Thecastelloseemed to go completely dark at the same time an electrical light shocked it.
I wasn’t sure why, but after the light cleared, keeping me incomplete darkness, it felt like my body had become a bottle, trapping it inside. The sharp points of it, zapping back and forth, seemed to shock my gut into high gear.
“Rocco,” I whispered, snatching the knife from the counter and holding it in a firm grip in front of me. My feet were silent as I tiptoed forward, my heart overreacting, but going in the opposite direction of when Rocco was near and I was just…drawn to him.
This wasn’t dopamine flooding my system.
This was pure panic.
Something was wrong.
Not metaphorically speaking—not withmyheart.
His.
Soldiers were starting to light candles, and as if light had become liquid and was starting to swamp thecastello, it started to brighten the shadows with a soft emanating glow, creating dark shadows that rose and wavered up the walls. The soldiers rushing toward me were not coming for me, but passing me up, like they were sheep and were being chased in the opposite direction by a big, bad predator. I was almost afraid that, in the rush to get to the other side of thecastello,it was going to tip us over.
One of Rosaria’s arias blasted from the kitchen.
Either she was behind me, or someone was.
I took off for the office, running as fast as I could, holding the knife out in front of me as a warning. If one of the soldiers happened to come for me, he’d get it in his gut if he tried to stop me from reaching mine. None of them seemed to care. Whatever was in thiscastellowas more powerful than an army ofFaustisoldiers.
At the door of the office, I lowered my arm and hand, setting the knife down, in case Rocco was going to come out of it, but I knew. He would have already come for me. The air in the room was humid, almost hot, and I scented it right away. Blood.
The light from outside of the room reached the pool of blood coming from my husband’s head.
I dropped to my knees next to him, keeping the knife close.
Something hard had hit him in the back of his head. Hard enough to knock him out.
“Rocco,” I whispered, but my touch was insistent, hoping to reach him deeper than skin. “Rocco!”
He groaned, and my heart settled some, but I still needed him to get up. I needed to help him up. We had to get…where were we going to go? Was there the equivalent of a panic room in this place? I doubted if Rocco would use it, but he’d want to send me there, which was worse. I needed to be wherever he was.
Where were Guido and Vincenzo? I trusted both men—to a certain degree. Rocco did too. He said not only were they blood-related, but they had proved their bones when Brando and Scarlett had gone through years of war.
“Stand, daughter of a whore,” Rosaria Caffi’s voice came from in front of me. She was blocking the meager light, and I couldn’t see her, only her profile.
She couldn’t see me snatch the knife from the floor either. Rocco probably had a gun on him, but if I started patting him down, she would hear and know. And I had to get her away from him. I had a feeling once she was done with me, maybe hoping to make him watch, she would try to finish him off. She’d only momentarily stunned him.
“Stand!” she shouted.
“I am!” I shouted back, hoping to rouse Rocco awake. “You can’t see me.”
Rocco groaned, a pained sound, like he was fighting through the fog to get back to me.
“Move into the light,” she ordered, her tone full of rage. “Now!”
I moved slowly, tucking the knife in the back of the dress, where it had an opening, exposing a slice of my back, and she seemed to be taking steps backward, keeping herself hidden from me while the light was slowly bringing me to life. I wasn’t just a voice in the darkness like she was. And I hoped the knife stayed put. The tip was stabbing me at the start of my ass crack. Betweenthe elastic of the dress and my underwear, it made a flimsy sheath I hoped would hold.
At the door, she stepped back, into darkness, and she ordered me to move forward.
Okay.
I didn’t expect to have her at my back, but she poked me between the shoulder blades to get me moving.
“Do not try anything, daughter of a whore,” she whispered, the sound of it almost trembling, “or I will force you to watch as I carve his heart out.”
