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He turns suddenly and sweeps me into his arms, and to my surprise, he yanks Lorenzo to him as well and the two of us are clenched savagely against his chest. His breathing is rough and panicked. “That was too close. Too fucking close.”
“With Acid?” I ask.
“No. What happened earlier. Lorenzo—”
Lorenzo extricates himself from Salvatore and turns away. “Nothing. Let’s get moving. Tonight isn’t over yet.”
But Salvatore grabs him by the shoulders, turns him around, and shakes him. He’s turned a sickly shade of gray and his brow is clammy with sweat. “It’s not nothing! I nearly killed you. One more millisecond and I would have pulled the trigger.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t.” Lorenzo narrows his eyes, darts a look at me then back at Salvatore. His meaning is clear.Not in front of Chiara.
Yes, in front of Chiara. “What do you mean, you nearly killed him?”
Salvatore thrusts his hands through his hair. “Do you ever feel that another terrifying reality is so close it’s like it could reach out and drag you away? Tonight was a fucking nightmare.”
Lorenzo puts his hands on Salvatore’s shoulders. “I’m fine. Chiara’s fine. The others are safe. This is reality, what we’re standing in right now.”
“It nearly wasn’t.”
“But it is,” Lorenzo insists and then mutters, “Not that this reality can’t fucking suck sometimes, too.”
Salvatore shakes his head. “Let’s not go through that again, okay?”
“It’s not at the top of my bucket list,” Lorenzo says, heading around the car to the driver’s side.
I go to Salvatore and wrap my arms around his waist. It seems like he’s had an even worse night than I have. “What happened tonight? Why did you nearly shoot Lorenzo?”
“Tell her while we drive,” Lorenzo says, getting into the Mercedes and slamming the door.
Salvatore and I climb into the back seat and I hold him tightly, afraid to let go in case he’s ripped away from me again.
He kisses the top of my head. “It’s been a crazy few hours. I’m sorry we left without telling you where we were going.”
“Never mind that now. Tell me what happened.”
“The Black Orchid Killer was meeting De Luca tonight, we assumed so he could give De Luca the video of Nicole’s murder. The killer told De Luca not to involve the police, so he approached us for help. De Luca told us where the meeting was taking place, but a group of fucking armored guards and the killer himself were waiting to ambush us.”
“You’re kidding. He knew you’d be there?”
“He was counting on it,” Lorenzo mutters. “The killer wouldn’t have got the jump on us only Nicole suddenly appeared, staggering around like she was on drugs. I was following her, wondering what the hell a dead girl was doing there, when they grabbed me.”
“Everything went crazy, and then I saw him,” Salvatore says, the blood draining from his face. “He was standing in the back of a van, seeming to suck all the light and warmth out of the air around him. I know that sounds stupid. He’s not a vampire or demon. He’s only human, but he gave me chills.”
“Try having him breathing down your neck,” Lorenzo says through his teeth. “Demon is about fucking right.”
Salvatore’s arm is covered in goosebumps. So is the back of Lorenzo’s neck.
“He grabbed Lorenzo and drove off with him,” Salvatore says. “Lorenzo managed to tell me that there was a grenade launcher in the back of his car first, and I got it out. I had it pointed at the van and I was about to fire. And then—”
“Then I ran the van off the road and crashed it.”
I cover my mouth with my hands in horror. No wonder Salvatore looks like he’s seen a ghost.
“How did you even manage to do that?” Salvatore asks.
“I threw them off me by slamming them against the sides of the van, and then I dove for the steering wheel and twisted it. When we crashed, they all ran off.”
I wrap my arms around Lorenzo’s shoulders from behind and hug him tight. “You nearly died.”
