I have to.
My survival here is the only thing that keeps Guido here. And as long as he is here, Aerin has time. It’s all she needs. I pray and pray that somehow, she will gain a window to protect herself or that something about this will reach her.
I pray for it and I endure.
Day turns to night and back again. Giacomo rips the fingernails from my wounded hand and breaks three of my fingers. Guidothreatens to carve open my fresh scars unless I tell him who I was planning on selling the drugs to.
I keep quiet.
I yell and I scream, but I don’t speak.
Life threatens to be torn from me, but I cling on with all the strength I have. For Pidge, who didn’t deserve any of the hell I brought to his door. For Aerin, because I love her more than I love anything else in this fucking world.
I wait. And I fade.
Death begins to come for me one night after too many days being beaten down into the dirt. Giacomo stands over me with his fist in the remains of my torn shirt while he sneers down at me. “You should have let her die in the restaurant,” he cackles. “Because all you did was delay the inevitable at the cost of your own life.”
I can’t speak, no matter how badly I want to curse him out and threaten him. Silence is my only power here because Guido is determined to break it.
“Nothing to say, huh?” Giacomo shakes me once, then uncurls his fist, and I collapse to the ground among the splintered remains of my chair. “I’ll make this quick. I’m tired of delaying and the world is moving on. You’ve played your part pretty well, if I do say so myself. Oh, and one last thing?—”
One second, he’s standing over me while pulling his gun from his belt. The next, he’s blown clean out of my line of sight and warmth washes over me like a blanket. Debris from the wall and door rain down around me, and I raise my bound hands in an attempt to weakly protect my face.
Something soft stops me.
A touch that’s so familiar, I almost can’t breathe when that softness envelops my forearm and a pair of stunningly, familiar green eyes floats above me. Even with her hair scraped back and dust covering her soft, round features, I know her.
My sugar glider.
“Aerin?”
Death has come for me. At last.
37
AERIN
“Hey asshole.” Falco’s beaten face gazes up at me, blood leaking from several areas where skin has split under the impact of god knows what. Just seeing him like this breaks my heart, but there’s no time to dwell on that. I’m on limited time, and most of it was already wasted trying to hunt down where Falco was being held.
I hassled my father, tore his office apart, had Bullet pour through all accounts I could access, then when Rex delivered the same news to me that he gave Falco, everything made sense.
Falco was trying to protect me and my heart, distancing himself likely so he could take out my brother without hurting me too much.
I almost didn’t believe it. Ever since I can remember, Giacomo has been the only person on my side. It turns out he never was.
“Come on,” Rex barks behind me after delivering a lethal blow to the last guard in the room. “We have to go!”
“Aerin…” My name practically pours out of Falco’s mouth with a stream of blood, and I place my trembling hand against his wet, bruised cheek.
“I’m here. I’m here and we have to go, okay? Can you do that for me? Can you?” The gun weighing down my other hand clatters to the floor as I reach for the blood-soaked bindings keeping his wrists locked together. Behind me, Rex and Bullet clear the room then stumble to stop behind me.
“One more,” Bullet says, raising his gun.
Suddenly, gunfire rises out of the smoke from the explosion and I throw myself over Falco, covering his body with mine as the bullets ping in all directions. Once they stop, I peer up and glimpse something that makes my heart ache like every beat is worsening a bruise on the surface.
It’s Giacomo. He’s sprinting away through the door hanging off its hinges and heading deeper into the warehouse.
“I’m on it,” Bullet barks and he’s sprinting after Giacomo before we can say anything.
