and no breeze swept back and forth. Still, I was chilled to the bone. A cold sweat made the small tendrils of hair along my forehead curl up in madness.
Livio lifted his hand again, fist balled and ready to strike. I stuck my chin up even further. This time Enzo caught his hand before it landed the blow to my nose.
Stillness seemed to be the silent breeze. A tense hush-hush kept the men rooted to their spots.
“I like her nose,” Enzo said in Italian to Livio.
Surprising even me, a loud guffaw erupted from my throat. The kind that starts off strong and then meanders into a crazed cackle. Tears blurred my vision even stronger, distorting the world into color streaked blurs.
As one of the misfits carted me in another direction, I laughed even harder, catching sight of a few of the men grabbing their crotches in protection of themalocchio.
* * *
Five days later, we finally came to a stop. We had been roaming around like a gypsy band over the course of one hundred and twenty hours. We never stayed in one place for too long. We never had a decent villa to sleep in, or even a clean mattress. All of the places had long ago been abandoned, left for vermin and other unmentionables to inhabit.
I believedle sanguisughewere running from two sets of people—mypeople and the French. The men were on guard nonstop, so watchful that a couple of times an innocent bird was lost to the war. Someone with a nervous hand would get trigger-happy at the noise, shoot, andplop!Down rained the murdered bird from its nearby perch.
There was no mistaking the crew for what it was, a motley crew. Some seemed to have a skill that enhanced the makeup. Others were just bodies used for the sake of extra eyes.
I had nothing to do with my time, other than to watch. When you have no other obligations or shiny things to avert your attention, it’s not hard to find the dynamics, to learn who’s in charge and who’ll they’ll probably kill next for the crime of being stupid.
Though they never killed in front of me, a man or two would drop just like the birds, disappearing from the group, a suspicious hefty parcel dragged out during the dead of night.
These people might’ve been a motley crew, but they were ruthless to the core.
I had come to realize that Ciro and Enzo must’ve been involved with these people for a while. My guess was after Ettore had been banished from the kingdom, they had begun feeling out a temporary army so that they could take over, even if the family would go against them for it.
Enzo was able to sit next to Italian In Command, though he didn’t seem to be in command of anything himself. Through him, I wondered if Enzo had recruited Livio, knowing the resentment he felt towards us for the death of his wife? Or had Livio sought Enzo out? My gut told me it was a bit of both.
Enzo understood that the leader ofle sanguisughehad a dream in his head of how and when to take down the Faustis, and he played on that fantasy. After all, Marzio’s people had started out in the same trenches and had somehow made a solid foundation of it—they now ruled the world.
The man who brought that kingdom down would then rule the world. Enzo encouraged that thought.
