Page 30 of The Italian Reckoning (A New York Criminal Empire #3)

ROCKY

“ W hat?” My voice sounds too loud even for my own ears, nearly drowned out by the sudden powerful beats of my heart.

Sarah’s words hang in the air between us as she turns away from me and focuses on something beyond the window. Her cat moves along the bench and chirrups softly, seemingly able to detect the sudden dark shift in the mood.

What did she mean, she was his last victim? She’s alive, standing right before me. How can that be possible?

“Sarah?”

She doesn’t look at me. Both her arms wrap around her body and her hair falls over her shoulder as her head dips down, blocking her face from view.

“Sarah, you said his last victim died. How are you…?”

“I didn’t, actually,” she says quietly. “I didn’t say anything.”

“The implication was pretty obvious.”

“I know.”

Silence falls again. What do I do? Do I go to her? Do I stay here and hope she’ll talk to me? Can I even ask her questions?

Too many thoughts jumble together, and then Sarah starts to talk and everything in my mind falls silent.

“He snatched me from a club when I was out celebrating with some work friends. It was a birthday. We knew he was still out there, but for some reason, we thought we’d be safe.

I thought I’d be safe. I didn’t fit the age profile, I guess, so I was cocky.

Overconfident. Plus, what kind of serial killer targets the cops? ”

Her voice is painfully flat as she speaks and her words are oddly distant like she’s trying to separate herself from the memory. I don’t blame her.

“It turns out he was pissed at us for not catching him. Or at the very least, he was pissed at us because we weren’t giving him the attention he deserved.

He wanted to be splashed everywhere but we were purposefully playing down his crimes to test whether he was ego driven.

I don’t know why he chose me. Maybe it was because I was the first one who stepped out of the bar for some air.

Or he chose me beforehand and was just waiting for me.

I have no idea. But he hit me over the head and the next thing I remember is waking up naked, strapped to a surgical gurney. ”

Her voice quavers and I step forward, but something keeps me from reaching out. The way she speaks and the fact that she can’t look at me tells me touching her would be the worst thing. But my arms ache to hold her close and assure her that she’s safe, that she’s okay.

Words that likely won’t have the effect I desire them to.

“He kept me awake for six whole days. He cut into me like I was some kind of doll, dressed me up, took pictures, tormented me. Each time I thought I would be safe by falling asleep, he’d inject me with something that would wake me right back up.

I was wired on constantly despite being so exhausted, and there was nothing I could do.

I couldn’t get away, I couldn’t fight. And I knew what was coming.

I’d studied the cases back to back. I knew every single detail.

I even knew the blades he’d use to harm me. ”

Sarah’s scars. They carried so much mystery and I ached to ask her, but she recoiled so violently each time I touched them that I accepted them as a no-go zone. We all carry scars, and given her line of work, I reasoned there was something natural about them given how feisty she can be.

But the truth is so much darker. She didn’t earn those scars in the line of duty.

She earned them at the hands of a psychopath who gets his kicks from kidnapping and torturing young women.

Suddenly, Sarah’s prickly demeanor makes a whole lot more sense, as does her determination to do everything by the book and make sure criminals see the inside of a jail cell.

She wants things done properly because for some reason, this asshole still walks free.

“He treated me like all the others but kept telling me I was special. I wonder if he told the other girls the same thing. I don’t know why he kept me awake the entire time, but I was starting to see things.

I was so tired and so alert it was painful.

And then he started to cut me up, told me I was going to remember him in the next life, and the one after. ”

“All your scars,” I say softly.

Sarah suddenly faces me with tears shining in her eyes and her lower lip quivering.

She lifts up her T-shirt and runs her hand flat over the raised scars across her abdomen.

“He used a scalpel here and talked to me about the wonders of childbirth. Talked about how much he enjoyed knowing that every life he took snuffed out the futures of all the children those women could have. And this one…” Her eyes drop down to her stomach and she traces a line just below her belly button.

“I thought for sure he was going to carve me open and reach inside, but he just kept cutting back and forth until it didn’t even hurt anymore. It was just… sensation.”

The urge to cover her hand with my own rises like a tidal wave, but I force myself to remain where I am. She’s pouring out her pain with fat tears clinging to her lashes, and while every cell in my body cries out to comfort her, I can’t. Not until she invites me in.

“On my back, he talked about severing my spine but complained that it would take too long. And the scars on my shoulders are from his attempts to carve his name into my skin, but he kept being too eager and fucking it up. And then, on day six, he finally sedated me. I knew what was coming.”

Her haunted eyes met mine with her pupils almost doubled due to the tears.

“When I woke up, he held up a mirror and showed me what my face looked like all painted up. I couldn’t move.

I remember trying so fucking hard but nothing was listening.

I was just screaming inside my own head with no way out.

And then he cradled me and wrapped my face in that fucking plastic and I just had to…

I just had to stare at him while my lungs burned and I suffocated.

I couldn’t…” She closes her eyes briefly and both hands clutch at her T-shirt.

“H–Have you ever heard of the Lazarus effect?”

I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.

