With trembling fingers, I reach for the hostage and gently remove his blood-soaked gag from his mouth, bracing myself for a slew of begging or hatred, but what he says instead brings my racing panic to a complete halt.
“My name’s Bradley, what’s yours?”
His name? Why is he giving me his name?
“I said my name is Bradley.” He speaks in a soft, low voice that rumbles so deeply, it’s more like a vibration than anything else, and when he talks his lips barely move. “Tell me your name.”
There’s almost a gentleness to it, and it’s enough to bring tears to my eyes. Tremors move through me and settle in my hand as I clutch the gun. I can’t listen to his name, can’t listen to anything he might try to tell me because it doesn’t matter. He’s a stranger and Peter is my brother. There’s no choice here. I didn’t go through all of this just to lose my brother because of a stranger.
“I’m sorry,” I croak as the tears soak into my mask. “I have to do this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll send money to your wife. She won’t struggle to raise that baby.” It’s hardly enough to earn any forgiveness, but my share of this deal? It can all go to her for all I care.
“My wife?” Bradley’s jaw works back and forth and his dark brows curl together with a twitch. “I don’t have a wife.”
“Your girlfriend, then.”
“No girlfriend.”
“What? But—But the woman at the store, the pregnant woman you were with?”
His throat bobs as he swallows and a dot of blood darkens the corner of his mouth. The other two beat him so cruelly and yet he’s talking to me as if we’ve just bumped into each other at the coffee shop.
“She’s just someone who was there. I was doing the decent thing because she was pregnant and scared, that’s all. But it doesn’t matter.”
“No,” I reply weakly as my voice thickens with my distress. “I suppose it doesn’t. I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
I nod shakily and my head lolls to one side as I lift the gun. “I’m really sorry,” I gasp. “But I do.” Peter is all I have, and I won’t lose him. Not now.
It’s sickeningly easy to pull the trigger, and the gun bangs twice in my hand, sending shockwaves all the way up my forearm. I yelp in fright and jerk my aim away as if that can change anything, but it’s too late. Both bullets thump into the bound man and he groans in pain, then slumps down to his side on the grass and doesn’t move.
Did I do it? Did I kill him?
For a few long seconds, I can’t even move. Rooted to the spot, I can only stare down in horror at the dead body lying at my feet. Then, my stomach ripples and heat bursts up my throat.I’m scarcely able to get my mask off before I’m throwing up what little is left in my stomach while the Volto standing watch hurries down the embankment.
Through my tears and retching, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Bradley’s body being harshly kicked over the edge and splashing down into the river.
God, what have I done?
4
BRADLEY
Pain radiates from the middle of my chest and gradually, with each slow breath, spreads through my torso until a burning sensation licks at the back of my throat. My eyes snap open, glimpse a bright light, and immediately screw back up with a hoarse groan.
“Bradley?”
A distant voice drifts from nearby with a note of familiarity, but I can’t quite place it. Try as I might, the connection isn’t there in my mind as the pain in my chest takes up every last thought.
“Bradley!”
I open my eyes again, slower this time, and the previous bright light turns out to be a light that’s not so bright after all. A dull yellow glow drifts down from a fuzzy, glazed bulb,and I swallow hard against the burning threatening to overtake my tongue.
Where am I?
Everything’s familiar but I can’t quite place exactly why, as if I’m staring at a reflection rather than the real thing. Another blinkand a face swims above me. A woman. Long, auburn hair drapes to one side of her face and a pair of golden-brown eyes narrow to slits as she stares down at me. I know her. I’m certain I do.
“Valentina?” The rough, cracked sound reaching my ears can’t be my voice, can it?
