Page 39 of Brutal Devil

Then the door opens and I’m not alone. He draws me into him, and we’re both standing under the spray of the showerhead, the water washing the blood from our bare skin. Dimly, I register that he’s still wearing his boxer briefs. His embrace is platonic. There’s nothing suggestive about the way he holds me.

I tuck my head into his wet chest and wrap my arms around him, too fucked up to care that Priest is the one offering me the comfort I so desperately need. And as he slowly, gently washes me like I’m a child, I don’t even put up a protest. I just close my eyes and let him pass the soapy cloth all over my body, taking away the lingering traces of death and destruction I’ve witnessed today.

Chapter 11

PRIEST

For the fourth night in a row, I wake in the darkness to Luna’s screams.

I’m instantly alert, hitting the low light on the bedside table, scanning the room for any hint of an intruder. There’s no one here but us. She jolts awake, blinking blearily, holding up her left hand toward the offending light.

There, on her ring finger, is a single gold band. The one I gave her on our wedding day. It takes me by surprise the same way it does every time I see it, the reminder that we’re married.

She’s my wife.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, dimming the lamp to its lowest setting. “You’re not in danger.”

That’s a lie. As far as I know, sheisin danger. That’s why we’re still here, at the Andriani stronghold four floors underneath the casino we own an hour outside of the city. But she’s not in danger in this moment, here, with me.

With me, she’s the safest she’s going to be.

She sniffles, and I realize she’s been crying. And that she’s still half asleep, totally out of it. My gut clenches, and that sameprotective instinct I’ve had for her from the moment we met hits me like a fist.

“Come here, baby.” I reach for her, and she nuzzles into my bare neck, the wetness of her tears on my skin.

She’s shaking, her breath catching with every inhale.

Luna Revello is one tough woman, but watching her father’s murder unfold while she was in his embrace hit her hard. She’s spent the days since struggling to adjust to this new normal. It doesn’t help that we’re in a safe house and that she hasn’t seen daylight since the morning I hauled her away from the church, bloody and in shock.

I whisper all the nice words I know in Italian—admittedly, not all that many. I’m far from fluent in it, knowing mostly profanity, but I make do with what I’ve picked up from my father and fromZiaMaria. My hand goes up and down Luna’s spine in slow motion, and I swear I can feel her bones even more than I could a few days ago. She’s only been picking at her food.Zia’s not here with us, and the shit Saint’s been bringing down from the casino just doesn’t have any soul.

I’ve made a mental note to switch up our kitchen staff and menu when I’m not on twenty-four-hour watch, trying to protect my wife and find out who the hell is responsible for Tomasso Revello’s cold-blooded hit.

Gradually, she comes out of her catatonic state. I can tell the instant reality sets back in, because she stiffens in my arms.

“Sorry,” she whispers, turning her face into my shoulder. “I guess I was having a nightmare again.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It happens.”

“Does it happen…to you?”

My hand pauses just above the dip in her lower back. I know what she’s asking. It’s a question no one has ever dared before.

“It did,” I say finally. “A long time ago.”

“When?”

“I was probably seventeen.” I grimace into the shadows, thinking about the first time I killed a man.

I haven’t thought about it in years.

“How old are you now?”

“Thirty-two.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, and I wonder what she’s thinking. Too old? Doesn’t care? She’s fallen asleep?

Also, why do I give a shit anyway?