Sicily’s fingers clutched stronger; I assumed she believed I was going to give her to them.
I was not. She would not become one of my victims.
One of the masked men chuckled. “We just want to take her for a test ride for you.”
“Go tohell!” Sicily snarled, jutting her head out from behind me to bare her teeth.
I shoved her closer to my spine with a force that made her stumble.
Sicily did not know when to be quiet, and this caused me a deep level of internal failure. My thoughts did not process properly when she was speaking, and my brain did not compute when she glowered at me.
She was a severe problem.
“Oh, she’ll besomuch fun,” the Camorrista said as his tongue darted out to lick his lower lip.
My stomach churned. I expected to vomit on the bodies beside us, but I turned my gun to aim at his head instead. He wastoo busy looking my wife up and down to notice, and by the time he had, there was already a smoking bullet between his eyes.
There was a brief moment of pause and silence as the body slumped to the ground, but then the remaining charged at us, growling like a pack of wolves.
I pulled the trigger, and nothing released.
I had no bullets left.
I thrust Sicily aside, into the safety of the wall, requiring my second hand. Lurching forward, my fingers wrapped around one Camorrista’s greasy locks of dark hair, my other hand latching onto the other’s throat. I squeezed the soldier’s windpipe until he could not even splutter, until his body grew rigid and curled into itself like a dying insect. When he was weak and pliable, I smashed their heads together, the corners of my lips twitching as the sound of the hollow smack silenced them both.
As they collapsed to the floor, lifeless and limp, a scream split through the air like another bullet, or perhaps a dozen. It dizzied my head enough that I could not work out what was happening or who was hurt. I could only hear myself panting as if I was inside my own body, until I saw the third Camorrista, the one I had forgotten about, crawling beside Sicily.
He had a small silver knife embedded in her palm.
Her scream had sounded like someone else’s.
Her blood looked like the blood on the hallway floor from ten years ago.
I had that overwhelming sensation in my body again, the one that caused malfunction in every system in my brain, but Sicily whimpered, and I snapped back to the harsh reality that we were currently in.Sicily’s other fingers were on the knife, dragging and pulling against her own flesh.
“Do not pull it out!” I shouted, but it was too late.
Sicily withdrew the blade from the center of her palm, her blood trickling down my own hands and dripping onto the stone beneath us as I lunged for her.
For a moment, she was in my arms, against my chest, touching my beating heart with her own, and Ibreathed.I breathed clearly despite the strong scent of her perfume lingering on her throat and the blood soaking into our clothing. I breathed freely even though she was overheated against me underneath a thousand layers of white silk and tule. I simply breathed because I had kept heralive.
I did not want her as my wife, but she could not die. That was non-negotiable.
Her face was streaked with tears, her breath coming in harsh, ragged pants, but she did not express the facial indicators of being sad or scared, but rather…angry.She clutched her palm tightly in her spare hand, her nose flaring as she looked past my body and toward the Camorrista who was scurrying to the edge of the balcony as if he could escape me.
As if he could get away with what he had done to somebody that was mine to protect.
I settled her on the floor, standing with a flicker of something I had not felt in my entire life.
Rage.
Hers.
The metal scraped against the stone as I snatched the knife from the floor and stalked toward the assassin’s attempted escape over the iron banister. He had slowed, like he had time, like I was not a threat.
You are capable, Milano.
You are capable, Milano.
