AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You don’t have coffee in your house?”
Sal didn’t look up and instead blew on the rim and took a hot sip.
“Eh. I like yours better.”
“It’s the same, old man.” That earned me a sneer.
Sal stood on shaky limbs with a warm robe over his shoulders and an oxygen tank next to him. But his fedora hadn’t stayed behind even though he was dressed down in his sleepwear and black cotton pants.
“I’m supposed to send you that.” I dipped my head toward the mug he held tightly with thin fingers.
“I heard what had happened. You should have called.”
“Probably.”
“Is she fine?”
“Yes.”
“Did she kill a man tonight, Lucca?” His eyes stared accusingly.
He had the right to accuse me, but I wasn’t fond of the way he watched me, needing for me to agree to my failure. But Sal wanted to hear it.
“Yes.”
“Her mother had so much fight inside of her too, you know. Well, until he beat it out of her. Did you know he did the same to her, toKatia?”
I didn’t want to know, but he wasn’t finished. Sal came here not for coffee, but to remind me of my duty as a boss and the head of this family. One of those duties was to protect what was ours.
He was here for Katia.
“He beat her so bloody at the age of eight that she was shipped to another country. That child was at death’s doorstep and dropped off to her decrepit grandfather who had done the same to his wife.”
He placed the mug on the countertop and snapped his gaze at me.
“Every Vitelli woman has died at the hands of their husband, and she is the last in their line. Tell me, Lucca. Will she die at your hands?”
Gripping and constricting, my lungs failed. A suffocating feeling that terrorized even my demon.
“I want to meet her when she wakes up.”
I left Sal to return on his own accord. He had made it here, he should make it back. Because what I needed was the sight of her and the feel of life running through her veins with warmth.
“Will she die at your hands?”
She couldn’t.
XXVII
KATIA
Heavy.
Floating.
That was how I felt the times I woke up.
Whispers came and went. Feather touches marked, and the footfalls never stayed.
