Page 124 of Heartless Heathens

“Come back, she’s home now.” Sonny filled him in and with the word ‘home’ her shoulders sagged, like a burden had been lifted off of her.

“Is she okay? Are you okay Romi?” he asked, his tone switching to one full of concern.

“What’d you find?” I raised my voice so he could hear me, since Sonny had no inclination for suspense or mysteries.

“Found her knife, and some asshole it was lodged inside of. I’ll deal with it,” he said.

“No. Bring him here,” Sonny told him before clicking the phone off.

It didn’t take long for me to hear the Ducati’s horn right outside the chapel. Sonny looked at me knowingly and I pulled Romina off of his lap.

“Where are you going?” she asked him as he walked away.

“Bring her,” he said to me. “She needs to see.” He grabbed his Glock that had been sitting on the kitchen island and stuffed it into the back of his pants before walking towards the door.

She turned her head to look at me, the fear written plainly on her face.

“Come on pretty girl.” I pulled her up, wrapping my arm around her.

Sonny stood at the door with his arms crossed over his chest while he watched Corvin drag the sorry fuck by the foot from a rope tied to the back of his bike. He’d been going so slow that at most the kid would have some gnarly road rash, but it wasn’t going to kill him.

No, I would do that myself.

Corvin cut the rope and I walked through the door only to have Sonny’s arm block my way.

“Stay with her,” he said.

My nostrils flared, unhappy with his decision but he was right, she didn’t need to be left alone. I stepped back into the chapel and pulled her into my arms, sinking my nose into the small of her neck and taking a big inhale.

“You don’t smell like you,” I told her.

She turned her neck up to look at me and her lip quivered when I gazed down at her. I exhaled, feeling the weight of too many burdens I couldn’t fix on my own. The sound of flesh pounding over flesh broke our stare-off and we shifted our attention to Corvin and Sonny, mercilessly laying it into the piece of shit who put his hands on our girl.

He screamed loudly but it didn’t matter. We were too far away from the Grand Cathedral for anyone to take notice of anything happening this way.

“Now apologize.” Corvin pushed the asshole forward and Sonny gave him a sharp kick in the ass making him fall face first in front of Romina.

“She cut my fucking face,” he yelled, it was still dripping steady blood, a flap of skin peeled up.

Gnarly as hell. That was gonna scar.

“And you’re lucky because I taught her to cut a lot more than that.” He pulled Rugsley up by the back of his shirt.

He yanked the blade still lodged to his shoulder and the guy screamed something feral, his eyes rolling to the back of his head for a few seconds before he thrashed in Corvin’s hold.

“Fuck! Fuck! You’re all fucking psychos,” he yelled clutching his bleeding shoulder.

“Come near our girl again and it’ll be the last thing you do,” Sonny told him before pulling the gun out of his pants and pointing it at his head. “Go to the infirmary. Tell them how careless you were being, tell them about how you fell on your knife.”

He ran away cursing and hobbling with each step. Hopefully he’d make it to the infirmary before he passed out from blood loss or pain. Not that I really cared.

“I wanted to cut his hands off, but Santorini wouldn’t let me,” Corvin said to her as he scooped her from my arms and into his.

“That would have been messy.” She let out an honest to fucking Satan smile and my heart nearly broke at the sight.

We didn’t deserve her.

“You were going to leave me with these assholes, little lamb?” he asked, cupping her face into his hands.