She was going to slice my throat.
As if that thought spoke to my skin, I felt a burning on the side of my neck, and when I pulled my hand back, it was smeared with blood.
A guttural growl—not from me—rent the air, a sound I knew I’d never forget as long as I lived.
If my heart raced in my chest before, it all-out sprinted with the cadence of a frightened bird fleeing the trees after beasts tramped through the forest on the hunt for food.
Vincenzo swooped me up, racing toward the sound. Before we even made it, the overwhelming scent of blood almost made me heave. It was strong enough to remind me of carnage, of sliced vessels and dangling nerve endings.
A visual of this came to mind, steak before it’s been cooked, and I gagged.
“I’m going to be sick,” I moaned.
Vincenzo promptly put me down, and my stomach relieved itself in a potted plant.
Voices raised behind me, all speaking in rapid Italian, Uncle Tito’s the loudest.Bring him this way!was all I caught before I retched again.
The smell was even stronger, the noise…dear God, the noise. The screams, the cries.
My fingers clasped around the terra-cotta, tight-knuckled and frozen, as if it was the most solid thing in the universe. It seemed to be the only thing keeping me steady.
The doors behind me were open, and glancing to the side, I caught the source of the stench. Blood. Gallons of it. Hot blood, not even coagulating yet on the white marble floor. A sword had been abandoned in the puddle, a man bending over to pick it up, to take it to be cleaned.
Footsteps sounded loudly in my ear. Not the sound of men’s shoes against marble, but the clacking of a woman’s heels. Rushing, determined, not even attempting to hide her presence. There was enough noise to drown her out, but not in my ears. She might as well have been screeching the name of her lover before she went berserk.
“Brando!” I screeched, my voice rubbing my sore throat raw. I instantly tasted the air in my mouth, full of iron and marrow.
He turned, not even realizing I was there, or her for that matter. A look of surprise came over his face before it turned solid on the women coming at him with a knife in her hand, determined to kill him or die trying.
Brando grappled for the knife, Belaflore insane with fury, making it harder for him to get her under control.
It took three men to subdue Naz, Romeo speaking to him in calm tones to get him to relax. I caught the words—He will not hurt her, cousin.
Luca stepped up, as calm as can be, and plucked the knife right out of her hand. He handed it to a man behind him to hold. She hadn’t even noticed.
Brando held her by the wrists, and her hands opened and closed, fingers aching to come around his throat.
Luca called her name once, twice, and finally, she stilled.
“You do not want to see your son suffer the same fate as his father,” he said in Italian. “If you go quietly, I will not touch him. Go, go with your husband now.”
She stared at him, mouth open, the fury in her eyes starting to dim to a flicker. “You did not kill him?”
“That remains to be seen. You have little time to go.”
Moving away from Brando, she turned to find her son, pinned against the wall, not able to move. She whimpered, reaching out a hand to him, and Luca gave the order to release him. Not questioning this, the men let him go.
Belaflore ran to him, and following one of the men, Naz kept his mamma up as they disappeared into the darkness of the hallway. They were headed to the exit leading out to the private dock in the back.
Uncle Tito must have been escorting Lothario to the hospital. If he made it that long.
The blood…
Luca demanded answers.“Why is my daughter here? Why is she clutching a plant? Why does she have marks on her throat?”
Brando picked me up from the floor, walking us away from the scene, but I might as well have been floating in an endless oblivion, the air forever tainted with the stench of cooling blood.
Another layer of history absorbing into these walls.
