Our eyes meet across the blood-soaked garden.
She’s terrified. Not of the Lucania soldiers. Of me. For me. Because of me. I can’t tell anymore.
Paulo pulls her inside, and she’s still fighting him, still calling my name, and then the door slams shut and she’s gone.
She’s safe.
Leon is safe.
Nothing else matters.
The man with the bat swings again. I throw myself sideways and the weapon whistles past my ear, close enough that I feel the wind of its passage. My hand closes around the gun I dropped and I bring it up blind and fire.
The shot hits him in the chest. He staggers but doesn’t fall. Body armor under his jacket. Fucking hell.
I fire again. This time I aim for his head.
He drops.
Two men left. One is taking cover behind the fountain, firing calculated shots that keep me pinned down. The other is trying to flank me, moving through the roses with his weapon up and ready.
I’m bleeding badly. I can feel it soaking through my shirt, running down my side in warm rivulets. My vision is starting to blur at the edges, going soft and dark.
But Mina is inside. Leon is inside.
They’re safe because I made sure of it.
These men scared my Mina. Made her scream. Made her cry.
Rage floods through me like gasoline on fire, hot and clarifying, burning away the pain and the weakness and the fear. I can see clearly again. Think clearly again.
I lurch to my feet.
The man flanking me through the roses raises his gun, but I’m faster. Three shots to the face, and he goes down hard, crashing through the rosebushes where I was cutting flowers for Mina just minutes ago. I shoot a fourth time, but the gun clicks uselessly in my hand.
The last man behind the fountain lines up the shot that will end this.
“For our brothers,” he says.
I drop the empty gun and grab the baseball bat from the dead man at my feet.
He fires.
The bullet tears across my shoulder, spinning me halfway around. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything except the need to kill him.
For threatening my family.
For scaring Mina.
He fires again as I charge. Misses. His eyes go wide as he realizes his mistake.
Then I’m on him.
The bat comes down on his skull with all the strength I have left. He crumples, but I don’t stop. I bring it down again. And again. And again.
“You scared my Mina.” The words come out in a growl I barely recognize as my own voice. “You threatened my Mina. You made her scream.”
The bat rises and falls. Rises and falls. His head has stopped looking like a head, but I can’t make my arms stop swinging.
