Chapter 20
Cristiano
The afternoon sun is warm on my shoulders as I move carefully between the rosebushes, garden shears in hand.
It’s been five weeks since I was discharged, and I’m stronger than the day I nearly fainted in the shower, but I’m still not supposed to be doing any of this.
Lifting my arms, bending, exerting myself.
But I need to do something other than lie in bed all day.
Besides, this is for Mina. I’m cutting flowers for her. All her favorites that I know she loves and she was never allowed to pick from Don Agnello’s garden.
She kissed me this morning before going to check on Leon. A quick, casual kiss that felt like the most natural thing in the world.
This garden is Don Cristiano’s now, and all my flowers are for her.
I’m examining a particularly perfect bloom when I hear tires on gravel. I look up to see Leon’s surgical consultant’s car pulling away through the front gates. Dr. Silva, leaving after Leon’s weekly checkup. I lift a hand in acknowledgment as he drives past, then turn back to the roses.
The gates are still closing when movement catches my eye.
There’s a strange phtt phtt sound, and then the two guards I posted at the gates slump against the stone pillars. Dark stains spreading across their chests where bullets punched through.
Silenced shots.
My blood runs cold.
Four men push through the gates before it can fully close, moving with the kind of precision that comes from training and experience. Tattoos crawl up their arms, and I see wolves with their teeth bared among them. Lucania soldiers. All of them armed.
Horror floods through me as understanding hits.
I’ve been so consumed with Mina and Leon and our perfect little world that I stopped thinking about the Lucanias and the consequences for leaving them with their mess.
And they’ve been watching me. Waiting for exactly this moment. The doctor’s visit. The gates opening. Me alone in the garden with nothing but shears in my hand.
They’ve been patient.
And now they’re here to collect what I owe them.
I drop the shears and lunge for the shovel leaning against the stone wall, diving behind the thick trunk of the oak tree. My incision screams in protest, but I ignore it. Pain doesn’t matter right now.
I should call for Paulo and Nico. One shout and they’d come running.
But if I shout, Mina might hear. Mrs. Santoro might hear. They’d come out here to see what’s wrong, and these men would put a bullet in their heads without thinking twice.
I can’t risk it.
The four men spread out across the lawn, flanking my position with the kind of coordination that tells me these are Rafiel’s best soldiers. Men who know how to hunt.
Men who know how to kill.
One of them calls out, his voice carrying easily across the garden. “Montoni! You left us to die. Left our brothers bleeding in the streets while you played house with your whore. Now you get to see how it feels.”
My hand tightens on the shovel until my knuckles go white.
I watch through the leaves as one of them breaks formation, moving closer to investigate the hedge. He’s being cautious but not cautious enough. He passes within three feet of my hiding spot.
I wait until he’s committed to the step, weight forward, gun pointed the wrong direction.
Then I move.
The shovel catches him across the temple before he can turn. The crack of metal on bone is sickeningly loud. He drops like a puppet with cut strings, his gun clattering to the grass.
I’m on him before his body stops twitching. One hand grabs the gun while the other raises the shovel and brings it down on his skull again. Making sure. I can’t afford to leave anyone alive behind me.
Bullets tear through the hedge where I was standing a second ago, leaves and branches exploding in a shower of green. I roll behind the tree trunk, pressing my back against the rough bark, the dead man’s gun heavy in my grip.
That’s when I see her.
Mina.
Standing in the open kitchen doorway, one hand braced against the frame, her face pale as death.
She stares at the corpse, and then at me with a gun in one hand, blood splattered across my shirt.
No.
No, no, no. She can’t be here. She needs to go inside where it’s safe. She needs to take Leon and lock themselves in his room and not come out until this is over.
But she’s frozen. Shock has locked her in place.
A man with a baseball bat is moving toward my position from the left, using the fountain for cover. Another has spotted Mina and changed direction. He’s got a knife in his hand, and he’s closing the distance between them with quick, purposeful strides.
Time stretches and slows.
I can shoot the man with the bat. The one who’s almost on top of me. The one who’ll cave my skull in if I don’t stop him right now.
Or I can save Mina.
There’s no choice at all.
I raise the gun and fire.
The shot echoes across the garden like thunder. The man advancing on Mina jerks backward, a hole blooming red in the back of his head. The knife falls from his hand as he crumples.
The bat connects with my ribs before I can turn.
Pain explodes through my abdomen. White-hot and all-consuming. I feel something tear deep inside, feel warmth spreading under my shirt even before my knees hit the grass. The gun falls from my grip.
Mina screams. The sound cuts through everything.
I look up through a haze of pain and see the man with the bat raising it again, his face twisted with rage and satisfaction. He’s going to bring it down on my head. Going to finish this.
“PAULO!” I roar with what little breath I have left. “NICO! GET HER INSIDE. DON’T LET THEM TOUCH HER.”
There are running footsteps from within the house. My men appear behind Mina, guns drawn.
“Protect them!” I’m on my knees, one hand pressed to the wet heat spreading across my side, trying to hold myself together. “GET HER INSIDE. AT ALL COSTS.”
Paulo reaches Mina first. She fights him. God, she fights like a wild thing, trying to get to me, her hands reaching out, my name breaking from her throat over and over.
“Cristiano! No! Let me go! CRISTIANO.”
But Paulo is twice her size, and he knows what I’m asking him to do. He lifts her body off her feet while she screams and claws at his arms.
Our eyes meet across the blood-soaked garden.
She’s terrified. Not of the Lucania soldiers. Of me. For me. Because of me. I can’t tell anymore.
Paulo pulls her inside, and she’s still fighting him, still calling my name, and then the door slams shut and she’s gone.
She’s safe.
Leon is safe.
Nothing else matters.
