Dark.
His father mirrored the same reflection.
Two bolts of lightning clashing across the black velvet sky. The roaring thunder from their rage echoed inside of my mind.
Overcome with intense emotions from both men, my hands trembled, and my feet almost refused to move. It was as though I were stuck in a bog, quickly being sucked under by hidden quicksand, head barely above the surface.
All my feelings were being siphoned in the direction of the strife’s center, but they were split in two by the separate entities—each one demanding my undivided attention.
Look what he is doingto me!they both seemed to demand at once.
In a purely metaphorical sense, each one had me by the arm, a tug of war fit to rip the limbs from my body in play.
“Brando!” I almost shouted, almost to my breaking point.
We were stepping onto the Ponte dei Pugni, the “bridge of fists,” and no matter how hard I tried to dig my feet in, we continued to move. The ground was slippery, rain still coming down, and he seemed to pull me along like I was on skates.
“Brando! Please!” I squeezed his hand even harder.
He stopped, blinking down at me. Rain caught on his thick black lashes and then fell, sliding down his cheeks. His eyes were set in defiance, his lips firm, his nostrils flaring.
Glancing behind us, I saw that our group lingered, waiting for Luca to emerge from the restaurant. Per his usual, he took time to shake the owner’s hand and compliment the food.
We should have been with them, but even this small act of defiance seemed to feed my husband’s need for control.
Uncle Tito and Aunt Lola hung back, hovering over cups of warm tea, claiming to wait out the rain a little longer. I got the feeling they needed time to recover from the announcement over dinner.
The news had pleased them both, no doubt about it, but also worried the old couple. Luca, at the best of times, was unpredictable.
How would Luca take this blatant disregard of his wishes? Would it be with rage aimed at his oldest for putting him in a precarious situation, torn between obligation—his father’s wishes—and jealousy—he burned at the thought of Brando giving Tito the respect he wanted without strings.
Both of them—hardheaded Italians! Too much alike for their own good.
“I need—” My hands shot out, taking him by the shirt, holding on. My head spun. “Something—” It hit me with a force so hard that I almost collapsed.
All the strife between Brando and his father had kept me behind a wall, unable to feel anything else, and once it came crashing down—
Brando’s voice broke through the rising debris, but barely. “Scarlett!”
“They’re coming!” I wanted to scream but could only whisper.
“Who?” He shook me. “Scarlett! Fucking tell me!”
My head turned to the right without conscious thought. I pointed. “Them.”
Brando set me behind his body, the wordrunfinding me. From his mouth or his mind, I couldn’t be sure. The word echoed inside of my mind.
It was too late, though, and he knew it.
Before I could even move, he put his hands behind him, holding on to me, a signal to stay put. If I would have run, one of them would have given chase, assuring Brando’s death. He couldn’t turn his back and not get a knife stuck into it.
“The ground!” he hissed at me. “Down!”
Our group, including countless soldiers, raced toward us as the army charged over the bridge.
The two groups collided, a brutal fight ensuing—men had swords, knives, guns. It was hard to tell who held which, though. Most heads were covered and faces masked. But not all.
Ercole and his sons, Dionigi’s other sons, along with other men who had damned Luca and his sons to hell, were prepared to fight to the death, or until Luca surrendered his position.
