Mitch took one to his ass, trying to run in the other direction, and someone yelled out,That is what you get for being a coward!
Romeo had yelled it. As soon as he did—WHACK!
“Sissy!” Romeo called out, stung that she’d hit her favorite.
Nino took one to the back and then fell over face first, screaming, “SHE GOTTA ME!”
Everett attempted to be the voice of reason. I could have warned him that being so close to her was a dangerous move, but he should have known better.
“Come on now, darlin’. It was a nice thing these men—”
WHACK!
Her own father. She dealt him a blow to his stomach.
I had never noticed that when Luca laughed hard, the sound was Romeo’s. It had rasp to it, and it held nothing back. It was hard to tell the difference between them in the crowd of chaos.
Luca disentangled himself from the insanity and marched up to Everett, putting an arm around the man’s wide shoulders, setting him in the opposite direction.
“You have raised a good daughter,” Luca said.
“She hit me with a snowball,” Everette replied.
“She has amazing aim,” Luca said. “She hit me on the arm.”
Both men wheezed with laughter, vanishing into clouds of smoke and fast-falling ice.
Someone had to help Rosaria’s father up from the snow. It wasn’t Tito. He had taken his glass off, wiping at his eyes from hysterics, because the man had gone down and hit his elbow from the impact.
Tito had started to sing song about payback as he disappeared with more men.
Except for Tito’s lingering song coming from somewhere down the road, the chaos had settled, the men’s tracks already covered by more snow, and the whine of the wind was strong in my ears.
A peaceful quiet settled over the world, leaving us in an almost abrupt silence.
Scarlett stood surrounded by men, her thick coat almost white. A nightgown hung lower than the coat, a pair of thermal pants stuffed underneath, and her feet were encased in thick boots.
Our eyes met through the thickly falling snow, and despite the laughter, she had found nothing amusing about the situation. If anything, she had found a channel for her anger.
She had one ball of ice in her hand. I took steps to get closer to her.
She hit me in the heart with the last one.
“Feel better?” I said, coming to stand in front of her, close enough that I could see every speck of white that coated her dark eyelashes.
“No.”
I ordered the men to move around, to give us some privacy. We were close enough to the door that if something were to happen, I could push her inside.
Her eyes narrowed, her body tilted forward, and then she sniffed. “How much have you had to drink?”
“The usual amount.” I lifted my hands. “It was all the country.”
She gazed at me for a second or two, seeing things only she could— all the micro idiosyncrasies that made me who I am.
Luca might have created me, but I was created to be this woman’s husband.
“All the country,” she repeated, giving me her most curious stare.
