Then, I will keep her.
And if I lose my life in the process?If I die for her in Taormina?
Well, I can’t imagine a more beautiful fucking death than that.
Chapter20
Aurora
Ibeg Alessandro to call an ambulance for Curse, but he refuses.
“I didn’t blow his fucking brains out.That’s all I promised you.He’s still breathing.And now, we go.”When I hesitate, my entire being screaming at the idea of leaving him behind, Alessandro hisses, then aims his gun at me.
“You’re so keen on dying, why don’t we try it now?”
“You need me alive.”I can’t even feel panic, feel fear, with the barrel of the gun pointing my way.The only thing I feel is a ripping at my very core.Like I am leaving half of myself behind.
“Yeah.But you don’t need kneecaps to live, now do you?”He changes the angle of the gun, aiming it at my legs.When I show no sign of fear for myself, his gaze narrows.He takes a swift step forwards, his free hand striking like a snake at my neck.I jerk away, but the car is behind me.His fingers close around my throat, and he presses the full weight of his body against mine, crushing me back against the wrecked SUV.
I can’t breathe.
Choking, dots dancing before my vision, I claw at his hand.It accomplishes nothing.He appears to me as if possessed by something, a mad, inhuman energy I could never hope to overcome.His eyes are wide, bloodshot, his teeth bared as they clench against each other.
“Fucking Titone whore,” he spits.
Curse said that I wasn’t a whore.He said…He said…
My mind slows, my lungs contracting painfully.Have I closed my eyes?I can’t see Alessandro anymore.
With my last dregs of awareness, I feel him shove his finger between my lips, leaving something behind.Powder?The crushed remains of a pill?
There’s no strength left to spit it out.It’s already dissolving.
And now, I don’t feel fear, or pain, or Alessandro.
I don’t feel anything at all.
I drift in and out, aware of rocking movement.I’m in a vehicle, and someone’s driving, on the road for what feels like days.I think I hear someone asking about why we were in Canada, then a few more muffled words, followed finally by, “Here’s her passport.She’s just sleeping.”
When I fully come-to, I’m already on the plane to Sicily.
It’s a private plane.The one Marco no doubt would have used for our honeymoon.When I blink into wakefulness and see Alessandro with me, I do everything I can to retreat back into unconsciousness.To return to that cottony darkness.The place where nothing mattered and I didn’t miss him.
Curse.
Please, please let him still be alive.
“Don’t go to sleep.Drink this.”Alessandro is seated across from me in a large leather chair.He holds out a water bottle, then shakes it impatiently when I don’t take it.
“You’re going to be dehydrated,” he says, finally giving up on making me take it.He tosses it at me.When it lands in my lap, I somehow barely register it.“We drove all the way back to New York, and then I got you on this fucking flight, without you eating or drinking once.”
“All the way back to New York?”
“State, not city,” he clarifies.“But still, it’s been hours.And now that the opioids are out of your system, you might start sweating and shit.”
“More opioids,” I croak.My mouth tastes like dust.Feels like it, too.“You’re got a real thing for them.”
“It’s effective.Obviously.Got you into that truck, then onto a plane, without a fight.”
