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A strange sound reaches my ears over the clock.
Shhhk. Shhhk. Shhhk.
Lorenzo’s knife, as if he’s flicking it in and out of its holster. That goddamn knife. Mom’s always been deathly afraid of weapons of any sort. I have to go in there and put a stop to this.
“Pain?” Mom suddenly cries, and I freeze, pressing a hand over my racing heart. “You think you could cause me more pain than ripping my only child away from me? I have a whole year to find a way to stop you all from getting what you want, and if that fails, I’ll hide her where you’ll never find her. She’s not yours, and she never will be.”
I can hear the truth in every syllable she utters. She’ll do anything and everything to protect me from these men. Tears prickle my eyes as the full force of my mother’s love breaks over me.
“You’ve got a death wish, Mayoress Romano,” Vinicius replies, sly as always, but without any of the charm he used on me. How cold he sounds when he’s not bothering to manipulate. Almost as cold as Lorenzo.
“I don’t care about my own life,” Mom spits in revulsion. “If you’d ever loved anything but yourselves, money, and power, you’d know that giving up your life for the one you love is nothing.Nothing. But you can’t love, can you? You don’t know how. You’re all despicable. Hateful. Abhorrent. Now get out of my house!”
I hear the garden door slide open and my mother walking away rapidly with a faint sob. She’s so much stronger and cleverer than me. I thought I could reason with or persuade these men, but she saw them right away for what they are.
Monsters.
You can’t reason with monsters. You can only fight back.
I turn around and walk quickly and silently back down the corridor and around to the staircase leading to the kitchen where there’s another door to the garden. As I come out into the night air, Mom’s standing on the edge of the pool, her face in her hands and sobbing like her heart will break.
With Mom on my side, I won’t be promised to anyone tonight. We’ll stand strong together against everyone.
A lone figure in a black suit emerges from the dining room. His head and shoulders are in the shadows and he stands where he is, staring at Mom’s back. Anger races through me. They didn’t leave the house as she ordered them to, or not all of them, at least. Who has remained, and why must he go on tormenting her?
Tick tock.
I can hear the ticking from out here. How can I hear it from out here? The clock’s got into my head, and I can’t get the sound out of my ears.
The man steps forward and grasps Mom viciously by the hair, pulling her head back. Her throat arches and her hands fly out as she gasps mid-sob. In his other hand, a wickedly pointed knife gleams in the darkness.
The grandfather clock in the hall begins to chime.
Midnight.
It’s midnight and I’m not promised. I’ve won.
Haven’t I?
The knife flashes in the darkness. The clock chimes, heavy and slow. Time’s slowing down.
“No!”
Someone screams.
I’m running toward my mother. My legs feel like they’re in molasses. My lungs are burning as if I’ve already run a marathon. Blood gouts from Mom’s throat as the knife finishes its vicious arc and is brandished in triumph. She falls forward, eyes wide, into the swimming pool.
I run and I run, and she falls slower and slower as the deafening peals of the clock ring out across the garden. So much blood. It’s like a fountain down her front. I can’t get to her in time. I won’t make it. I fall to my knees at the side of the pool and snatch at the trailing skirt of her dress. The silky black fabric slips through my fingers, and Mom plunges headfirst into the pool, her arms flung wide.
The water blooms red. Mom bobs face down in the water, blood billowing from her throat in a hideous stain.
“Mom.”
I try to throw myself in after her, but a hand grabs a fistful of the back of my dress and holds me. I flail in his grip, sobbing and screaming, my tears falling onto a pair of black leather dress shoes. He’s clutching a knife with blood dripping from the point.
Lorenzo’s knife. The same one he’s been taunting me with all evening.
My breath comes faster and faster. I don’t want to look, but I have to know which one of these monsters did it.
