Page 210 of Bitter Poetry

Ettore is roaring like a beast.

“Can you get up?” Dante asks.

“Yeah. I’m just psyching myself up.”

“… Worthless whore…” Ettore is still raging

Carmela flinches and her eyes shutter.

Dante and Leon decide that this is the moment to help me up. I curse. I’m not going to black out now.

“Fuck, stop her!”

I nearly collapse again as Dante swings around too fast, making a grab for Carmela as she charges for Ettore. He misses. She shoves a burly Russian aside and slaps Ettore across the face.

Everyone freezes.

Leaning heavily on Leon, I watch a red stain spread across Ettore’s cheek.

The two Russians holding him remain stoic.

“I hate you,” she spits out, her chest heaving. “Hate you for what you did to my mother and father, and for what you did to me. I hated every moment I spent in your presence. From the first time you forced me to thank you on my knees before we were even married, and every time since. Know that when you put your filthy hands on me, I thought about someone else.” She slaps him again. No one stops her, although Dante is hovering, ready to wade in if needed. “Did you know Dante took my virginity?” I wince—it fucking hurts. “That Christian fucked me in our bed?” Double wince. “That I welcomed their touch. Every time you touched me, I escaped to a fantasy of them—real men—to get me through the horror of being with you.”

She slaps him again, and then she goes fucking wild punching and beating him. Dante snags her around the waist.

“Hush, it’s over,” he says, trying to calm her down.

She collapses sobbing, and he swings her up into his arms.

Grigor nods to his soldier—who steps forward and punches Ettore in the gut before he helps his companions to drag him into their SUV.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Leon says to us, and then to Mateo, “Bring them.”

A blacked out van swings into the warehouse as Leon helps me over to his car. Ettore’s men, wrists in zip ties, are bundled into the back of the van. I catch a look from Jero before he ducks in without protest. A pile of their cell phones sits on the ground. A couple of our soldiers take metal bars to them and smash them up.

Dante and Carmela slide into the back seat next to me.

We haven’t driven out of the warehouse before I pass out.

CHAPTER 63

CHRISTIAN

An alarm is bleeping. It’s fucking annoying. I wish somebody would turn it off so I could sleep.

Bleep, bleep, bleep.

It’s not close by… more distant. It stops. Thank fuck.

“… and I’m sorry that I slapped you…”

Fuck, I’m so tired.

“…well, all but that one time, maybe two…”

“Carmela,” Dante says, there’s a warning, and maybe a hint of exasperation in his voice.

Wait… what is Dante doing in my dream?