Chapter 44
DOVE
No.
Please.
No.
I can feel my eyes drifting all over the place, barely able to focus.
That is, until I see Bane stiffen and yell, and spit blood as he drops to his knees with that monster behind him.
I want to scream. Or cry. Or tell him I love him. But my voice isn’t working, just like the rest of my body from whatever Melinda put in that coffee.
All I can do is lie in the tepid water as the tub fills around me, screaming silently in my head as I watch the man I love fall to the side, his face chalky.
Blood pours and gurgles from his mouth. More pools around his body.
Oh God, there’s so much of it.
All I can do is stare in horror and pain, tears falling from my eyes as I watch Bane sink to the floor with a kitchen knife still lodged in his back.
“I had to!” Melinda mumbles, but not at me. She’s talking to herself again, like she was when she forced me down here, and made me turn the water in the tub on, and climb in.
“He would have stopped me,” she mutters, shaking her head. Her movements are erratic and twitchy: her gaze rips to me, then the ceiling, then her hands, then lastly to Bane, lying on the floor.
“He was going to try to stop me,” she blurts.
Tears flow down my numb cheeks as she suddenly whirls to look right at me.
“He was going to stop me, Lark!” she screams at me. “He can’t do that!” She shakes her head violently back and forth. “He can’t!”
She looks at her hands, and suddenly, she’s bolting from the room.
For a second, I wonder if she’s just snapped and decided to make a run for it. But then she’s back, brandishing another gleaming kitchen knife.
She discarded the gun upstairs, after emptying it into the two Marchetti guards who came running at the sound of her first two shots. But the knife in her hand looks plenty lethal as she steps past Bane and storms over to me.
I can’t move at all. I’m frozen in my non-responsive body, staring in horror as she looks down at me.
“I have to, you see,” she says quietly. “It’s why Cesare and I can never be together.
There’s too many other women—you and Chiara included.
It blocks the auras between him and me.” She smiles sadly at me.
“I always liked you, Lark,” she says, her voice even and emotionless.
“Even if no one else knew, when you came back and they told everyone that you were Dove…” She taps the side of her head with the flat edge of the knife. “I knew. So I’m sorry.”
She drops to her knees next to me. The tub is still filling with water, and I watch in paralyzed dread as she lifts my limp arm and pushes the sleeve of my sweatshirt up past my elbow.
“I’ll do it how you would want,” she says with a smile on her face. “Nothing messy.” Her smiling face raises to mine. “You deserve to look pretty for your funeral, darling.”
No.
No, God, no.
Let me move.
Let me fight for my life.
But as hard as I try, all I can do is make my hand twitch a little.
Melinda notices the twitch and shakes her head.
“No, don’t worry. It won’t even hurt! The paralyzing agent takes that away, too.
” A slight shadow crosses her face when she looks into my tearful eyes.
“Oh, don’t cry, Lark. I know you’re sad about your father.
But once I remove all the other women, he’ll be okay.
He’s going to be fine, you'll see! And we’ll finally be together!
The fight we had in my room the other day…
he was so mad! But it will all be okay now! ”
I want to scream that killing me won’t bring back my dad, who I know is dead upstairs because she shot him.
But I can’t.
That doesn’t stop me from trying, though.
My muscles strain, my mind screaming for anything. My fingers twitch. My shoulder spasms.
It’s not enough.
My eyes land on Bane. He’s still breathing, but I can tell he's fading in and out as his eyes stay locked on me. I focus my hazy, blurry gaze on him, screaming silently for him to see that I see him.
That I love him.
I grit my teeth, forcing strength I don’t have into my muscles. I can feel my hand and shoulder twitch again.
Still not enough.
I recoil inwardly when Melinda sits on a little stool next to the tub and pats my bare arm where she’s pushed up my sweatshirt, then turns it until my wrist is facing up.
“This won’t hurt, honey,” she says quietly.
No.
No!
Melinda holds up the kitchen knife and smiles at me.
“You wrote in your diary once about this. I hope it's everything you wanted.”
NO!!!
Hot tears flood my face as she brings the razor-sharp tip of the knife to my wrist. The metal brushes my skin, and I watch my vein jump beneath it.
Please, don’t.
I don’t want to die.
I'm too happy.
Anguish wrenches through me as I watch, helpless to look away, as Melinda pushes the tip of the knife into my wrist. Blood wells and then seeps out, running in bright crimson rivers over my skin. She calmly slices up toward the elbow, cutting the vein and opening it wide.
I look like a statue on the outside. Inside, I’m screaming.
Crying.
Yelling that I love him.
Cursing her.
Wanting to save us both, but unable to do so.
Melinda cuts a few inches up my arm before she pulls the knife away. Blood pours from the wound, so much and so fast it takes my fucking breath away.
“There,” Melinda sighs happily. She stands from the stool and looks down at me, holding the knife in her hand. “Just go to sleep, honey,” she says with a smile. She sets the knife down on the stool and turns to Bane.
“Your turn, handsome.”
Every synapse in my brain fires. Every nerve sparks. My eyes are locked right on him, watching the man I love lying bleeding out on the floor while I’m powerless to help him.
That is not.
Fucking.
Happening.
Move.
MOVE.
My fingers twitch again. Then my hand. I reach into the void inside me, pulling every ounce of energy left anywhere in my body and slamming it all into my arm.
Move, goddammit. MOVE!
My shoulder lifts. My elbow twitches. Blood pours from my arm as I drag it across the edge of the tub, smearing red everywhere.
My fingers curl around the handle of the knife.
I look past Melinda, her back to me, at Bane. His eyes swim briefly, then they focus on me.
I love you, I silently tell him.
I’ve always loved you.
I’m only going to get one shot at this.
Better make it count.
MOVE!
By some fucking miracle, my arm obeys, lifting the knife in my fist.
Melinda must hear it, because she starts to turn to look at me.
Too late, bitch.
I plunge the knife into her side, just above her hip. She staggers and whirls toward me, pulling her body away from the blade and freeing herself.
So I stab her again.
And again.
And again.
My face is a mask, devoid of the screaming rage behind it as I slam the knife into her stomach, her hips, her thighs. Blood explodes from her leg, and I know I’ve hit her aorta.
I also know I’ve got nothing left.
My eyes flutter shut.
The blade clatters to the floor just as Melinda hits the tiles with a shriek and a thud. She keeps screaming, flailing for help.
I manage to open my eyes for just one more second.
I don’t waste it on her. I look at him.
He looks back.
Melinda stops kicking and goes still.
I’m going to bleed out soon. I’m going to die.
So I look at him and remind myself how lucky I was that I got to fall in love with him.
Twice.