“It’s a medical phenomenon known as autoresuscitation when someone declared dead can suddenly show signs of life, usually around ten minutes after someone administers CPR.

” Sarah bites back a sob. “I died in that place and he escaped thinking he’d made another clean kill.

My team arrived maybe a minute or so later, they were just too late to catch him.

They tried to bring me back but they couldn’t.

And then, somehow, I came back. I woke up.

” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “And do you know what they asked me?”

Again, I shake my head.

“They said, Sarah, you spent six days with him. You know what he looks like so we can finally catch this guy . And you know what I said?” Fat tears spill down her cheeks as her entire body trembles. “I can’t remember .”

I can’t hold back any longer. The second Sarah sobs, I throw myself forward and gather her into my arms as tightly as I can. She briefly resists and then sags into my hold, weeping against my shoulder and repeating those words over and over.

“I can’t remember!”

“My God, Sarah. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“No,” she gasps, lifting her head. “Don’t. Because I’m the reason he’s still out there, walking around and killing. I’m the reason he’s not behind bars. Because I can’t remember what he looks like. I spent six days with him and his face is just an empty hole in my mind!”

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Sarah. You were kidnapped and tortured by a maniac for days . He killed you, for fuck’s sake. I can’t even… The trauma from that alone is unimaginable.”

She laughs wetly against my shoulder. “I spent eighteen months in therapy trying to unbury everything about those six days. I tried sleep therapy, hypnosis, even regression therapy to get even the tiniest detail, but I—I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it!”

I don’t have the right words. Nothing in my mind sounds even remotely good enough to comfort her or reassure her that the guilt she carries is misplaced. With everything she went through, it’s painfully understandable why her mind would block out details of her killer.

Her killer .

She died at the hands of that fucker.

No wonder he’s so fucking obsessed with her. She’s the one that got away.

“Sarah, listen to me.”

She slowly lifts her head, and I cup her damp cheeks with both hands.

“I can’t fathom what you went through. The pain and the trauma are beyond anything I can even comprehend and I am so fucking sorry that you suffered.

But you are not to blame. All that talk you gave me about how he’s still out there, killing because of a mistake you made?

Sarah, you are his victim . The very fact that you’re alive is some kind of miracle, but you are not to blame for him, do you understand? ”

“If I remembered his face,” Sarah whispers up at me, “Belle would be alive. Kara would be alive.”

“Maybe,” I say tightly. “But we don’t know that.

Everyone else who has worked this case, who has seen him in the street or been one of the eye witnesses to the earlier kidnappings, could have provided more about his face.

CCTV or even better police work could have done that.

If they had arrived earlier or fucking done their jobs properly, then you wouldn’t have—” My throat closes briefly.

“You don’t deserve to carry this guilt. You are a victim, not a culprit.

This survivor's guilt is not yours to carry.”

“But if I remembered… ” Her eyes close, and I cradle her head to my chest as her soft sobs grow into something deeper and much more painful.

Six years of agony pour out of her, and I hold her as tightly as I dare.

I can’t imagine the trauma she went through, only to wake up and be met with the crushing expectation to remember the face of her torturer.

Someone who traumatized her so badly that she blocked their face from her mind—to then carry that for years under the weight of this guilt.

I misjudged Sarah from the start.

Her fingers curl into my shirt, her head buries against my chest, and she clings to me as she weeps.

The notes of pain and grief in every broken sound that escapes her are like knives to my heart.

I want to reach inside her and scoop out her agony with my own hands, replace it with whatever I can give her that will make her feel better.

But nothing will.

Not while this asshole taunts her from the safety of knowing she can’t remember. He followed her here to toy with her.

I’m going to kill him.

I don’t know how, but this is no longer about getting revenge for Gio. I’m going to tear the city apart looking for this fucker and I will burn down every last building if I have to.

“I’m sorry,” I say gently, my lips pressed to the top of her head. “Tying you up in the casino must have been terrifying so I am so, so fucking sorry for that. If I’d known, I never would have?—”

“You couldn’t have known,” Sarah croaks. “No one knows, not really. Outside of my squad.”

“Still. I’m sorry I did that to you.” When she lifts her head from my shoulder, I cup her wet cheek and gently stroke away some of her tears.

“But I promise you, Sarah. I’m here. Nothing else is going to happen to you, do you hear me?

I will protect you. And we will catch him. I swear it. You are safe with me.”

Her eyes dart slowly back and forth between my own, shining like two glittering gemstones. I caress her cheek once more and swipe away a few more tears.

“I swear it, Sarah. I will protect you.”

“I know,” she murmurs, gazing up at me and sniffling. “I know.”

Sarah suddenly leans up and kisses me. My instinct is to draw back because I don’t want to overstep any boundary that I’m not aware of, but her kiss is different from others that she’s given me.

It lacks the biting hunger that fueled our earlier kissing or any kiss she’s given me in the past. It’s slower and deeper, like she’s trying to weave a secret poem against my lips that’s only for me to hear.

There’s no fire and no lust. Instead, there’s something deeper.

I slide my hand down to her neck and cradle her jaw, then I kiss her back.