Chapter 21
Mina
Ipeer through the gap in Leon’s bedroom curtains, my hand shaking as I hold the fabric aside.
Below, in the garden, Cristiano moves among the rosebushes with Paulo and Nico. They’re wrapping bodies in plastic sheets. The men Cristiano killed. He’s favoring his left side, and there’s blood soaking through his shirt, dark stains spreading across his midsection and shoulder.
My hands tighten on the curtain. He should be lying down.
He should be getting medical attention, but instead, he’s helping Paulo drag a body toward the garage, working methodically and indifferently.
From the calm way Cristiano is acting, I know with horrible certainty that it’s not the first time he’s killed.
My stomach lurches, and I taste bile.
The garden was supposed to be our wedding venue. White roses and fairy lights and Leon as our page boy. Everyone we love celebrating us. But the garden is soaked in blood. The daydream we spun, that beautiful fantasy where we made each other whole, is crumbling to dust.
I’m left with the cold, harsh reality of dead men wrapped in plastic and my son’s father moving among the bodies like it’s just another day.
The garden shifts and blurs, and I see a different scene down there in my mind’s eye.
The man moving between the roses is Cristiano, but he looks so much like Don Agnello it’s startling.
A boy is cowering near the fountain. Leon, a little older than he is now, perhaps ten, with amber eyes and dark curls, trying to make himself small as his father rages at him.
I can’t hear Cristiano’s seething words, but I can see the cold fury in his eyes. The sharp gesticulations that have my baby cringing away from the enormous, enraged man looming over him.
And then the worst thing possible happens. Cristiano strikes our son across his face with the back of his hand, and the little boy stumbles backward into the roses, thorns tearing at his clothes.
Please, Papa, I’m sorry.
Leon’s childish pleading rings in my head, but Cristiano is unmoved. He hits my baby again, and Leon is bleeding now, and he’s trying not to cry because crying only makes it worse.
Cristiano’s hand rises a third time.
“No!” The word tears from my throat, and I whirl away from the window and the imaginary scene.
My eyes land on Leon, safely tucked into bed with Mom beside him while she strokes his curls. He’s all right. It was just my mind playing tricks on me.
But I saw Cristiano’s face this afternoon, cold and unfeeling as he killed those men.
Exactly like his father. What if this is the cycle?
Violence passed from father to son as sure as the amber eyes.
They become their fathers, no matter how gentle they seem at the beginning. The violence is always there, waiting.
I can’t let Leon become the next victim.
“Mom, I have to leave.” The words come out steadier than I feel, but my heart is shattering with every syllable. “Right now. Before he comes back inside. And I have to take Leon with me.”
Mom looks up from Leon, her face is pale but composed.
She’s been here since Cristiano’s men bundled us upstairs, keeping Leon calm while I fall apart.
I’ve never been this afraid of him. Not even when he locked me in the wardrobe.
Not even when he tied me up. Because this time, I’m not afraid for myself. I’m afraid for our son.
She nods slowly and stands up. “You can slip out the side gate while Cristiano is distracted. Take the bus to Rosa’s.”
Leon looks from Mom to me, his little brow scrunched in confusion. “Where are we going, Mama? I don’t want to go. I want to stay here.”
I look at Leon sitting up in bed, so trusting and innocent. What if Leon had looked out the window and seen his father beating a man to death?
I quickly smile at Leon. “We’re going to see Auntie Rosa so you can play with your cousins. Won’t that be fun?”
“Is Cristiano coming too?” my son asks.
My throat spasms with agony. He loves Cristiano, and I’m taking him away. “Not right now, baby.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Mom says quietly. “Taking him somewhere safe.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. But it still hurts so much.
I move to Leon’s bed and gather him into my arms, wrapping the blanket around him. His medication is on the nightstand, and I grab the bottles with shaking hands, shoving them into my sweater pocket.
“Will you be okay?” I ask Mom. “What if Cristiano gets angry.”
Mom straightens up, her face resolute. “I’ll be fine. I’ve weathered many Montoni tempers in this house, and do you know what I’ve realized after all these years?”
“What?”
“They only hurt the ones they love.”
The truth of those words feels like shards of glass in my heart.
