“I stopped him from having his way with her,” Angelo says, wiping the blood off his nostril. “Come here and fight me like a man.”
“Fuck you,” Lucio growls. “You wanna have her? You can keep her… after I’m done making her birth that fucking heir for her goddamn dad so I can have his fucking money.”
Despicable human being that’s not even worth the air he breathes.
My lip curls up in disgust, and I can hear Stella take the safety off the gun. “She’s more courageous and powerful than you will ever be.”
“Powerful? Don’t make me laugh,” he spits. “She can’t even pull the trigger.”
I glance over his shoulder where Stella stands shaking in her boots, her hands barely able to hold the gun. She bites her lip while looking right at me, her brows drawing together as if she’s contemplating whether to go through with it. As if she’s … terrified.
But why?
I know she wants to kill him. She’s wanted him dead ever since he forced his way into her life. She has no qualmsabout attempting to murder someone. I’ve seen her do it in real life when she tried to off me with that cake and deleted someone off the face of this earth in the cemetery.
There must be something else stopping her, an unconscious trigger, a voice inside her head.
“Stella,” I mutter.
“I can’t,” she murmurs back.
The panic in her eyes is so familiar that it brings me right back to the first time I saw her sink into herself. She’s right back there again, isn’t she? It’s a panic attack, and he’s the cause of all of her misery.
I’m going to tear that fucking asshole from limb to limb.
“See?” Lucio laughs.
Stella only has her eyes on me, and the way she looks at me wounds me. I want to hold her and tell her it’s going to be all right. God, the way she stares into my soul with such pain makes me want to rip this world to shreds.
“It’s okay,” I say.
Her breathing is erratic. “You haven’t avenged your mother.”
My throat suddenly clamps up.
It’s me.
I’m the voice inside her head, the person holding her back.
Oh God.
Suddenly, Lucio spins on his heel and grabs her arm, twisting it so she drops the gun.
“NO!” I yell, and I pull out my knife, ready to strike.
He pushes her in front of him, pulling a knife from hispocket only to jam it against her throat, while she shudders in place, and I stop in my tracks.
“No, don’t do this, Lucio,” Stella says between heavy breaths, shivering in place.
“Shut up, you bitch,” he growls, then looks at me. “None of you will touch me. If you do, she dies.”
“You wouldn’t,” I warn him.
“Watch me.” He pushes the knife farther into her throat until a trail of blood drips down her skin. “You want more?”
Fuck. I can’t bear watching her get hurt.
Stella shakes her head, her breathing even more unhinged. She’s having a panic attack right this very second because of him, and I can’t do shit to help her get through it.
