Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
TOMA
Ishould have known not to get too comfortable in this life with Lucie. I was never destined for peace and comfort, only destruction and pain.
A few weeks before Christmas break, I’m walking her back from university, arms full of groceries for the dinner I’m planning to cook for us. I’ve been staying at her apartment ever since our trip to Loch Lomond, easily and naturally inserting myself into her life.
The cold December air swipes Lucie’s hair up and around her face that’s wrapped in a warm, midnight blue cashmere scarf.
Her cheeks are rosy with life and she’s smiling at something I just said.
The two of us are the picture of couple bliss.
And I don’t see the edge of the sword coming to swipe at me, straight in the stomach, cleaving me in two.
My phone rings, all the alarms I set around Lucie’s flat going up all at once.
We’re still twenty minutes away by foot.
I swear under my breath as I pull my phone out of my pocket and watch my camera feed.
I have five cameras in the building, two in Lucie’s flat and countless motion detectors.
They knew they’d alert me. They didn’t care.
All while I picked my girl up and went grocery shopping like a cute, normal couple.
As though I could escape the butcher who hunts me.
The intruders are doing a poor job and I immediately notice they’re trying to rig my feed and replace it with still images but can’t manage to work around my system. Two men dressed in black are ransacking our place. Our home. Our haven.
“Fuck, we need to go,” I say as I grab Lucie’s hand and march us home.
When we reach the flat, Biscuit barks as we march in, but it’s not the little barks of happiness at having us back, because she knows we’ll take her out.
They’re terrified and disturbed by intermittent whimpers.
The hair at the back of my neck stands up.
I haven’t had time to watch more of what the intruders did to our sanctuary.
My body already knows I’ll hate what we’re going to walk into.
I drop the groceries and step in front of Lucie.
“Stay here.”
My voice is a growl, violence pulsing through my veins.
Biscuit is shaking, her leash attached to her collar linking her to the leg of the kitchen table.
I didn’t leave her like this. I drop down, and take her into my arms, shushing words of reassurance I do not feel.
At least whoever entered Lucie’s sacred space didn’t kill our dog.
I’ll pray to the Gods I don’t believe in for that mercy.
And for the identity of the trespasser so I can kill them slowly and hurt them for days.
Carefully, I step into the living room. And find it ravaged.
Lucie gasps behind me.
Of course she did not listen. I freeze at what lays in front of us.
The sofa and pillows have been slashed, white feathers everywhere. The chairs are upside down and the study books are in pieces on the floor.
I shove Biscuit into her arms, grab her elbow and guide her back outside and across the street.
The keys jingle in my hand as I open the door to my building, then climb the two floors before we reach the door to my flat and cross the threshold.
“Stay here. Call your cousin.”
“Toma, wait.” She catches my hand as I leave, holding me back. “Where are we?”
“My place.”
Her eyes widen, the weight of my words registering. I wish I could explain, but I have to go back to her flat. I have to clean up. Make sure everything is in the right place, that no cameras or microphones have been planted. My head hurts and fear spreads inside me like a fast-decaying disease.
“Toma, you can’t leave now.”
I whirl and seize her upper arms. Biscuit growls at me, and I can’t blame her. “I beg you, Lu, please. Listen to me. I’ll come back to get you. You don’t need to see this. Call Dante and tell him what happened.”
“Do you know who did this?” she asks with her brow dipped in a frown, voice shaken.
I ignore her question.
I do know. I refused to see the signs, though they kept slapping me in the fucking face.
I thought I could protect her. I thought I was the only one who could.
I’m selfish. Useless like my father said.
Unfit to be with her, to be around her. All I did was the very thing I wanted to save her from.
My brother has sent someone else. This is just a warning but an efficient one.
I take my spyware detector, ignoring how frozen my girl looks, our fur baby shaking in her arms. The door closes softly on Lucie’s face.
My throat dries as I cross the short distance between our flats. My heart is in my throat when I open the door again and stalk to the bedroom.
The curtains are in tatters, the beam holding them dropping halfway across the window. In the room, the mess reflects the one in the living room, except for one unsettling detail. A clear message.
All of Lucie’s underwear is laid out on the bed in a grotesque display. And what stains every single piece and the sheets underneath makes me gag. Blood roars in my ears, my stomach roiling with the need to be violently ill, but I can’t allow one more second of her space to be defiled.
I gather the bedsheets, encompassing all the underwear, folding it into a tight ball. I march to the kitchen and get a trash bag, throwing the offending sheets into it.
I take another one and gather more trash, throwing it all into the dark plastic bags, until all the broken pieces of Lucie’s life fit into a few of them.
I don’t stop until I’ve taken down the curtains, repaired the beam, vacuumed the whole place and cleaned it twice with disinfectant.
The place smells like chemical lemon and bleach. It must have taken me a few hours.
Cleaning doesn’t make me feel better. And nor does finding no microphones or hidden cameras. Setting things right isn’t going to change the outcome.
I order the same clothes Lucie had in her closet. I know all the sizes and brands by heart. I get all the pillows she loved from the same store she got them at. Everything will be delivered tomorrow.
Meanwhile, my head hurts, my brain is scattered.
For the first time in a long time, I’m scared.
Not for me. I never cared much for life myself.
But for Lucie. She deserves a long and happy life.
As long as I’m in it, she won’t get it. As long as my brother lives, she’ll never know peace, and I won’t either.
None of us are meant to escape the life we were born into. We’re the progeny of crime and responsible for our parents’ and siblings’ madness. At least I know I am.
My phone chimes and the text I read freezes the blood in my veins, cementing the decision I must make. One that will break us. It’s necessary if she wants to live.
Unknown
Your tantrum has lasted long enough. I’ll spare your plaything when the war hits if you come back now. Otherwise, she’ll be the first to meet my dogs.
Maybe in another life, we could have been happy.
But we live in this one. And in this one, I have one chance to keep her alive when my brother goes for the Venturas and the Morettis.
Even if they win, even if they defeat Petar, there’s always going to be a risk for her safety.
I won’t live with myself if anything happens to her.
Now or in years. My life for hers. That’s what it was always bound to come to.