“Up until the…Sanguisughecame after you, you always left the building, right?” I asked.
She took her seat, closing her eyes tight. “Yes.”
Nazzareno and I hovered closer to her so she could hear us, and we could hear her better.
“Who helped you hang Marzio’s picture?” I asked. “Or did you do it yourself?”
She smiled, but it was so sad, it broke my heart. “My brother, but weeks before what happened to me.”
Nazzareno and I looked at each other. The piece Edna wrote on theSanguisughebrought them to her door, but I wondered if her brother had a hand in letting them in. The same with Parker and Olivier Nemours.
“Back then, Marzio was just a symbol on my wall. He stood for what I loved to write about. A powerful family in Italy who were as secretive as the grave with their dark ways, but still walked among us in the light. Marzio Fausti was the equivalent of my favorite quote on the wall that inspired me to put words down on the page. That sort of thing. And he’s so pleasant to look at. A face you could stare at for hours.
“But…after theSanguisughetried to kill me, he became much more than that. When the fear consumed my lungs, he became the air I breathed. He saved me. Since he died…” she covered her face “…his picture has been the only reason I’m still here. I can still feel him, and he gives me strength to go on, even if I don’t truly live.”
A hard knock came at the door at the same time lightning flared and shocked the dim room. Nazzareno took the bug off the record player, turned it down, and pointed a finger, ordering me to stay next to Edna. He opened the door and stepped to the left of it.
No one was there.
Nazzareno nodded to the door handle. He wanted me to lock it. After he left, I paced, not sure what to do. This was my world, and I felt I needed to help.
The storm had grown worse. The drops beat against the window., and lightning kept flashing and thunder kept rolling.
Edna’s phone rang and we both jumped. She picked it up with a trembling hand and met my eyes. She slowly lowered it and hung up.
“Joseph—the detective—is on his way back.”
Very few people had entrance rights, but Joe was one of them. It was a deal Edna’s family had with the police department. Only a few of them were let inside. Edna trusted Joe, and he’d made the cut. The front desk always let her know when one of the police on the list had been allowed inside, though.
A minute or two later, a hard knock came at the door.
“He must have stopped by my office, and I wasn’t there,” I said. I debated on whether to answer it, but Joe wasn’t going to leave until he talked to me. He’d go around asking questions about where I was, or where Edna had gone to, and it was better to just get rid of him.
I had no fucking clue where Nazzareno had gone, but I knew he was going after Parker.
I opened the door, and instead of Joe on the other side, I was bum rushed by Parker. He knocked me off my feet, but instead of going down alone, I grabbed for him. We both hit the floor, and he was trying to scramble away from me to reach the door.
He wasn’t getting me alone.
He was cursing, calling us bitches, and going on about what he was owed—Vice City Press and all that was inside of it.
I grabbed his feet before he could get to it, and he tried to backhand me.
A second later, the door closed, Parker was being drug to the other side of it by his collar, then lifted to his feet, and slammed against the wall.
Nazzareno was in his face, his eyes possessed, and he was speaking to him in low Italian. It was fucking menacing. Parker tried to scream, but Nazzareno was blocking his air supply. He was trying to claw Nazzareno’s hands, his feet kicking wildly, but it was no use.
I was pretty sure Nazzareno crushed his windpipe. He started to make this awful wheezing noise. I wasn’t even sure how long after, but Parker stopped moving, a steady flow of urine dripping down to the floor.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Shit!” I looked at Edna and she was staring at the door with wide eyes. “It’s Joe,” I whispered to her. “Edna!” When I snapped her name, her eyes blinked, and she got to her feet.
Nazzareno dropped Parker like he weighed nothing, and I could tell he wasn’t out of the mindset of a hunting lion yet. His eyes were…wild, but so controlled. He turned and stared at the door, like he was waiting for another challenger.
Maybe if he stood in front of Parker, Edna in front of him, or vice versa…Joe wouldn’t notice if I only cracked the door some and told him I’d meet him in my office.
I couldn’t talk Nazzareno into moving Parker because Nazzareno didn’t consider our laws his. The Fausti family had their own set. Especially when it came to men who dishonored or threatened their women.
