“I want my baby,” was all I could manage.
Sometime during the night, the enormity of leaving her had caught up to me. I’d never left her before. Not overnight.
It wasn’t a sense of urgency that had me almost in hysterics. I just wanted our family together. In times of uncertainty, especially, the three of us should be close. Not separated.
“I’m feeling it too,” he said.
I could tell he hadn’t slept. Most likely, he was up watching either me, the stars, or the ceiling. Perhaps all three.
“I’ve been calling Eunice every hour,” he said. “She’s sleeping sound.”
“I—”
“You don’t have to say it.” He played with a strand of my hair, making me shiver. “It’s too cold to get her now, Scarlett.”
Scarlett.
The last time he called me by my given name so much, he thought I was having an affair with the brother he had no idea he had. He’d been wrong, all wrong. But the want for my daughter surpassed even the hurt from him rubbing salt into the wound.
We sat in dark silence until I took a deep breath, released it in a slow stream, and allowed myself to feel—and when the truth hit me, I jumped out of bed, facing him.
He was deep in shadow but watching me like a lion watches a sheep he finds manic. I yanked a white fuzzy blanket from the bottom of the bed, covering myself with it, covering myself from him.
“I’ll stay up until it’s time to get my baby. At first light, I’m going.Noonewill stop me.”
He became so quiet that someone who didn’t know him would have assumed he’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t. Choosing his words wisely, I knew.
“She’s safer there, Scarlett.”
“You mean to keep her there.”
He didn’t answer.
“You do things you know will hurt me. Fine. I deal. But this?” I had to take a deep breath, slow the frantic beating of my heart to get the words out. I was drowning in a sea of emotion. “Fuckthis. I didn’t sign up for this. I’d die before I’d allowanyoneto separate me from my child. Even if it means the one who kills me is you—”
He shot up, looking down at me, his glare no match for mine this time.
“— or one ofthosemen keeping guard. I’ll keep her safe. She’s mine. You’ll keep her safe, too, because she’s yours.”
“Do you think this is easy for me? My heart is fucking bleeding out.”
“You can’t understand, Brando. You can’t!” I shook my head, resisting the urge to pound his chest like a madwoman. My instincts were in overdrive, and even if it was a feral animal trying to stop me, I’d take it down if it stood in my way. “Your heart is bleeding out? So is my soul!”
We were both breathing heavy, our chests rising and falling with our fight.
He leaned down, very slowly, meeting my eyes. His face was a mirrored reflection of mine.
“I can’t understand?” he said in Italian. “Who do you think you areto me? I’ve come close to losing you to death. Watching as my blood flowed out of you as freely as water. Do you know a priest came to me? He wanted to administer your Last Rites. I almost killed the man. No one was taking my wife from me.
“If it was God’s plan, then it was His plan that our Last Rites be administered together. I’ve heard the devil, Scarlett. He likes to talk in my ear. I’ve heard God too. He’s quiet, not so easily heard, unless I’m willing. I heard Him loud and clear. You are the good in me, and without you? I don’t have a prayer.”
He lifted my wrist, his fingers finding my pulse point. He squeezed a bit, capturing both throb and bone. His other hand came against my ribs. He could crack me in two, if he wanted to.
“‘Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is nowbone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.’” He recited the words as though they had been branded inside of his heart.
He let go of my wrist. I tucked it close to my heart, keeping the burn his skin left behind.
“I’ve lost you to men who are straight from the devil. I almost lost my mind to the madness of it. So don’t you dare fucking tellmethat I don’t understand. That I can’t. You can’t fathom how much I love you. Somehow, the love I feel has surpassed any measurable amount because of that living, breathing, incarnation of our love.Mia.” He hit his chest, right over his heart. “I’d cut my own heart out to seemyfamily safe.”
