Chapter 3 #2
Behind them come three younger people. A girl, younger than me, maybe seventeen or eighteen.
She has her mother’s beauty and her father’s watchful eyes.
Then two men with the same blond hair and sharp features as their parents.
One is broader, more muscular and confident. The other is leaner and warier.
None of them are smiling.
My stomach drops as I study the two sons. Which one is Vincenzo? The mugshot didn’t show enough detail. They’re both tall and dangerous in a way that makes my pulse skip.
I glance desperately at my father, but he’s hanging back with his men. How can he be so rude after drilling into me how important this moment is?
The Vici family reaches the center of the ballroom, and Don Elio Vici gazes coldly at me.
I fix a smile to my face, determined not to look like a frightened child. Who should I greet first? The father? The mother? One of the sons?
Before I can decide, Mrs. Vici steps forward, her expression softening slightly. “You must be Adora. You’re even lovelier than your picture.”
“Thank you,” I manage, my voice barely above a whisper. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mrs. Vici.”
“Call me Lucia. We’re going to be family soon.”
Behind her, the daughter smiles at me tentatively. Up close, I can see she’s nervous too, fidgeting with the bracelet on her wrist.
One of the sons—the broader one—steps forward and extends his hand. “I’m Marco. It’s good to finally meet you.”
Not Vincenzo, then.
I shake his hand, and then the other son offers his. “Dante,” he says with a slight nod.
Confusion flutters through me, and Dante must see it in my face because he explains, “I’m Don Elio’s nephew. I work closely with the family.”
Then where is Vincenzo? Did he refuse to come? Is he running late? Does he not want this marriage?
Before I can ask, the double doors slam shut, the sound echoing through the golden room like gunshots.
I jump, my heart lurching into my throat.
Dad’s men suddenly close in from all sides. They move with frightening efficiency, guns appearing in their hands.
“What—” Don Elio starts, his hand moving toward his jacket.
He never finishes the sentence.
The first gunshot cracks through the air, impossibly loud in the enclosed space. Don Elio staggers backward, a red bloom spreading across his white shirt.
The room explodes into chaos.
Gunfire erupts from every direction, a thunderstorm of violence and noise. The chandelier shakes overhead, the crystals chiming. I scream, but I can’t hear myself over the roar of bullets and breaking mirrors.
Marco throws himself in front of his mother, and they both go down in a spray of blood. Dante pulls a gun from inside his jacket, and he gets off two shots before he’s cut down, his body crumpling beside his cousin.
This isn’t a party.
It’s a massacre.
The daughter runs toward me, her face white with terror, her mouth open in a scream I can’t hear. She makes it three steps before bullets tear through her. She falls to her knees, confusion and pain flickering across her face, before she collapses onto the gleaming marble.
“No!” The word rips from my throat.
Lucia Vici is somehow still alive, clutching her bleeding side. She’s trying to reach her daughter, crawling across the floor, leaving a trail of crimson on the white marble.
I drop to my knees beside her, my lilac dress immediately soaking with blood.
“I didn’t know,” I sob, pressing my hands against the wound in her side. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t die.”
Her eyes, the same eyes that stared out at me from Vincenzo’s mugshot, lock on to mine. Blood bubbles from her lips.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out again, tears streaming down my face. “I’m so sorry.”
Rough hands seize me, yanking me backward. I fight against them, screaming, trying to reach her, but I’m dragged away.
Lucia Vici dies alone on the floor, still reaching for her daughter’s body.
The gunfire stops as suddenly as it began, leaving only ringing silence and the smell of gunpowder and copper.
My father’s voice cuts through the quiet, cold and businesslike. “Check them. Make sure they’re all dead.”
The soldiers release me, and I watch in numb horror as his men move through the carnage, firing single shots into bodies that might still be breathing. Execution shots. Making sure.
One of them rolls over Don Elio’s body, checking his face. Then Marco’s. Then Dante’s.
“Boss!” The capo’s voice is urgent and confused. “This isn’t Vincenzo Vici. Neither is this one.”
Dad’s face goes white, then red with rage. “What?”
“Vincenzo Vici isn’t here. He’s not among the dead.”
“Find him!” Dad roars. “Search every inch of this building.”
His men scatter, boots pounding on marble as they shout to each other.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The room tilts around me, golden light reflecting off pools of blood that are sickeningly bright in the chandelier’s glow.
