“What are—” His eyes widen when I put the blade to the bend in his thumb. “No!”
“Stay still or I’ll slit your throat.”
“Please!”
Pulling the razor upward, I slice through skin and tendon, scraping bone as he screams with whatever air the weight of my knee lets into his lungs. When he gasps for air, I hear a loud pop and the tinkling of broken glass from the hallway.
His screams have turned to sobs when I hit the middle of the pad of his thumb.
“Poor baby,” I grumble, sawing away the last bit of gristle, careful to avoid getting too much blood on the print.
“What are you doing?” Oria’s feet are bloody. She didn’t think ahead and jump over the glass.
“Getting us out of here.”
“Oh God, oh God,” the doctor sobs.
“This guy’s a fucking dick.” She smacks open a drawer and finds a revolver. “These dumbasses don’t have a gun cabinet.”
I barely hear her over the doctor’s screams. When the fingerprint is separated from its original owner, I stand, and press it to the pad, and the red light turns to green. I push down the lever, and the door unlatches. I check on Oria. She’s ready.
“You first,” I say.
I exit behind her and close the door. Let the good doctor figure out how to open it without a thumbprint.
I have a wedding to interrupt.
CHAPTER 27
SARAH
The sound comes at the first drop of blood. It’s just a rustle. A sigh. The grunt an old man makes when he reaches down to pick up his glasses.
No one seems to notice it. Guns stay in holsters. The hands of the bride and groom remain linked. Father Martino continues the cut.
Sergio, however, tenses like a cat.
“Don’t move, cookiepuss.” With his free hand, he reaches into his jacket, and just by the way he does it, I know he’s not getting out his handkerchief.
I back up, ready to turn and run. No plan, no goal, no end point. Just away from him. But he tightens his fingers like vises. I’ll have to chew my arm off to get away.
When Sergio pulls out his gun, Father Martino stops cutting, freezing the knife before it opens Sergio’s skin.
A woman screams. A thud. Another cry.
“Cut it!” Sergio barks in Father Martino’s face.
“In the name of God.” He presses down the blade.
A blossom of red crowns the back of the priest’s head, and he drops to the floor. The gunshot’s single report happens over and over. More screaming. Running. Chaos streams from the north side of the chamber, toward where we stand in the center. Massimo draws his weapon and heads into the fray.
Sergio lets go of my hand and shoots at something. I spin to run, but I underestimated Sergio’s ability to react to a real threat, and he grabs me by Amara’s updo. I pull against him. My foot slips on the foam of Father Martino’s brain, then both lose their connection to the earth.
“No!” I grip his arm to get it off, but he’s tangled, pulling me toward the nearest exit. I can’t get my legs under me.
Raymond waits under the small arch of one of the rear exits. His gun is out too, but he doesn’t seem to know where to point it.
“What’s going on?” Ray asks Sergio when I’m pulled close enough to hear him.
“Lucari’s out,” Sergio answers, yanking my hair so hard I trip.
Or maybe I lose my footing because of what he said.
Lucari’s out.
How does he know? Is he sure? Am I allowed to hope that Dario’s free without the trade? That my life won’t have to forfeit for his?
“How do you—?” Ray starts.
“Logic!” Sergio shouts over the din. I get on my feet, managing runaway hope. “Now get out of the way!”
“I got orders.”
Even I can see his orders are a moot point. The screams and gunshots bouncing around the Dome erase anything Massimo said to him before the ceremony began.
“No one leaves until you guys are cut,” Raymond continues.
Sergio raises his gun. I think he’s going to use it to inspire Ray to move out of the way. But he shoots him without another word. Ray’s chest explodes, and he falls back, heels up, arms forward, gun detaching from his fist, as he’s thrust into the room beyond.
“Let’s go.” Sergio pulls me into the dimly lit gallery.
I pull back, clawing at his arm. He reaches back to grab me, but I trip on Ray’s twitching leg. My elbow takes the impact of my weight on the stone floor. It would hurt if I had a minute to feel pain, but the sight of the black L of Ray’s gun lying harmlessly next to him, like a cherished familiar, fills me with too much hope to feel hurt.
I reach for it. Touch it. Fingertip against the handle, it spins at my touch.
“Nice try.” Sergio grabs my ankle and pulls me away.
My dress rides up. I try to catch hold of the grooves between the stones, as if there will ever be enough space for me.
“Let her go!” A man’s voice booms in the gallery. It’s not Dario. That’s the only thing I can tell about it. “She’s not yours.”
I look up. It’s Dr. Palmeri. The bottom of his face is covered in blood as if he’s eaten a meal of raw meat. He’s holding the ceremonial wedding knife with a bleeding thumb that doesn’t look right.
“Shut up, doc.” Sergio sends a bullet for the doctor, but he’s off balance with me. It misses.
Palmeri charges forward.
“Shit.” Sergio lets go of my ankle.
I scramble for Ray’s body, crawling to the gun. I grab it and roll onto my back, pointing it upward with both fists. I expect someone above me, ready to take me someplace I don’t want to go, but all I see is ceiling.
I get up quickly. Between me and the arch to the Dome—where the commotion has quieted somewhat—Sergio and Palmeri are locked in a fierce embrace, hand to hand as Sergio struggles to keep the wedding knife from coming down on him and the doctor struggles to keep the gun pointed at the floor. I don’t know what miscalculation allowed Dr. Palmeri to get that close to Sergio without getting shot, but that’s my cue to back away, gun shaking but lifted toward them.
I’m too slow. Sergio throws Palmeri off him. Sees me. Aims for the doctor before he’s charged again.
Palmeri’s life means nothing to me—I’m not trying to save it—but there’s a hundredth of a second to spare before my own life’s meaning will be decided.
I squeeze the trigger.
Massimo’s leg was a fortunate mistake I won’t make again. Cringing, blinded by determination, I pull the trigger over and over, aiming in Sergio’s direction until the gun stops recoiling and clicks ineffectively.
Sergio’s on the floor, his blood pouring into the rivulets between the stones.
I hit him in the throat.
I did it. It may have taken ten bullets to kill him, or it may have been the first, but he’ll never call me another nonsense pet name.
“Prima?”
Dario’s voice is sharp enough to cut the cord between life and death. The sight of him outside that cell ties them back together. He is shirtless, ragged, wiry, and taut with eyes that blaze bright enough to set me on fire. The gun falls from my fingers. The clacking sound it makes melts into the hitched sob from my chest.