“Morelli will stay with you.Monitor Curse overnight,” Elio says.“And I’ll send a few of my soldiers for protection.”
I nod woodenly, my stomach threatening to upend at the thought that Alessandro is still out there somewhere.Bleeding and angry and looking for me.Nausea roils further when I remember his words to me.How am I going to marry you if I’ve blown a big hole in that pretty head of yours?
He hasn’t come to kill me.He’s come to wed me.
The terrible truth of the situation rolls over me like an icy wave.And there’s only one lifeboat I can think to reach for.
Assuming we both make it through this night alive…
Curse and I must marry as soon as humanly possible.
Chapter7
Curse
Iswear Aurora is keeping me awake.Alive.She’s like a candle in the darkness, her flame steady and unwavering.It’s my own consciousness that gutters all around her.Blackness creeping in at the edges, creating a halo effect around her silvery head.Morelli might be the one physically supporting me as we exit the car and head for the front door of what was once Uncle Vinny’s house, but Aurora is the light that guides me.Elio is beside her, taking crisp steps, a gun in his hand, his head on a constant swivel for threats.
But nothing emerges from the spiked shadows of the trees.This entire property is ringed by high fencing and protected by a wrought-iron gate at the end of the drive.We should be safe here.
For now.But we aren’t staying in Toronto long.As soon as my brain is fully functional again, and I’m capable of protecting her on my own, we’ll be out of here.Somewhere Alessandro Messina won’t know to look for us.
Messina.The name meant nothing to me earlier tonight, but I’m remembering now, slowly, but so fucking surely.The name of the man who married my angel.Whose throat I slit.
Whose son is trying now to take his dead father’s place.
Beside her at the altar.
Beside her in her bed.
“You alright?”Morelli asks in urgent Italian.I must have made some sound of complaint, of refutation, of spine-splitting hatred at the thought of the youngest Messina marrying Aurora.
“No,” I reply, also in Italian.Aurora turns to glance back at me, blue eyes searching and solemn.“But I fucking will be.”
I have to be.She needs me alive.At least for a month after our marriage.
I can go ahead and kick the goddamn bucket after that.She’ll be fully protected by then.
And I highly doubt that she would mourn me.
There are men ready at the door ahead – soldiers I recognize.Robbie and his younger brother, Leo.They nod deferentially to Elio as he mounts the steps to the door.But I barely look at them.It’s like my eyes are trying to dig themselves into the back of Aurora’s blonde head.I’m half-surprised she doesn’t bleed.
When Elio opens the door and gestures Aurora inside, Robbie and Leo follow.I know why they’re here – they’re here to keep us alive while I am so pathetically fucking incapacitated.But I don’t want them.Don’t want Morelli.Don’t even want Elio.
I want to drag Aurora into some black corner where there’s only room for the two of us.Trap her there and hoard her.Surround her, encase her, entomb her with my own fucking body until nothing can touch her.Not even the light of day.
And this is exactly why I cannot fucking keep her.Because if there’s anyone who deserves to live in the sunlight – warmth and beauty and sugary fucking sweetness – it’s her.
The house is lightless – windows covered, furniture too.Zizi hasn’t been here since before Uncle Vinny expired in the driveway.Elio and Robbie leave to go turn on the water and the power to the house.Morelli makes sure I can stand on my own before slipping away to get some supplies from Uncle Vinny’s med room in the basement.“You keep him awake,” he says to Aurora in thickly accented English.“If he fall down, or fall asleep, you scream loud for me to come.”
Aurora nods, biting at bloodless lip.Morelli gives a grunt of satisfaction, heads towards the elevator, and before he disappears into it, he tells Leo to go back “for the bags.”It takes me way too long to realize Morelli is talking about our bags.Aurora’s and mine from the train.Somebody must have had the presence of mind to grab them, I guess.Thank fuck my brother was there to take care of shit while I couldn’t.
To take care ofherwhile I couldn’t.
Except…
He wasn’t really with her for most of tonight, was he?
Severu was.
