Page 15 of Die for You (Kiss or Kill #2)
But the bastard is smiling. “Finally, I have my revenge for my brother.”
He has worked out that Gianna has sent me.
He doesn’t know the details, but he doesn’t care because we’re both out for blood.
Tossing book after book at him, I move around the room, seeking out something heavy and preferably pointy. But Enzo reads me like a book—pun intended—when he uses a Bible as a Frisbee and clips me in the throat.
I cough, needing air, but soon regain my momentum when he tosses my knife at me, and it embeds into the front of my shoulder.
Immediately, I yank it out because I got my weapon.
Enzo laughs merrily. “Maybe I should keep you alive. You’re fun.”
His words enrage me, but I keep a level head. “You probably shouldn’t make the same mistake Aldo did. He underestimated me, and look what happened to him.”
Enzo’s happiness soon dies, and utter hate overcomes him, which was my intention all along. An emotional fighter is a distracted one.
Emotions make us weak…the first lesson Gianna taught me.
Enzo charges for me, but I duck low and plunge my knife into his back, stabbing him in the kidney.
His white shirt soon stains red.
And just like that, my bloodlust raises her sleepy head.
I want more…
I quickly withdraw my blade and am about to stab Enzo again, but he elbows me in the nose.
Blood pours from it.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
It was supposed to be a surprise attack, and Lettie and I would leave here semi-unscathed. But when Enzo punches me in the stomach, and I feel my underwear growing wet, I realize how wrong I was.
Blood trickles down my legs.
It gushes from my nose.
I need to finish this.
But I can’t.
Once again, it seems Gianna was right because emotions do make you weak, which is why instead of fighting, I do the complete opposite—I run for the balcony doors and kick them open. I don’t hesitate as I dive over the balustrade and drop three stories into prickly blackberry bushes.
I pick myself up without looking behind me and hobble as fast as I can. I have cuts all over and a sprained ankle, but that’s the least of my concerns.
I see an unattended Mercedes with the keys in the ignition. I start it up and take off into the night, cursing myself and cursing Gianna.
I fucked up.
I fucked up big time.
But all I can think about is Lettie.
I can’t go to the hospital.
There is only one place I can go.
The bleeding has lessened by the time I arrive at Nico’s.
I leave the car running as I stagger to his front door. The porch light flickers on before he sleepily opens the front door. When he sees me, his sleepiness is replaced with urgency when he runs to catch me as I collapse into his arms.
“Valentina! Quello che è successo? ”
“I-I…I’m sorry.”
After that…I don’t remember.
I wake to unknown, muted female voices.
I don’t understand a word they’re saying.
But I don’t think they mean any harm.
“Oh, grazie a Dio.”
That voice, I do recognize.
And I soon remember the last conscious thought I had was that I owe Nico.
When I open my eyes, everything is blurry, and that’s because of the flickering candlelight. But through the dimness, I can see, bright and clear, the enormous wooden crucifix pinned to the wall in front of me.
Shrieking, I jolt up and scamper backward, knees toward my chest.
Where the fuck am I?
Childhood memories soon become a reality when I see three sisters in habits sitting by my bedside with rosary beads and Bibles in their laps. They’re praying for my soul, it appears. Looks like they missed the memo.
Nico takes my hand. “You safe,” he says kindly, but anywhere is safer than here.
“Why am I here?” I ask, peering down and blanching when I see the white nightgown I wear.
Ripping my hand from Nico’s, I brush my fingers through my hair, a sigh of relief expelling from my lungs when I feel my hair isn’t in two braids.
This is too much.
My mind and body slip back into a past I will forever be running from. But that can wait, when I pass my hand over my belly.
One of the sisters smiles. “Your baby is all right.”
How does she know that?
Unless I underwent an ultrasound when unconscious, then no one can know that, and I refuse to accept their knowledge as God telling them so.
“Doctor come,” Nico says, reading my disbelief.
There is no judgment in his tone.
Nor does he look at me with disgust.
He knows my secret, well, one of them, and he still wants to be here. He doesn’t ask what happened or why he had to bring me to this safe place. I don’t know what I did to deserve him, and if I believed in God, perhaps this is divine intervention.
Whatever the reason, I am thankful.
I hate that this place of worship provides me with a sanctuary. In the past, it was my hell. So the irony isn’t lost on me how the tables have turned.
Peering around at this holy place, I realize how smart Nico was for taking me here. This is probably the safest place for me to be, considering I started a war with the Sicilian Mafia boss.
I don’t know what to do.
If it were only my well-being I had to think about, I would fight.
But there’s so much more at stake now.
My purse is back at the castle. No doubt Enzo has studied it in hopes of finding out something about me. But there is nothing.
However, I’m not naive.
He will find me.
Sooner or later.
Peering at the crucifix, I wonder if this was destined for me all along.
Jesus’s faith was tested by His Father to see if He was worthy.
Is my faith being tested?
The sisters get up and give Nico and me some privacy. When they’re gone, he shifts his chair closer to my bedside.
He types on his phone, and the robotic voice asks the inevitable. “The father is the man who was here?”
There’s no point in lying.
I nod.
Nico doesn’t hide his disgust, and I don’t blame him.
This would be the time Nico gets up and leaves.
He has every right to. I have brought him nothing but trouble.
The last time I saw him, my ex-boyfriend almost killed him.
And then I turn up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, bloody and beaten, passing out, where he then had to take the initiative and bring me here.
This friendship is definitely one-sided.
Nico is quiet. But it’s apparent it’s anything but in his head.
Whatever he says next, I am ready for.
His fingers work frantically as he types what seems like a very long spiel.
“You are not safe at home, and I don’t think I can protect you. You must stay here and have the baby. I will look after you. And the baby. I will raise her like my own.”
And clearly, I am not ready for anything because that is the last thing I ever imagined him saying.
I stare in bewilderment, wondering if perhaps the app has a glitch and is spitting out an incorrect translation. There’s no way Nico would just offer to help me raise my baby.
But when he nods, there is no glitch. Only a man who is the most selfless human being I have ever met.
“No.” I shake my head. “I can’t ask that of you.”
Besides, I can’t stay here.
I have a duty to serve Gianna.
I can’t stay here for the remainder of my pregnancy.
But Nico is right.
It’s not safe.
There’s no way for me to get in contact with Gianna.
After tonight, however, I fear she will penalize me for my rebellion and either turn her back on me or I will no longer be the hunter.
I will be the prey.
Nico takes my hand and slowly says, “Marry me. We will make a happy life.”
I stare at him, open-mouthed.
Funny, the first thing that comes to mind is that his English is improving, and I’m touched that he’s learning it for me. The proposal comes after. That’s how my messed-up brain processes it.
“But you don’t love me. And I don’t love you,” I reply, shaking my head. “That isn’t fair to you.”
He passes me the phone so I can type out my reply, which I do.
He quickly responds, typing frantically. “Love grows. But for now, this is what is important for you and the child.”
This is the plot twist no one saw coming, not even me, the narrator of my own story.
I mull over his words, his suggestion.
With the crucifix bearing down at me, I lower my head and clasp my hands and whisper, “Forgive me.”
Who I’m asking clemency from, I do not know.
I have wronged many.
Can I repent for my sins?
Time will only tell…