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Blake’s defense fell when he did, and it’s not Griffin’s roars of protests that stop me, or the chorus of my men muttering expletives, but my brother’s strong grip on my shoulder.
“Basta,” is all he says. Enough.
I let the lifeless body fall and stare down at my knuckles.
Irreversible. Remorseless.
My ragged breaths burn my lungs and I tilt my chin up to the pearl-gray sky. If mama could see me now, her silver-tongued son using his fists and not his words. And for what?
As my gaze falls, it lands on another.
Blue. Fathomless.
“Go,” my brother says. “I’ll finish this.”
I don’t take my eyes off Penelope. Can’t. Not when I step over a puddle of fresh blood, nor when Griffin’s hushed “what have you done?”touches my ears as I yank on the car door and slam it shut behind me.
Six pairs of eyes stare at me through the windshield. None of them are hers, so none of them matter. I slam the car into gear and don’t bother looking over my shoulder as I reverse.
Her gaze stings my bloodied hands curled around the steering wheel. “What the fuck, Rafe?”
Rafe. It’s the first time she’s called me by my nickname. I like the way she says it, too. With shock marred by a breathless edge. It makes my lids shut for longer than safe when driving at eighty-miles an hour down a country road.
I don’t reply. Instead, I stare through the road ahead and think about the moment I first thought the red-head in the stolen dress might be the Queen of Hearts. It was my brother’s wedding night, and the explosion at the port had just lit night’s sky orange. I’d wondered, albeit not seriously—if this was the start of my fall, what it’d be like at the bottom. Turns out, it’s full of Penelope’s heavy breathing, her citrus perfume, and the sound of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
Tranquility. Acceptance. A calmness washes over me and I breathe out easy. It’s comforting, I suppose, knowing I’ve fallen to the bottom and can fall no further.
Penelope’s eyes trail the river of red trickling down the back of my hand until it disappears under the cuff of my shirt.
“Where are we going?” she murmurs.
My hand slides off the steering wheel and finds her knee.
“Home, Queenie.”
