33. The Storm that Ended it All
Chapter 33
The Storm that Ended it All
M y husband had come out of nowhere, it seemed, and knocked her across the room like a linebacker in the championship game. Her knife hit the floor before she did. She crashed with a howl, and he crashed with a growl, his body much heavier than hers, and I could have sworn the stone beneath my feet cracked. An irreparable fissure that would continue to crack with years, unless it was fixed.
Vincenzo and Guido were suddenly in the room.
“Abree.” Guido leaned down, snatching the knife up, keeping his eyes on the wheezing woman he had called Abree.
“There was a twist I did not see coming,” Vincenzo said. “However, it makes sense. The only difference between Rosaria and Abree is the mole above Abree’s lip.”
“Abree,” I breathed out, still stunned.
Vincenzo blinked at me. “Rosaria’s sorella .”
I dropped my own knife and ran to my husband, falling to my knees next to him. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, and maybe I wasn’t inside of his head, but I knew the world around him spun in dizzying fractures of light.
“Vincenzo,” I said, my voice full of authority, “help me get Rocco to his feet. We have to get out of here. I’m not positive, but I think that’s a Russian boat coming straight for the castello .”
Vincenzo’s eyes snapped to the window, narrowing against the darkness. Guido’s eyes looked in the same direction. They looked at each other, and it was one of those looks—they had been by each other’s sides long enough to communicate silently. And if I wasn’t mistaken…Vincenzo and Guido were brothers.
In an instant, both men kicked into gear. It was Guido who helped Rocco to his feet, even though he leaned on both of us to walk.
It was like Rocco was on that boat outside of the window, swaying with the violent rise and fall of the swells as he tried to walk across the heaving vessel.
Vincenzo had Abree by the arms, keeping her close. She was screaming, acting like she was stabbing something, even though she didn’t have a knife.
“This is what becomes of people who think too much of themselves and then lose it all,” Vincenzo said. “Abree Caffi.”
“We are not leaving because of Rocco,” Guido said, taking the brunt of Rocco’s weight, though he wasn’t letting me go. “We would stay and fight. He does not want you in the middle of this.”
“I don’t want him—any of you—in the middle of this either,” I whispered. “I’m sorry this is happening.” Maybe it wasn’t Rosaria who sent the Russians here, but her sister did, and I wondered if she was just continuing where Rosaria had left off in life.
Guido’s eyes turned kind, and so soft, I thought I melted for a second at the gratitude in them. Then Rocco growled and it snapped me back to attention. As we tore through the castello , the three of us almost in a six-legged race instead of a two legged one, Guido took command of the castello, shouting orders to the men. Their eyes were wide, and they were unmoving as Vincenzo carted a fighting Abree Caffi behind us.
The men were so paralyzed with fear at the sight of what they believed was a violent ghost, Guido had to stop and make an impassioned speech about Abree impersonating Rosaria to gain access to the island. The real threat these men should be preparing for was the boat coming to shore. Guido was under Donato, if I remembered correctly, and the man under Guido’s charge was snapping at the men, telling them to get their heads on straight, war was about to begin!
It seemed like a few at a time started shaking their heads, getting them on straight, preparing for battle as the man under Guido, Emilio, started barking orders. The main one, though, was do not get close to shore!
Once we started moving again and were able to reach the door, we almost flew back in it. The wind was so strong, it felt like we started walking sideways, pushing against it. Guido gave me an apologetic look. I had one hand on my skirt and the other one on Rocco. He refused to let me go. And even though Abree had whacked him in the head with something, his body was still fighting the strong gusts of wind better than I was. He kept his hand firmly on me, almost like he was wishing he could set his hand in my skin like he could my dress. My hair whipped in the wind, almost caught in a cyclone atop my head. I had no more hands to hold it down.
A crack of lightning lit up the chaotic world, followed by a roll of thunder that made the windows in the castello quake, and the earth beneath our feet tremble.
One of the soldiers was coming toward us, trying to escape the wind, heading toward the front entrance, and when the lightning had cracked and the thunder had rumbled, it was like he’d run into a wall and came to a dead stop, his wide eyes on me. Frozen. Then his mouth started moving, and he made the sign of the cross.
At first, I thought it was Abree. It was like she was still fighting with me or Rocco inside of her mind. She was yelling into the wind, the sound of her voice shrill and carrying, and she was still stabbing at nothing. I realized in that moment how much she sounded like Rosaria, except Rosaria’s voice was superior to hers. It seemed Vincenzo might have taken some pity on her. He gave her his chest to stab at. But the foot solider didn’t seem to care about Abree. When we passed him, he skirted around me , and letting his guard down to the powerful hand of the wind, it tripped him and he fell over, grabbing his nuts as he rolled.
What the hell?
What was his problem with me?
Even though we were still fighting through the gales, I noticed the way Guido sent Vincenzo a sly look. They were talking about me! Later. I’d revisit that later.
Finally, at the garage that housed all the vehicles, we had one main problem.
