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“Not now, baby. I’m covered in gross pool gunk. I’ll get the supplies, just make me a list.”
I pout. “I’m not going with you?”
“Not this time. I’m meeting up with someone who might have some info about Marco, and I don’t want him to know you’re with me.”
I nod slowly, still pouting but realizing that it’s important. It’s not that I don’t want Marco to be found and taken care of. I’m terrified that he’ll find us, that he’ll kill me, so I want him gone just as much as Nico does. I just know that when he is, all this will be over. Every wonderful day that I have with Nico now will just be a passing memory, and that scares me.
I finish cleaning while he’s in the shower, and I’m washing up the dishes when he comes up behind me and kisses the side of my face.
“I’ll be back in an hour and a half, tops,” he says, and I nod, turning to kiss him. It’s quick and almost chaste.
He drives away and I sigh, looking around the small house. I’ve done all I can do inside, and I’m going to be bored without Nico. I close the sliding door to the terrace and the pool and draw the curtains, planning to nap on the couch, but something keeps me awake.
Maybe it’s the thought of going back to the way things were before we went on the run, maybe the fact that I don’t feel one hundred percent, but I toss and turn on the couch, unable to drift off.
I finally get up and walk to the linen closet to find a better pillow or maybe a softer blanket, thinking that might be the reason that I can’t sleep. I’m standing in the open closet doorway when I hear something.
It isn’t much, just a creak, a small sound like someone stepping on the floorboards out on the porch, but I stiffen nonetheless. It could just be Nico coming back, but somehow, I have a bad feeling about it. Then I hear the door open, and just out of instinct, I walk into the closet, slowly shutting the door. I hold my hand on the doorknob, trying not to breathe.
I wait for Nico to call out, to say“I’m back, principessa,” but there’s nothing, and I know, suddenly, like a bucket of ice water has dumped on my head, that it’s Marco.
Or maybe not Marco, but one of his men, someone that is out to kill me.
I can’t breathe even if I wanted to. I take in deep, slow breaths through my nostrils so that it’s quiet, but I’m shaking all over.
Footsteps sound down the hall, and I freeze except for the trembling, my heart seizing in my chest. I feel cold all over, like there’s ice in my veins.
“Where are you, chickadee?” someone calls, and I don’t move. I don’t even breathe.
I hear a door open and flinch, but it’s not this one. It’s the bedroom door, kicked open, and I wait with bated breath as the footsteps come closer and closer to me.
I think for a moment that I’m okay, that he’s decided that I’m not here, but then the door is yanked open and I stumble out into the hall, screaming, as something pops in my shoulder where I’m holding on to the doorknob.
“There you are,” he breathes, and I look up into his eyes. He’s wearing a ski mask but he has deep brown eyes, not blue ones like Marco. “Gonna have a little fun with you before I take you out.”
I scream again and finally find my feet, attempting to sprint toward the back, to the sliding glass door out onto the terrace, but the man grabs me around the waist, taking my breath.
“Don’t leave so soon, chickadee,” he mumbles against my ear, his breath hot against my neck. He moves his hand up, his forearm around my throat as if he’s about to strangle me, and I do the only thing I can think of.
I bite him,hard, drawing blood and tasting iron in my mouth, and he yelps and lets me go. I stumble forward, almost falling before I make it to the sliding doors.
Somethingwhooshesfast past me and stings on my cheek but I barely even notice it, I just need to leave. Now.
Just as I yank the door open, hearing the man’s footsteps behind me, a gun is pushed onto my face and I scream.
“Shh,” Nico hisses, and I collapse, realizing that it’s him. Instead of comforting me, though, he all but steps over me and heads into the house. All I hear as I crawl onto the terrace is thiswhooshing sound, once and again, and I recognize the sound from the first time I’d heard it – when Marco shot Bruno in the face.
I gasp, finally getting my breath back, and I army-crawl toward the railing of the terrace to drag myself upright, and then someone comes up behind me and grabs me.
I scream.
“It’s okay,principessa, it’s me,” Nico says gruffly, putting his arms around me, and I turn and bury my face in his chest, my breath hitching with high-pitched sobs.
I break. I thought I was going to die, that I would never see Nico again.
Nico holds me, murmuring sweet nothings into my ear, telling me over and over that he’ll protect me.
“I’ll die before I ever let anyone hurt you again,principessa,” he murmurs, and then I black out.
