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“This is what Heidi would have felt,” the raw part of me seethed with my vocal cords as I applied pressure once again.
When I loosened my grip again, Bianchi’s lips parted as he tried to speak. He swallowed, then tried again.
“Thompson,” he said. “Thompson’s idea.”
“I don’t care whose idea it was.” Passing the blame was just another coward’s move.
“I couldn’t let her lead—lead him to me.”
I scoffed. “Thompson’s dead, and you know it. You left him in your apartment for me to find so you’d have time to slither away.”
His breathing grew shallower, hitching now and again. He was bleeding profusely, and unlike Aurelio, Bianchi didn’t have Heidi here to save him.
“I’d make peace with your god, Bianchi. You’re about to meet him,” I said, then I stood up and walked away.
Now that the “show” was over, Greta and Leo pushed away from the wall where they’d made themselves comfortable.
“Do you want me to take care of this, boss?” Vito asked as I reached the room’s doorway.
I turned back and looked at the pathetic asshole on the bed.
He was pale now, nearly as pale as Heidi, but his skin tone was tinged with an ugly purplish hue. There were broken blood vessels in his eyes and bruises from my hands on his neck. His torso was a bloody mess.
“No.” I shook my head. “Let him bleed out.”
Chapter Nineteen
Heidi
I paced the room like a caged animal while my heart drummed in my chest.
The last conversation we’d had ran through my head in its entirety, over and over again as my emotions bounced all over the bloody spectrum. Betrayal, then guilt, maybe even a bit of understanding, then back to betrayal.Bloodytosser.
Amadeo was killing Elio right now. Or maybe the deed was already done. I’d seen Death coming before, felt it reaching out for a patient beneath my hands. But this was different. I wasn’t a roadblock now, standing in Death’s way. I was merely a bit of rubbish at the side of the road, useless. Powerless.
It madethatnight play over and over again in my mind. The night my parents were murdered. Another night I’d been powerless. I could see them so clearly, and hear my father’s voice, my mum’s screams. No matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut now, I watched them drop onto the sitting room’s gray carpet. My mother’s eyes, they’d looked right at me. Had she seen me? Or was she already gone? I’d asked myself that question more times than I could count.
And I could do no more now than I could then. Would Elio’s death haunt me? The knowledge was like a cold block of ice in my chest, and I feared it would never thaw.
I swear I could hear the ticking of a clock. Obviously, it came from inside my head, but there it was,tick, tick, tick.Or maybe it was a time bomb, though it was morbidly fanciful to think I could hear Elio’s clock counting down.
The bedroom door began to open. I stopped pacing, staring at it, expecting Amadeo to walk in. He’d come to gloat, on doubt. To tell me Elio was dead and there wasn’t a thing I’d been able to do to stop him.
But it wasn’t Amadeo. It was the big, bald man who stepped into the room.
“Time to go,tesoro,” he said, motioning toward the door.
Tesoro? I didn’t know that word. “And just where are you planning on taking me?” I crossed my arms over my chest and stayed where I was. The last time this man had taken me anywhere, he’d seemed to take delight in letting me know the windows were locked and bulletproof.
“Home,” he said.
What?I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
He laughed. “You weren’t expecting that, were you?”
No, in fact, I was not. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll talk to the police?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Why I wasn’t making a beeline for the door, I couldn’t quite say. Perhaps, I didn’t quite believe this carrot he was dangling.
“Not really,” he said. He was laughing at me again. For a man who looked like a dark, sinister character, he seemed rather gleeful.