It didn’t seem like any of the modes of transportation was going to get us to another part of the island. The wind was too bad. It’d probably knock us off the side of a cliff.
Then, at first, I thought we were experiencing an earthquake as the ground beneath my feet trembled, and it was rising to meet my face. Rocco had thrown his body on top of mine. I had missed the first part of the tremble. An explosion. It had blown by the dock. Pieces of debris rained down from the sky, landing right outside where we had been, and banging against the tile roof. I could see through a small crack in my husband’s arms.
Oh God, they’re bombing us!
Wait.
Was that applause and whistles?
We must have…what…shot at their boat? Made it explode?
“Mac,” Rocco said, groaning. “Mac. I’d sent him ashore earlier. He laced our boat with explosives.”
“Oh,” I breathed out. “So, when their boat approached, someone detonated the explosives and sacrificed our boat to take out theirs .”
“Corretto,” he said.
After a minute, when only the howling of the wind and the pounding of the rain remained, I barely squeezed out, “I can’t breathe, Rocco.”
He growled as he used his arms to roll over. But he was determined to sit up, and we started trying to help each other. Even when he was down, he still wanted to help me up. Somehow, he tangled himself around me, breathing me in.
“I’m sorry, Rocco,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry she sent them after you.”
He just kept kissing me, over and over, almost rocking me. Then he pushed back some, his eyes hard on my chest. I tried to cover the cut, but he refused to let me.
That was when I recognized it.
Why these men had fear in their eyes when they would only glance at my husband.
A beast was making his way to the surface of his green eyes, like a water monster from the deepest and darkest depths of the sea, about to present himself and turn my husband into something I didn’t recognize.
“It’s not that bad,” I rushed out. It really wasn’t. She got me, but I wouldn’t need stitches. It was a surface wound. “Your head, though…”
He didn’t even move out of my touch or flinch when I touched the area where she had hit him. It was swollen, and mostly clotted, but it still ran with blood, flooding his t-shirt. The head is vascular, I kept reminding myself over and over. He’s going to be okay. He was awake—more than awake.
The smell of my blood was in his nose, and he was about to hunt for me.
He used his back to brace himself against the wall—none of his men coming close to offer him help, like they knew better—as his powerful thighs lifted him up. I could tell he was fighting with himself to keep his eyes focused and his body straight. I remembered after Abree had hit me how the dizziness would come in sickening waves .
Abree was still screeching, trying to claw at Vincenzo, stabbing the air.
She could be a fabulous actress, like her sister, but I truly didn’t think she was putting on a show this time. She had snapped. Maybe impersonating a ghost had twisted her mind up. Or maybe it was the loss of her sister, but I didn’t think so. It seemed like the Caffi family was a family who were all separate but tied together by their gifts—their voices. And appearances and accolades came above anything else, even them.
I stood in front of Rocco, teetering a bit from the wind and the last couple of hours. I held his arm, like I just wanted to touch him, and I did, but I wanted him to feel my truth. I knew he could feel it, just like I could feel his. It was the most…unexplainable thing, but it was so real, like the storm raging around us.
“Rocco,” I whispered. “Let her go, my husband.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
I nodded, refusing to take my hand away from him.
He touched the back of my head, then my chest.
Oh, where she had hit me with the candelabra and cut me with the knife.
“I know.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I know, but…if you let her go, you’ll be free…of the voice, the truth in it. The truth that put loyalty toward your family above the truth in love.”
Something told me that, by setting Abree free, who, by all accounts, was like her sister’s twin, he would free himself. He never got the chance to have closure with Rosaria. Her sister was the closest thing to her, besides their sons. And Massimo, Amadeo, and Ludovico might as well be all Rocco’s. They were all Fausti men—through and through. Abree, apart from the mole above her lip, was the spitting image of Rosaria. And the way she carried on, I almost wondered if the last interaction between Rocco and Rosaria had been this way. She had even cut me with a knife, just like her sister had cut my husband .
“Trust me,” I mouthed to him, my hand slipping down his arm, my fingers entangling with his.
He stared into my eyes for a long minute, and then, keeping my hand in his, he stood in front of Abree. She quieted as she met his eyes.
“I understand,” he said in Italian, “and now I am setting you free, songbird.”
He gave Vincenzo a look. Vincenzo nodded, answering the silent order.
Rocco picked me up and headed in the opposite direction of the castello , fighting the wind and the rain. He took me to my apartment, where we waited out the storm together. I kept him awake, too anxious to let him sleep.
The next morning, the island was torn up, debris littering the streets, a general mess, but the inhabitants of the island had already started cleaning up. The island doctor checked Rocco’s head and gave him the same diagnosis Uncle Tito had given me after he stitched up Rocco’s wound. I’d already cleaned it.
Rocco was going to be fine.
I was going to be fine.
The darkest hours had passed.
Life was moving forward.
A rainbow seemed to stretch from the island to the shores of Italy.