A long wooden dining table has been flipped on its side with food and drink strewn everywhere. At the very far end of the room, I see a man and woman grappling on the floor, my jaw clenching when I register that it’s Elodie and Conti.
He has her pinned down, using the heavy bulk of his body, but she’s thrashing against him, fighting back with everything she’s got.
“You’ll burn in Hell for your crimes, Nico.”
He throws back his head and laughs. “I’ll send your filthy Caruso lover there first,mia piccola puttana. Just you wait, but first…” Managing to pull a gun from the back of his waistband, he brings it to Elodie’s temple with a sick smile. “First, you’ll let me fuck your throat, or I’ll put a bullet in your skull, you understand me?”
CHAPTER 33
ELODIE
Hopelessness threatens to overwhelm me,but through the sheer force of my will, I push it back down along with the other useless emotions that Nico brings to life within me.
If I’ve learned one thing during my time with Rafe, it’s that I refuse to be afraid of this man anymore.
Never again.
“I canguaranteeyou, if you put that pencil dick near my mouth, I’ll bite it clean off.” His eyes flare with anger as he blows out a breath through his nostrils before his eyes fill with wicked malice, but he’s stopped from answering when he’s thrown from my body by a rapid blur. The gun he’d threatened me with flies out of his hands, landing directly in the middle of the fireplace among the dancing orange flames.
I push myself to sit, my heart soaring to life when I see Rafe grappling with Nico. His face is set in a determined grimace as he rolls them so that he’s towering over Nico.
“Take your hands off myStellina, you cock-suckingfiglio di puttana.”
He draws back his fist, driving it into Nico’s face hard enough that I can hear his nose shatter as he shouts. Blood gushes asRafe draws back with his fist balled again, except as he strikes, Nico produces a small knife he must have hidden on his body.
With the speed of a rattlesnake, he strikes, jabbing Rafe in the side.
I cry out when Rafe falls down, clutching his side as blood seeps from between the fingers covering his wound. My eyes flick around the space, looking for a weapon of some kind, but all the fragments of broken glass and dinnerware seem to be too small to utilize efficiently.
Fear for Rafe outweighs everything as he continues to bleed out while avoiding Nico’s ever-advancing knife. Panic sets in when I find nothing useful as I sift through the carnage of the room that I’d destroyed in the process of trying to hold Nico at bay before Rafe arrived.
When my eyes land on the fire, an idea takes root, and I rush toward it, grabbing the long poker from the set propped on the hearth. I thrust the flattened tip of the poker into the dancing flames, glancing toward the men as I impatiently wait for the fire to do its job.
My heart sinks when I see that Nico has gotten the better of Rafe, having pinned him to the floor. Nico brings his blade to Rafe’s throat with a sadistic smile, and I yank the poker from the fireplace to rush toward them.
I loosen a shrill cry of attack a bare moment before the red-hot tip of the poker connects with the fleshy part of Nico’s cheek, and I push the iron forward as hard as I physically can.
Nico screams as the sizzling smell of his flesh taints the air, and Rafe pushes himself off the floor. Despite the blood trailing from the wound in his side, Rafe wastes no time knocking Nico to the ground and straddling his waist.
He drives his right fist into Nico’s face, followed immediately by his left, then his right again. He continues to alternate, a litany of words landing with each solid blow.
“Burn.”Thump.
“In.”Thump.
“Hell!”Thump.
The same three words on repeat, over and over, until all that’s left of Nico’s face is a bloodied pulp.
RAFE
Burn in Hell.Burn in Hell. Burn in Hell.
The words echo through the stone room even as my voice grows hoarser with each strike of my fists. With every ounce of aggression and frustration I expend.
And still, I don’t let up.
Ican’tlet up.
