He came for me, and I am here for him. Our scars create the single line of a life.
We’re going to leave here together.
Arms out, I go to him, and at first, he seems ready to engage my embrace. Give us one holy second before we have to rush out the door forever.
But I’m still two steps away when his attention moves to my left and he raises the arm he’d relaxed, shouting the word “no!” too late for God to hear.
CHAPTER 28
DARIO
Sergio on the floor. Sarah putting bullets into him—over and over—until the hammer clicks uselessly. The doctor’s sitting with his arms loose at his sides and his back to the wall—maybe dead. I barely looked at him long enough to discern whether he’s a threat.
I don’t ask myself how he got out of that room or about the source of the blood on his chin.
My mistake. Again. With her hair pulled out of its nest, her breasts heaving inside the torn dress, and the hot-barreled gun dropping to the floor, she’s a wild creature. Fearsome. Majestic. When she looks at me as if I’m the only man on Earth, I’m frozen in awe—rendered useless by her beauty.
Not her beauty, though she’s more beautiful in this condition than any other woman has ever been… it’s her power that pins me in place for a split second too long.
The doctor isn’t dead.
He lunges for Sarah with the speed of a last chance about to be lost, grabbing her by the throat and holding her in front of him. She claws and twists, but before I can get to them, he gets the wedding knife at her throat. I freeze.
“Dario,” she chokes out, trying to fight him off. She has to stop. They keep that knife razor sharp.
“Shh.” He tightens his grip. “Before you get your throat cut by accident.”
She stills herself. I have one bullet left, and if I send it for him, it could hit her. It could hit him, and he could slit her throat on the way down. He could startle and cut her artery. She could bleed to death right in front of me.
“You got out.” I move left, looking for an angle, but he moves Sarah between us.
“Did you know the human jaw can exert enough force to cut tendon between the carpal and metacarpal bones of the thumb?”
He bit off the guard’s thumb. That explains the blood on his chin and how he got out. It doesn’t tell me what he wants, it only tells me how badly he wants it.
“Then you came up here to die?” I shift left again, and he shifts with me.
“I know you love her,” he says. “You can stop acting like you’ll shoot at me as long as you might hit her.”
“And if you kill her, I have a clean shot.”
His last shift leaves him against the wall, under the portrait of Peter Colonia.
“I died the day I lost my daughter.” His back is fully against the wall now.
“Because you sold her! You dumb fuck! She ran away!”
He does something I’m not prepared for. He cuts Sarah, separating her earlobe from her head. Blood runs down her neck. The sight of it sends me into a rage, but it’s the way she bites back her scream that keeps my rational mind from being consumed.
“Where is she?” the doctor howls. “Where is Rosemarie Palmeri?”
The sight of her blood weakens me. It has to stop.
“She’s alive. She’s fine.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Now!”
Sarah closes her eyes as the knife makes a dent in her neck. I hope she’s praying, because I don’t have the luxury. Her quietness, her trust, and her patience are a necessity. One wrong move and she’s dead. I can’t lose her.
“How?” I ask, spreading my arms so the gun’s harmlessly aimed away. Above them, her father’s steely gaze mocks my dickless question. “I’ve been living in a box with nothing. How am I supposed to let you talk to her?”
He whispers something in Sarah’s ear. I can’t hear it. I don’t like it. I want his murderous teeth away from her. I want to get her out from under her father.
“Palmeri,” I growl when I can’t take another second of this shit. He puts the knife to the soft part of her throat. She nods. “What’s going on? What are you telling her?”
Sarah pats his hip as he talks to her, then she reaches his jacket pocket and pulls out a phone.
“Good girl.” He praises her. It’s my heart in a woodchipper. He has no right.
“I’m going to rip you to shreds,” I threaten from the bottom of my balls.
Someone rushes in and stops short. I can’t look away from Sarah to save my own life.
“What…?” Oria stops. “Dario.”
“Shush,” I grunt.
Palmeri glances behind me, then says, “She’s going it throw it to you, and you’re going to call my daughter.”
“Who’s his…?” Mid-sentence, Oria realizes what he’s demanding. “Nuh-uh. No.”
“Oria. Shut it.”
I don’t want to hear all the reasons I shouldn’t call Rosemarie. It will give away the location of twenty-seven women. It will open them up to recapture. The Colonia will descend on them like a storm, and I’ll probably be killed anyway.
I know it. I know it all. But it’s the only chance Sarah will make it out of this gallery.
“Lucari!” The doctor shouts me out of the reverie of consequences, pressing the knife to her throat. The skin breaks. It’s a nick, but it bleeds with her ear.
“Throw it to me, Sarah.” I hold out my hand to catch it.
She can’t shake her head to refuse, but she doesn’t want to. She’s ready to die for those women, but I’ll never let her. I’ll tear down the sky before I let that happen.
“Don’t do this,” Oria mutters at my side. “Massimo Colonia’s right behind you. He’ll hear everything. He can track the number. That’s how he got her.”
“Throw it to me, prima. Trust me.”
Sarah hesitates until I ask for her trust, which I’m about to betray, and tosses me the phone. I catch it with one hand.
“When I hear her voice,” Palmeri says, “I’ll let this one go. Then you can shoot me. I don’t care.”
“Don’t do it,” Oria hisses.
“But if I don’t hear my daughter, because you’re a liar or she’s dead, I’ll slit her throat. I know just where to cut it.”
The keypad blurs before me.
Do I remember the number?
“Hurry up, Lucari. The wedding knife’s getting impatient to cut a bride.”
I put my thumb to the first digit of the calling code. That’s all they’ll need, really. It’s a small island. After that, there are only a couple of prefix codes.
They’ll know exactly where to find them.
I tap the code, then I know the rest of the number by the shape of it.
“No, Dario,” Oria squeaks.
I expect her to knock the phone out of my hand, but she doesn’t. When it rings, I look at her and know why. Massimo’s behind her with his gun to her head. My vision is so tunneled on Sarah, I didn’t even sense him right there.
“You happy now?” I ask Massimo when the speakerphone trills the second ring.