CHAPTER 20 #2
I gripped the handle of Angelo's knife so hard my knuckles turned stark white.
The steel bit aggressively into my palm.
I didn't think about my family. I didn't think about the law, or God, or my brother.
I only thought about the heavy, desperate heat of Angelo's body driving into mine in that derelict shack an hour ago.
"Say goodbye, Ferraro," Silvio growled, leaning back to drive the blade down.
"Fiorella... run..." Angelo choked out, his eyes finding the hollow.
I didn't run.
I screamed—a feral, unrecognizable roar that ripped out of my throat—and launched myself out of the dirt.
I slammed into Silvio's side before he even registered I was there, driving the knife violently upward.
The blade caught him perfectly in the side of the neck.
It sank in with a horrifying, sickening ease, the initial resistance of the thick muscle immediately giving way to the soft, vital tissue beneath.
"Get away from him!" I shrieked, twisting the hilt.
"You... you bitch..." Silvio gurgled, dropping his knife as his hands flew up to his neck.
A hot, high-pressure spray of arterial blood erupted from the wound, hitting me dead in the face.
It was completely warm and incredibly sticky, washing over my skin like a totally unhinged, macabre baptism.
The schluck sound of the knife sliding in and out as Silvio flailed backward made my stomach heave, but I didn't let go until his body went totally rigid, swaying for a second before dropping like a lead weight into the mud.
I stumbled backward, my chest heaving, gasping for air that suddenly felt too thin to breathe. The heavy gurgle of Silvio’s final, pathetic breath faded into the dirt. I dropped the knife. It hit the roots with a dull clack.
I stared down at my hands. They were drenched in red.
The blood looked completely black in the harsh moonlight, thoroughly coating my fingers and dripping steadily onto the torn white silk of my slip.
I started to shake. Violent, uncontrollable tremors racked my shoulders.
I tried to wipe the blood off on my dress, but it only smeared, creating a massive, horrific stain across my chest.
I had broken the ultimate, unspoken rule of my bloodline. I had killed one of my own brother’s elite men. There was no going back to the estate. I was dead to them.
"I killed him. Angelo, I killed him," I babbled, the panic finally breaching my throat as I stared at the corpse.
Angelo didn't even look at Silvio. He pushed himself off the tree, ignoring his own bleeding shoulder, and stepped over the massive body. He loomed over me, his physical presence totally possessive, blocking out the moonlight.
"You saved us. Look at me, Fiorella."
I couldn't tear my eyes away from my dripping hands.
Angelo reached out, grabbing both of my wrists in a vise grip, and yanked my hands up right between our faces.
His eyes were like pitch-black oil slicks, staring me down with a look of terrifying, absolute reverence.
He ignored my violent shaking, his grip completely firm and unyielding.
He lifted his hand, using his calloused thumb to deliberately smear a streak of Silvio’s blood right across my cheekbone, marking me like I was his personal prize.
"They can't have you back now. You've tasted them," he said, his voice dropping into a dark, ragged register.
"I’m a murderer," I whispered, the words tasting like copper. "Just like you."
"No," he corrected roughly, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer. "You're a survivor. Just like me."
With a painfully slow, deliberate movement, Angelo brought my blood-soaked hand right up to his mouth.
He never broke eye contact. He parted his lips and ran his hot tongue firmly over my knuckles, licking away the cooling blood of my brother’s scout.
The absolute audacity of this man, the feral darkness of it, short-circuited my brain.
He worked methodically, cleaning each of my fingers with a terrifying, agonizing tenderness.
The psychological dominance of it was absolute.
He was making me own the violence, wrapping it in something primal and deeply erotic.
It was a violation and a sanctuary all mixed into one fucked-up gesture.
My knees buckled completely. I sagged forward, my head falling back against his chest as I surrendered to the ritual.
"You're mine now, Fiorella," he murmured against my wet skin, his breath hot against the blood. "Every drop of you."
"Don't stop... please..." I begged, my voice a pathetic, breathy wreck. The horror of what I just did was instantly entirely eclipsed by the frantic, obsessive need for him to keep touching me, to keep cleaning me.
He sucked the thickest part of the blood right from the deep crease of my palm, his lips lingering hard on my sensitive skin before he finally let go.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his own hand, leaving a dark, messy smudge across his jawline.
The bond was sealed. We were both stained with the exact same blood.
A sharp, shrill whistle pierced the air, echoing much closer down the ridge. A cold wind whipped through the trees, snapping a dead branch nearby. The adrenaline spiked back into my veins. The rest of the pack had found the trail.
I reached up with my clean hand and touched the side of his face, my fingers lightly tracing the blood I had just put there.
"We have to go," he said, his eyes scanning the tree line. "Can you run?"
"I can do anything you tell me to," I answered, and I meant every single word.
Angelo turned, retrieving the heavy ledger from the dirt. He picked up his combat knife, casually wiping the blade clean on Silvio’s jacket, before sliding it back into his sheath. He reached out and took my hand. He didn’t drag me this time. He intertwined our fingers, locking my palm against his.
I didn't look back at the clearing. I didn't look at Silvio's lifeless body, and I didn't think about Alessio.
I only watched the broad, solid line of Angelo's shoulders as we vanished into the thick mountain fog, just as the first chaotic beams of the main search party’s flashlights hit the bloody mud where the body lay.
"Into the high country," Angelo said quietly over his shoulder, his thumb rubbing the back of my hand. "They won't follow us there."
"Good," I muttered. "I never want to see the lowlands again."
The fog was wet and freezing against my face, my bare feet were completely numb from the rocks, and I had a dead man's blood drying in my hair. I tightened my grip on his hand and kept walking.