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He’s wiry, ugly, sneering, and I make sure the safety is off before I pull the trigger, over and over. I miss him the first two times, but the third, it hits flesh and the shock and pain on the man’s face makes me want to scream with laughter.
He drops, and I’m shaking now as I push Nicolo who’s trying to get up. I push him away as bright hot sparks leap in me, power and violence surge.
Voices shout.
Hands come at me and for the gun but I tighten my hold.
My name and soothing words are flung at me from the top of a well. I’m falling to the bottom of it, fast. I can hear myself crying out for Nicolo. Over and over and I fight off the hands that have me.
“Avah.” I crumble a little at that.
“Avah, give me the gun, babe.” My grip loosens. Then the gun is taken from me, and I’m engulfed in strong arms, and words like a litany in smoke pour steadily over me.
“Babe, Avah, it’s Nicolo. You’re okay. I’m okay. See? Avah, it’s me. Avah, it’s okay.”
The shaking sets in hard, and I’m cold all over. My stomach heaves, a hot lump forms in my throat, and horror and disgust at what I just did hits me hard in the face.
I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face against him. “I shot someone. I shot. I thought you were—” I can’t say it. I know he was alive but what if that bullet hit more than his arm? “He shot you. He shot you.”
My eyes burn, and Nicolo eases my face up. Through the blur in my eyes from tears I can’t let fall but come, anyway, I drink him in. “Tesoro, you’re in shock. It’s a graze, okay, a tiny nick. Come on, Avah, we need to go.”
He doesn’t even give me a choice. I’m swung into those strong arms and I hug him close, still shaking, so cold, needing his heat, needing the beat of his heart.
By the time I’m bundled in a van, other voices close around me. But Nicolo just holds me to him and I bury my face into him like he’s lifeblood, like he’s what I need to get through this.
I shot someone.
I wanted to laugh.
I was glad.
This life . . . oh, this life, is this what his world does to you? My father’s? What Dad wants for me?
Because I might lose myself if I’m in this world. I know this isn’t Nicolo’s fault. That this is somehow, someway, about me.
What if I can never escape it?
The slow, sure touch of his hand down my back, over and over stops my racing wild thoughts and the shaking.
The voices around me untangle.
“We didn’t get him,” says Tizio. “They had back up and they dragged him off right as we got there.”
“Matteo will be fine. But someone drugged him.”
That’s Diego.
I nod, knowing at least Matteo will be good. He’ll have to get the drugs out of his system and them he’ll be back to new. Knowing the boss, Leo will order him to take a couple days then get back to work.
“Run the plates.” The rumble of Nicolo’s voice goes through me.
The van is humming along, and I don’t know when we started driving but I try and sit up. Nicolo keeps me where I am. “My cameras.”
“Got them,Tesoro.”
I let the conversation fade out to noise around me and by the time we reach Nicolo’s place I’m in a better place.
Definitely feel a hell of a lot more myself as my mouth waters when he strips his long black T-shirt. Nicolo takes the first aid kit and a drink from Tizio, who then gets on his phone, goes over to the bedroom door, and talks in low tones.
