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I’m honest enough to admit that she doesn’t truly need me, not for this or for anything. She’s capable enough to survive on her own. I’m not here to lend her my strength. I’m only here because she allows me to be. In this, there’s no question who holds all the power.
Seemingly having had her fill, she steels her back and stands taller.
I wrap my fingers around her nape in a possessive and comforting hold. She may not need me, but I do need her. I always will.
“Would you like to go inside?” I ask, studying the perfect lines of her profile.
Her delicately sculptured jaw hardens. “I don’t need to.”
Pulling her under the crook of my arm, I nod at the crane driver.
The engine stutters to life. The exhaust pipe spits a blue-gray puff of smoke into the air. The breeze carries the oily smell of diesel fumes to my nose. The chain rattles. The heavy ball hangs like a corpse from the crane boom. A steel rope reels it toward the crane cab. There, it dangles without swaying.
A moment of deathly stillness follows. Time itself seems to be suspended, hanging like a wrecking ball on a silver cord of steel. The birds go quiet in the trees. The forest holds its breath.
I kiss the top of Sabella’s head and tighten my arm around her waist, offering her the shelter of my chest, but she doesn’t hide her face or close her eyes. Like with everything else, she meets the action head-on.
The crane driver waits.
Making eye contact, I nod again.
He releases the rope drum clutch.
The wrecking ball swings like a pendulum through the air, striking the wall with a crunching thud. The structure is strong, but it wasn’t designed to withstand the onslaught of the metal that shatters the cement between the stone bricks and splinters the frames of the windows.
The wall splits apart, a crack running from the top to the bottom. The house shakes as the driver repeats the maneuver and swings the ball again. White dust billows at the impact. The crack becomes a gaping wound when the ball smashes for a third time into the side of the lounge.
The quiet before the storm is gone. The expectation that rode on that silence has been set in motion. The tension snaps like the metal framework of the house. The noise that replaced the silence is a constant now, the hammering of the ball against the walls. It’s the anti-climax. The relief.
Sabella rests her head on my shoulder. “Are you sorry to see it being destroyed?”
My answer is honest. “No.”
“A part of me is,” she says with wonder, as if it surprises her. “It was a fine house.”
“It was.” I hug her against me. “But I built it for the wrong reasons.”
“You could’ve just kept it.” She shrugs. “Rented it out or let homeless people live here.”
“No,” I say, my voice harsh. “It won’t change what happened, but I want to tear it to the ground like I tore the men who touched you from limb to limb. When I’m done here, there will be nothing left, not a single brick or stone. I’ll flatten it like I wiped out every trace of those filthy bastards’ existence.”
Instead of making her anxious, my words have the opposite effect. She relaxes, her body softening in my hold.
The outer wall collapses, exposing the lounge. The north side of the house stands naked. I feel like a voyeur. It’s like looking in on some of our most intimate memories. The driver keeps on pounding the ball until fine white dust covers our clothes and hair and the powder fills our nostrils. Sand crunches between my teeth. We remain in place, inhaling and tasting the past, cutting the cord and letting it go as the house folds in on itself and collapses.
There’s only one thing left to say. The guilt will never leave me, but I deserve to live with that. It tears me apart, the hell starting anew with the break of every day. It’ll be my penance, the bottomless debt I pay for mistakes that can’t be erased.
Lifting Sabella’s hand to my lips, I kiss her fingers. “Forgive me.”
ChapterThirty-Nine
Angelo
Two months later
When I return from overseeing the business in Bastia, I park the car in front of the house instead of in the garage. I’m in too much of a rush to see Sabella. I’ve only been away for four hours, but I’m always anxious to get back to her, even if we were separated for a few minutes.
I tear my tie from my collar as I make my way inside with big, impatient strides. Sophie’s puppy, Bastian, runs up to greet me with a wagging tail. Tiger sits at the top of the stairs. I must’ve woken him, because he yawns before licking his paw and brushing his whiskers.