The man with the bat swings again. I throw myself sideways and the weapon whistles past my ear, close enough that I feel the wind of its passage. My hand closes around the gun I dropped and I bring it up blind and fire.
The shot hits him in the chest. He staggers but doesn’t fall. Body armor under his jacket. Fucking hell.
I fire again. This time I aim for his head.
He drops.
Two men left. One is taking cover behind the fountain, firing calculated shots that keep me pinned down. The other is trying to flank me, moving through the roses with his weapon up and ready.
I’m bleeding badly. I can feel it soaking through my shirt, running down my side in warm rivulets. My vision is starting to blur at the edges, going soft and dark.
But Mina is inside. Leon is inside.
They’re safe because I made sure of it.
These men scared my Mina. Made her scream. Made her cry.
Rage floods through me like gasoline on fire, hot and clarifying, burning away the pain and the weakness and the fear. I can see clearly again. Think clearly again.
I lurch to my feet.
The man flanking me through the roses raises his gun, but I’m faster. Three shots to the face, and he goes down hard, crashing through the rosebushes where I was cutting flowers for Mina just minutes ago. I shoot a fourth time, but the gun clicks uselessly in my hand.
The last man behind the fountain lines up the shot that will end this.
“For our brothers,” he says.
I drop the empty gun and grab the baseball bat from the dead man at my feet.
He fires.
The bullet tears across my shoulder, spinning me halfway around. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything except the need to kill him.
For threatening my family.
For scaring Mina.
He fires again as I charge. Misses. His eyes go wide as he realizes his mistake.
Then I’m on him.
The bat comes down on his skull with all the strength I have left. He crumples, but I don’t stop. I bring it down again. And again. And again.
“You scared my Mina.” The words come out in a growl I barely recognize as my own voice. “You threatened my Mina. You made her scream.”
The bat rises and falls. Rises and falls. His head has stopped looking like a head, but I can’t make my arms stop swinging.
“You came into my garden. Where my son will play. Where she walks. Where we’re supposed to be safe.”
Something in his skull gives way with a wet crunch, and still I keep hitting him.
For every moment of terror in her eyes. For every scream that tore from her throat. For the way she fought Paulo trying to get to me because she thought I was going to die.
For ruining everything.
The bat is slippery with blood. My blood, his blood, I don’t know anymore. My arms are shaking. The sky is spinning.
I let the bat fall from my grip.
Silence crashes down over the garden like a wave.
Four bodies sprawled across the grass. Blood soaking into the soil around the roses. The white blooms I cut for Mina are splattered red, the stems scattered where I dropped them.
I straighten slowly, my whole body screaming in protest. There’s a ringing in my ears that won’t stop. My shirt is drenched and sticking to my skin.
That’s when I see her.
Mina is standing at the edge of the garden once more. She’s broken free from Paulo and Nico somehow and come back out here.
Despite the danger. Despite the bodies. Despite everything.
She came back.
For me.
Paulo and Nico tumble out the door behind her. They take me in, standing there amid the carnage, four dead bodies littered around me, and they see it’s over. They don’t try and grab hold of Mina again.
But Mina’s not running to me. She’s not fighting to get to the man she loves anymore. She’s just standing there with one hand pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her face, as she takes in the corpses. The blood all over me. She stares at me like I’m someone she’s never seen before.
Like she’s finally seeing what I really am.
A man who beats men to death with a baseball bat, who keeps hitting long after they’re dead because they dared to threaten what’s mine.
I take a step toward her. My bloodied hand reaches out to her.
She takes a step back.
That single step destroys me more completely than any weapon could.
“Mina. Go back in the house. Mina, please, just go inside and lock the door behind you. Everything’s all right.”
“Your face was so cold as you—as you—” She stops, and swallows like she’s trying not to be sick.
My face was so cold as I beat a man to a pulp.
Her voice is shaking so badly I can barely understand the words. “Do you feel anything? Any remorse?”
I open my mouth to lie. To tell her what she wants to hear. That I’m sorry. That it was self-defense. That I hated every second of it.
But she’ll hear the lie. She always finds me out.
“This is what I have to do to keep you and Leon safe.”
“Safe?” Her laugh is high and hysterical. “You call this safe? There are dead men in the garden. Our son is upstairs. They could have—” She makes a wounded noise that cuts deeper than any blade.
“How can you feel nothing? How?” she cries.
“They threatened my family,” I say, because I need her to understand even though I know she won’t.
“They came here with weapons. They killed my guards. They were going to hurt you, and I feel nothing for men like that. I’d kill a hundred more without hesitation if it meant keeping you and Leon safe. ”
She’s backing away from me now, slow steps that put more distance between us with each word.
“Feeling something wouldn’t change anything.” I try to take another step toward her, but my legs give out, and I have to catch myself on the tree. “They’d still be dead. I’d still have done it. The only thing that matters is that you’re safe.”
“Stop.” She holds up both hands like she’s warding off a monster. “Just stop. I can’t listen to this. I can’t look at you right now.”
“Mama?” Leon’s voice drifts from inside the house, high and frightened. “Mama, where are you?”
Mina’s face crumples. Fresh tears spill down her cheeks, and she looks toward the house, then back at me.
“I have to go.” Her voice breaks completely. “Leon needs me, and I can’t—I can’t be here.”
“Mina, please.” I’m begging now, and I don’t care. “Please don’t go. Let me explain. Let me make you understand—”
“Don’t follow me.” She’s crying so hard she can barely get the words out. “Don’t come near us. Just don’t.”
She turns and runs.
I watch her disappear into the house, and I’m still standing here in my ruined garden surrounded by dead men and destroyed roses, blood dripping from my hands onto the white petals I picked for her.
She kissed me. This morning she kissed me, and I kissed her back like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Now I’ve turned into a monster again in her eyes, and our perfect happy ending is in ruins.