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“Maria,” I called out, and my stomach fell at the sight of Chiara’s favorite stuffed animal in the living room.
I hadn’t felt this empty, this scared, since the moment I’d known Bianca was gone from the world, hours before my family had called to let me know what had happened.
No, no, no.
I ran down the hall and went still in the doorway of her bedroom at the sight of Thomas pinning her to the dresser, trying to stop her from hitting him.
“Let. Her. Go,” I hissed, taking slow steps with him near her, not wanting her to get hurt.
When Thomas shifted to the side, and I saw Maria’s bloody nose, my world stopped. Everything went silent.
“She hit her head,” he quickly rushed out in a panic. “It was an accident.”
Maria relaxed her arms to her sides as Thomas backed away from her. “Enzo,” she whispered.
“Go to Chiara’s room and lock the door,” I said in a low voice, staring at a man who knew he was seconds away from death.
Maria hesitantly moved around Thomas, but I couldn’t rip my gaze away from him as she quietly passed me.
Once I was alone with him, I cocked my head, studying him. Deciding how I’d kill him.
“Please,” he begged. “It’s not what you think. I didn’t know they were going to kill you. Just rough you up.”
I kept quiet. The dark chaos inside me had been reignited, seeing Maria hurt. The demons I’d worked to lock up only this weekend were about to rage free.
Thomas lifted his hands and backed up, all the way to the window, as if he could save himself. But I was already painting the glass with his blood in my mind.
I prowled his way with slow steps, then snatched his wrist and twisted, dropping him to one knee as he whimpered. Reaching down, I squeezed his jaw so he had to look me in the eyes.
Freeing his wrist, I pulled my fist back, preparing to connect it with his face and every other part of him.
But my hand didn’t move. Didn’t budge.
The soft sounds of Chiara’s crying in the distance had me going still.
Then Isabella’s words punched through my mind, taking their toll on me: “Bianca believed in forgiveness. Mercy.”
I blinked, trying to focus, to finish this man. But thoughts of Maria and Chiara shot through my mind, and my hand shook.
Thomas stared at me, confusion in his eyes, wondering why I hadn’t hit him yet.
Fucking same.
“Maria,” I yelled for her before I changed my mind.
“Enzo?” she whispered from behind me a moment later, more than likely surprised Thomas wasn’t covered in blood.
“Do you want him alive?” I asked, my tone rough, anger still fiercely running its course through me.
“I ... um.” A pause. “Yes.”
My shoulders fell. “Then I need a phone. The Feds are waiting at his house to arrest him.” I shook my head, shocked at what I was doing. “They need to come here instead.” I lowered my arm and leaned in closer to him. “You don’t deserve mercy,” I told him, “but I’m giving it to you. Consider yourself the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet,” I added just before knocking him unconscious.
“I honestly don’t know how you didn’t kill him.” Ryan had his arms crossed in his kitchen later that night.
I set the knife alongside the cutting board and looked at my two reasons why Thomas wasn’t dead. Maria and Chiara. “I wanted to kill him,” I admitted. “The things I wanted to do to that man are too vile to say aloud,” I added in a low voice, thinking back to the text from Agent Lee after the Feds from the Charlotte field office arrested Thomas, and he’d thanked me for not painting Maria’s bedroom walls with blood.
“I suppose it’d be hard to start a life with them if you killed Chiara’s father.”