I carry Leon toward the door, my whole body trembling. Every step feels impossible. Every breath hurts. I’m fleeing this house for a second time in my life with a broken heart.
At the doorway, I pause and look back at my mother.
“I love him,” I whisper. “How can I still love him after what I just saw?”
My mother’s eyes are bright with tears. “Go now, quickly. While they’re distracted by other things.”
I take a deep breath and nod, hardening my heart as much as I can against the pain.
I move through the hallway and down the stairs quietly, my heart pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. Leon is a warm weight in my arms, trusting me completely to keep him safe.
And I will keep him safe. No matter what.
The living room downstairs is deserted. I slip out the French doors and through the garden to the side gate. I can hear voices in the distance. Cristiano giving orders, the scrape of something heavy being dragged across stone.
I don’t look back. I keep my eyes forward, focused on the side gate ahead. Leon shifts slightly in my arms but mercifully doesn’t speak.
The gate opens with a soft creak that sounds deafening in the quiet. I freeze, listening. The voices continue. They haven’t heard.
I slip through and onto the street beyond, walking quickly but not running. Running would draw attention. The afternoon sun is warm on my shoulders. The world looks exactly the same as it did this morning when I kissed Cristiano in the kitchen and everything felt perfect.
I walk toward the bus stop two blocks away, my arms aching from Leon’s weight. Every few steps I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Cristiano emerging from the gate, his face cold with rage, but the street behind me stays empty.
I’m maybe a dozen yards from the house when I hear the engine. A car pulls up beside us, black, expensive, and familiar.
I start to panic until I see the face at the wheel.
Adora.
She gets out after just one look at my face. “Mina. What happened?”
Those familiar amber eyes are filled with concern.
“There are bodies in the back garden. Men came through the gates, and Cristiano— I saw everything and— I have to get Leon out of here.”
I start crying, ugly sobs that I can’t control. Leon stirs against my shoulder.
“Mama, what’s wrong?”
Adora’s expression shifts from surprise to grim understanding.
“Come with me,” she says. “Vincenzo and I will protect you, I promise. You’re family.”
I need to get Leon somewhere safe. I need space to think and be somewhere Leon won’t see dead bodies or blood or the cold look in Cristiano’s eyes when he admitted he felt nothing as he killed four men. But I hesitate. I don’t know that Adora’s home is any safer than the one I’m fleeing.
Adora sees my reluctance and grips my shoulder. “The men who attacked Cristiano had wolf tattoos, didn’t they?”
“How did you know?”
Several emotions flit across her face. “Dark things have been happening in Malus these past few weeks. I can tell you about it once we’re home, but I promise that the men who attacked Cristiano won’t come near you or your son while you’re with us. You’ll be safe, I promise.”
Cristiano promised me we were safe with him, and look how that turned out. The memory of those dangerous men in the garden with their eyes filled with hatred for Cristiano tells me there are so many things I don’t understand about their world, and there are so many things to fear.
But Rosa can’t protect me right now, and she won’t thank me for bringing danger to her doorstep. Adora seems to understand what’s going on, and I cling to her understanding like it’s a lifebelt.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
Adora helps me into her car with gentle hands. Leon is bundled on my lap.
I thought we might actually be a family, and that Leon might have a father. I hoped that I might get to love Cristiano without being terrified of him.
All of that has crumbled to dust.
As the Montoni mansion disappears behind us, it feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest.
I try to feel grateful for the guest room in Adora and Vincenzo’s home, which has gray walls, white linens, and a large, comfortable bed. I haven’t met her husband yet, but I told Adora and Vincenzo’s aunt Sofia that I was more than happy to share with Leon. Right now, I need to be close to my son.
He’s asleep now, dwarfed by the expanse of a white comforter. I arranged his medication on the nightstand in neat rows and checked his bandage twice. Kissed his forehead and whispered that everything would be okay.
I’m certain I’m lying.
Now I’m pacing, my chest so tight I can barely breathe.
Dusk is falling outside, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold. The beauty of it feels wrong. This house feels wrong. Everything feels wrong.
I move to the window, needing air and a distraction. I have a view of the front lawn, which is tightly manicured. There are no trees which attackers could hide behind or where bodies could fall. No rosebushes to be spattered with blood.
My gaze travels to the secure front gates, and then the quiet street beyond.
I freeze.