Dad positioned me in the middle of the room so the Vicis would see me first.
I was bait.
I led them in here to die like a lamb leading wolves to slaughter.
Bile rises in my throat. I stumble away from the bodies, my feet slipping on blood. My shoes leave red footprints across the marble.
Hidden in a wall’s molding is a side door I didn’t notice before. I throw it open and plunge through, finding myself in a dark hallway. Behind me, I hear shouting and footsteps, but I don’t stop.
I run through the building until I burst through a fire exit into an alley, the cold air hitting me so hard I gasp. I collapse against a dumpster and vomit, my whole body shaking.
When there’s nothing left in my stomach, and I’ve retched until my abdomen aches, I wipe my mouth with a trembling hand and look down at myself. My lilac dress is soaked with blood. It’s under my fingernails. It’s in my hair. I can taste it. Mrs. Vici’s blood. The daughter’s blood. All of them.
Somewhere out there, Vincenzo Vici just lost everyone he loves because of me.
I press my hands over my mouth to stifle my sobs, but they come anyway, tearing painfully through me.
I start running again, and I don’t stop.
Present day
You owe me another kiss for that, doe.
The voice is a purr in the darkness, and I arch into phantom hands that trace fire down my body. My fingers find hard muscle beneath a blood-soaked T-shirt, and I pull him closer, desperate for—
I jerk upright on the sofa, gasping.
A towel is tangled around my waist. The sharp scents of blood and desire vanish. The events of last night come tumbling back.
The laundromat. The dead Dervishis. The killer who kissed me.
Looking around, I realize I’m in the living room instead of in my own bed because I never did clean my sheets. Distantly, I can hear an electronic bleating.
Light blazes through the window. My phone alarm is blaring in another room.
I realize with a jolt that I’m late for work.
I scramble into discarded clothes, scoop my hair into a ponytail, grab my bag, and burst out the door.
It’s turned brutally cold overnight, and my breath turns to vapor in the air.
I forgot my coat, and icy wind bites into my flesh.
My sneakers slap against the sidewalk, but the rhythm can’t chase away the echoes of last night.
When I round the corner, the reality of what happened crashes over me. Frantic red-and-blue flashing lights illuminate the laundromat, and the area around it is cordoned off with yellow tape. People dressed head to toe in white protective suits are moving around inside.
Police are questioning people by the yellow tape, no doubt hoping to find a witness to last night’s murders.
I put my head down and cross to the other side of the street.
The coffee shop where I work is another block down and around a corner. I wish I could breathe easier when the laundromat disappears behind me, but anxiety clings to me even inside the coffee shop, surrounded by the rich scent of coffee and chattering voices.
My boss, whom I’ve secretly nicknamed Grumpy Graham, glares at me from behind the coffee machine. He’s opened the shop by himself, and he’s trying to take orders while making coffee at the same time. “You’re late, Adora.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, hurrying past him to sling my bag under the counter, and say breathlessly to the next customer, “Thank you for waiting. What can I get for you?”
My shift drags on, and all customers want to talk about is the murders that happened around the corner.
I say mechanically, “Isn’t it terrible? Here’s your coffee,” over and over.
My smile is strained, and I flinch every time I hear blood or knife or CCTV.
I forgot that there might be CCTV inside the laundromat.
I gave that Vici a knife. I kissed him. I break out in a cold sweat when I remember my sheets are still in a machine, covered in my DNA.
If the police discover my identity, they’ll believe I’m the Vicis’ accomplice.
Yet it’s not the police I fear. They’ll go to my father once they figure out who I am, and when Dad tells them I’m not there, they’ll put out a statement saying they wish to speak to Adora Montoni, a person of interest in connection with the laundromat murders, along with a picture of me.
My midnight kisser will discover exactly who I am.
A Montoni.
And not just any Montoni, but the woman who was meant to marry Vincenzo Vici, and is therefore responsible for the family’s slaughter.
The killer will find me, and this time, there’ll be no heated embraces and panting breaths as I explore his muscular body.
He’ll kill me, probably only delaying my death to torture me first.
I wonder who’s left alive among the Vicis to exact revenge.
Perhaps the killer last night is a cousin, or a capo.
I should have realized something like this might happen and moved farther out of Malus, but I was an emotional mess after the massacre, with no money, and no friends I could go to for help.