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He still has time to change course and do as he’s supposed to. Where the fuck are the guys he’s with? Why do I hear screams from another aisle? Who is that wailing as if they’re being tortured?
“We don’t want any trouble.” Kessa releases me and puts her hands in the air. Luckily, she stays behind me.
“You got a pretty little mouth on you, honey.” The man gets closer, and I can tell from the color of his eyes which of the little punks it is. “Why don’t you give me a kiss, sweetheart?”
I step forward in her stead, not bothering to raise my hands in mock surrender. “Piss off, kid. There’s plenty of other people here that you can mess with.”
He laughs at me. “Not as many as you’d think.”
Anger fills my chest cavity, and it takes an inhuman amount of strength to keep from walking over and punching him in the face.
“Cesare,” Kessa begs, “don’t be a hero.”
“Listen to your little girlfriend,” the robber sneers. “I’m just asking for a kiss. I’m not asking for her to strip down.” He pauses for a second as he looks over my shoulder at Francesca. “Yet, anyway.”
Murder certainly crosses my mind. I’ll be honest; I’m a man of action. I’m the reason Francesca is single. I’ve run off every single boyfriend she’s had since Peter passed. I’m the reason these men are holding up the grocery store. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the reason my best friend gets assaulted.
“Oh, my god! Cesare!” I hear Kessa scream in between the sound of fists on flesh. I don’t remember charging the robber and mowing him down, but that’s what happened. I have to admit that he holds his own.
I get clocked in the ear pretty hard. There’s a ringing sound just milliseconds before I start to get woozy. The gun must have fallen from his hands when I pounced on him because I can see it four feet away. If I just make my way to the gun, I can shoot this motherfucker for thinking he can mess with Kessa.
But it all goes wrong. In my blind rage, I forget that there are two other men in the store. One comes down the center aisle like he’s supposed to and finds me atop his friend, beating the shit out of him. I don’t know what goes through his head, but something in him says to shoot.
The first bullet rips through my shoulder like fire. The pain is so immense that I fall backward and grab the bleeding wound. A second bullet whizzes by and nicks my ear. I think it actually hurts worse than the shot to the chest. “Son of a bitch!” I’ve heard that swearing makes it easier to handle the pain, but I was lied to.
“You okay, man?” The second guy comes to help his buddy as the third guy runs toward them.
“Go, go, go!” He roars. “The cops are pulling up.”
This whole plan was a bust. I’m wounded. The guys I hired are a bunch of morons. They’re probably going to get caught by the police, and then they’ll rat me out. An elementary school fight club will be the least of Francesca’s problems when she has to visit me in some Nebraska prison cell.
“It’s going to be okay.” Suddenly Kessa is kneeling over me. She’s ripping off the blazer she wore to school today and pressing it against my bleeding wound. There’s concern in her eyes, and I can see her lips moving, but I can’t make out what she’s saying anymore. The edges of my vision slowly turn blurry before filling in with darkness. Pain welcomes me into its cruel embrace.
“I love you; God damn it. Now stay with me.” Kessa’s angry tone finally cuts through the water swishing in and out of my ears. I think I’m going to vomit, but seeing her face somehow eases the nausea.
Her pretty red hair and beautiful freckled face are soon replaced by a couple of EMTs. “Are you okay? What’s your name? Can you hear us?”
I want to tell him he doesn’t have to yell; I can hear him just fine. But my mouth doesn’t work. I swear those goons shot me in the chest. Why don’t I have control of my motor functions?
“We need to get him to the hospital. It looks like his brachial plexus has been torn.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Kessa asks.
“He’s going to need surgery,” the EMT announces. “We need to get him out of here, now. We’re taking him to Ascension Via Christi. If you’re family, you can ride with us.”
I don’t know what goes through her head because I can barely function, but Kessa takes their ready-made lie. “I’m his wife.”
I’ve waited an eternity to hear her say those words; I can’t believe it happened just seconds before I pass out and I’m carted off to the hospital.
3
FRANCESCA
Iremember the first time I saw Cesare; he was fourteen years old with a scrapper’s build and a pathetic bit of hair on his chin that he said was a goatee. He looked like a douchebag, and I had no time for douchebags.
He thought he was funny; I didn’t. He would hang around me during gym class and try to keep up. But I was an athlete and he didn’t like to sweat. I covered every inch of the basketball court, and he tried to figure out how to get the ball in the basket in the least amount of steps. I could run circles around him, but he was smarter than me. And more patient.
Cesare waited me out through the unseasonably warm days of fall and the arctic blast of winter. He wormed his way into my friend group, showed up at the parties I was at, and always had a compliment to serve me. He never showed frustration when I turned him down for a date; he never complained that he was tired of chasing me.
