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“He made this awful sound—”
“They do that sometimes. Tessa, he was already gone. He didn’t feel a thing. I promise you. The last thing he knew, he was happy. And that’s better than most of us get.”
The words drag another sob out of me.
“And Ava.”
For that, Salvatore has nothing comforting to offer. There is nothing to be said.
“I told him to leave me alone,” I sob, still unable to comprehend the why behind it all. There was no point. This didn’t have to happen. “I told him I’d made my choice—”
Salvatore hushes me, assuring me that it isn’t my fault, until my throat is too tired to cry and the water has run off with all my tears.
I hide myself against his chest. We end up sitting together on the floor of the shower, the adrenaline washing off slowly, clothes plastered to our bodies and droplets of water pouring off the ends of our hair.
Disaster is written all over both of us.
“They knew we would be out there,” Salvatore finally says, speaking to some unfixed point on the wall.
I twist my fingers into his soaked shirt.
I know what he sees there, the map of how it all happened now laid out in the streaks of condensation running down the glass.
Kay spoke to my father. She must have told him about the engagement party; she must have thought they were all on the same side just trying to bring me home. Kay couldn’t have known what my father planned. I saw how stunned she was in the aftermath, how terrified—
But she did show up with a gun.
If they hadn’t searched her, when would she have used it? Right there at the gate? In the middle of the party? Or was she waiting for the perfect moment, when the world erupted into chaos, and all eyes turned to the men attacking—
I can’t bear to talk about it.
I swallow the truth, burying it somewhere inside me.
One act of kindness. One tiny allowance to make me happy. Vinny’s dead.
It could have just as easily been Sal.
The water turns frigid.
Salvatore reaches to turn off the shower, but I stop him, catching him in a kiss. I can’t let this moment end. I want to stay right here with him, because I know when we leave, we’ll be separated again. I don’t know if my lips can say all the things I want them to. That I was afraid for him. That I am glad he’s okay. That it’s my fault and not his. That I am so, so, so sorry.
Salvatore stays with me, kissing me in return as the cold-water chills us to the bone, driving us deeper into each other’s arms. It hurts in my heart.
Maybe my father is an idiot for trying to get me back. If he were smart, he would let me stay right here. I am his most profound tactical advantage.
Like a cancer, I am making Salvatore Mori weaker.
19
Salvatore
Death must be convenient for the dead.
They leave behind a hell of a mess for everyone else to scrape together.
I spend the day planning revenge and waving off police inquiries, calling in endless favors to sweep this under the world’s ugliest rug.
A shoot-out on a private drive doesn’t just go unnoticed—but with the right supervisors called, we tidy it up as an engagement party mishap. Some fireworks set off by mistake. The kind of bullshit lie money lets you get away with, no matter who believes you or not.
