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Chapter One
“Please, Tony, I’m beggingyou. P-put the knife down.”
Nicole’s voice shook as much as her hand. To steady her grip on the gun, she brought up her sliced arm, keeping her eyes on Tony instead of watching her blood drip onto the white bedroom carpet. Her neck, collarbone, and the right side of her breast burned from the downward slash he’d managed when she’d come out of the attached bathroom not expecting this volatile about-face from before she’d taken a shower.My fault, not his.She kept repeating that to stay focused. Otherwise, she would give in to the pain and despair of his condition.
A week ago, the doctors had warned her, Tony, and his siblings his brain tumor was growing again, and how that would impact his mood swings and cognizance of his surroundings. When Tony bought her the gun six months ago, right after his diagnosis, neither of them could have known how soon she would need to use it to defend herself against him.
“What do you want? Money, jewelry?” he sneered, advancing with a maniacal glint in his dark eyes. Waving the large blade stained with her blood, he acted as if the gun she held was of no consequence. “How did you get in my house? I-I have...” Tony frowned, his face showing confusion before the pain-induced rage returned and he lunged for her.
Nicole cried out and jumped back to avoid another agonizing injury. Now she was cornered between the bed where they had shared so many hours of pleasure and the window with a view of his beautiful landscaped yard. Shaking inside and out, she prayed he would become lucid again soon.
“Tony, it’s me, Nicole. I live here with you, remember? We went to the lake yesterday and picked up your favorite pizza on the way home.”
When these paranoid memory lapses first started, his doctors told her to remind Tony of recent events. That had worked until today. For the last thirty minutes, she’d tried everything she could think of, starting with their afternoon spent sailing, Tony’s favorite pastime, and going back three years to when they first met. She hoped repeating yesterday’s excursion would trigger his recognition long enough for Nicole to grab her phone out of her purse lying on the chair.
“You’re lying. I don’t know you.” He brandished the knife then gazed at the red-stained blade with a confused frown, paying no attention to the gun or her for several moments.
Taking advantage of his distraction, Nicole tried to slip by him, inching along the wall until she came to the window. The sun had still been shining when she’d come upstairs, but now, nightfall darkened the room, casting everything into shadow.
“You do know me, Tony. I’m Nicole. ” Her arms turned heavy, aching, the cuts burning like acid and making her nauseous, but she didn’t dare let her guard down. That’s how he’d gotten her neck and shoulder.
Praying for strength, she took in the weight he’d lost since he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. His six-foot-four, two-hundred-fifty-pound frame had shrunk rapidly, the tumor growing at an alarming rate, much quicker than they were first told. The faster he declined, the more his siblings fought with her over his care. She was physically and emotionally drained but wouldn’t walk away when he needed her most.
His face cleared, and he looked at her with lucidity. “Nicole? My head hurts.”
“I know,” she said, breathing easier when he started to lower the knife. “Let me get to the phone and call for help, Tony. They can give you something for the pain.” She realized her mistake right away, forgetting he didn’t trust anyone during these episodes.
“No!”
Tony lunged, coming at her with the knife raised. With nowhere to go, fear and self-preservation took over, and she pulled the trigger the same moment searing pain engulfed her left side. He gazed at her in stunned surprise that changed to profound relief before collapsing against her and then to the floor, his blood-soaked chest not moving. Ignoring her own injuries, she went to her knees, sobbing, not willing to accept she’d killed the man who meant so much to her.
“Oh God, no, please. Tony, don’t die, please don’t die,” she begged, searching for a pulse but already knowing she wouldn’t find one. Ignoring the agony of her injuries, she scrambled up and crawled across the bed then fumbled in her purse for the phone.
The rest of the evening and night passed in a blur of shock and pain for Nicole. Even doped up on meds, she couldn’t forget the look on Tony’s face, that split second of peaceful calm and love before he died in her arms. She’d held his hand when the test results had come back and they listened to the specialist lay out his prognosis, and then argued with him when he called his attorney and gave her medical power of attorney. She’d never wanted the responsibility of choosing life or death for anyone, let alone someone she cared about.
Now, it didn’t matter, since she killed him.
Nicole rolled over in the uncomfortable hospital bed and gazed at the unappealing skyline of downtown Chicago. She supposed, if someone liked city views, Chicago had some of the best, or so she’d heard growing up. Hailing from the wrong side of the tracks in the poorer part of the city, she never shopped or ate anywhere near the high-rises outside her window until she met Tony Renaldi oftheRenaldis. Tears pricked her eyes as she recalled bumping into him as she walked out of the animal shelter with a dog in need of exercise.
***
“OOOPS, SORRY.”
Nicole looked up at the man she hadn’t seen just outside the animal shelter’s door. He was dressed in an expensive three-piece suit, and she took him for a bigwig at one of the corporate headquarters a few blocks away, the exact type of man she had no use for. Now that she’d apologized, her first inclination was to rush by him as he held the door open, ignoring anything he had to say. There was no time in her day to waste on polite chitchat with anyone, or to indulge in flirtatious come-ons, which she suspected he was about to start when he smiled.
Gritting her teeth, she’d stepped past him when he surprised the heck out of her and asked, “Hey, is this fella up for adoption? He’s just what I’m looking for.”
“You were going inside?” She thought he’d seen her at the glass door. Sam, the mixed-breed stray with a wiry black coat and floppy ears, pressed closer to Nicole’s leg. “Yes, he is, but he’s very timid and needs a quiet home.”
The man squatted down and held his hand out to Sam. “I live alone, so it doesn’t get much quieter. Good boy.” He praised Sam for sniffing his fingers then straightened and pointed to her name tag. “Do you volunteer a lot here?”
“When I can, and I need to walk him. If you’re interested in Sam, tell Linda at the desk.”
Nicole pivoted and started toward the corner crosswalk, her curiosity piqued, but not enough to linger. He surprised her again as he joined her instead of entering the shelter. Most men walked away when she didn’t follow their cue and engage in conversation or show interest in them.
“Do you mind if I tag along to get to know him better first?”
She cast a quick glance his way and noticed his attention was on Sam and not her. Now her curiosity needed appeasing. “No, but judging by your appearance, you could likely afford a pedigreed dog or one of the fancy doodle designer pets. Why do you want a mutt?”
