Before I could tell him to wait, he jumped out, running for the scene. Getting my bearings, I somehow managed to step out of the car, feeling like a demented dead man as I did. A ghost that had come back to claim his vengeance.
“Behi—” Before I could get the rest of the words out, Nemours jumped out of the thick patch of woods next to the smoking car, plunging a knife deep into the sheriff’s back.
An inhuman growl came from either the sheriff or Nemours. Nemours’s face was covered in blood, and he looked as demented as I felt, his irises almost drowned out because his pupils were so dilated, his teeth glowing white in the illumination of the setting sun, but smeared with blood, set into a snarl.
He hadn’t even realized it wasn’t me that he was stabbing. He was more beat up than me, and that last consuming rage left inside of him seemed to be all he had left in terms of energy. Once that faded, I doubted he would even be able to stand.
On my third attempt, because my eyes were crossing and it was hard to put one foot in front of the other, I snatched his wrist, breaking it like a twig. The knife fell, and the sheriff began to crawl closer to the car. Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice whispered,Shock, the man’s in shock.He’s small time, not used to men this evil. Except for me. That’s why he always wanted me out of his town.
“You might get your wish,” I said, answering my thoughts, as I took Nemours by the hair and ran his skull straight into a tree.
Staring over him, I noticed the claw marks on his face, the slashes she had made with her nails. He had been stabbed in the arm. She had taken a knife, then. Not good enough. It took evil to kill evil. Her light only drove out my darkness because I chose not to hide from her. Another evil, this evil, it knew where to hide so the light couldn’t touch it.
Silvio set a hand on my shoulder, helping me stand straight. He must have been following in the car. Sirens were closing in, and before they did, one nod from me and he knew what to do. He’d take the bastard to Everett’s cabins in the woods. He’d wait for Rocco to send men from Italy to take Nemours to Luca’s compound in Florence.
From there—all thoughts left me but one.
Without much effort, the door to the car fell off, and I sucked in a breath, releasing it slowly, hoping she was here, hoping she wasn’t.
She was.
Another inhuman noise came—a wild animal in the woods, searching for its lost mate, and then finding her unconscious in the hunter’s trap.
Grappling for her wrist, I found…no pulse. Blood. It was all over her. Still warm. My life was still warm, but she had no pulse. Still, I didn’t take her from the car, in fear of harming her even further.
“Baby,” I whispered, kissing her lips. Still warm, tasting of fresh blood and tears. The tears were mine. “I won’t keep you waiting, ah? Where you go, I go.”
Falling to my knees, I collapsed half in the car, half out of it, my body needing to cover hers, to be as close to her as possible.
“Fausti! Where is the man who did this? That took your wife?”
“He ran. Gone before we got here,” I said, refusing to allow them to move her. To take her from me. But it was like I was under water and fighting against the tide. My actions, even my voice, had already gone under—I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
The flash of gold around her neck caught the swirling lights, making me close my eyes to the brightness. I said a quick prayer, something that echoed in the blank spaces of my mind. I asked for forgiveness, then reminded Him of her faithfulness, holding on to hope and grace with bloodied hands, my very own hallelujah, that I’d ride on graceful wings to my heaven.
Her.
Then my world went dark.
18
Brando
Ihadn’t died. That was my first complaint. The second was that none of the bastards in the hospital would take me to my wife.
“The doctor will be in shortly to speak to you,” whoever was taking care of me kept saying, sorrowful eyes bouncing toward whoever else was in the room.
It was the “wish there was more we could do” look. Fucking sorrow reflectors. A game. Who could feel more sorry for the pitiful man with the head injury that had lost his wife.
No one would speak to me directly.
Shortly.
What that word boiled down to was this:time.
Fuck time.
Time was the devil, and all this secrecy had me in purgatory—not knowing whether I was destined to heaven or damned to hell.
