sends his regards.”
The room goes silent. Or maybe it’s the ringing in my ears that has drowned out all the noise. Whatever it is, I’m paralyzed. And it costs me because I hear the click first. I recognize what it is an instant before I feel the tear at my side, feel the cold of the blade as it cuts through skin and muscle as I hear what he said. As I make sense of it. As I understand.
Marcus grins.
I stumble backward, hand on my side, blood warm through my fingers.
“Back pocket,” he says. “Always check the back pocket. That’s a tip for you.” He picks up his gun, loads some bullets. “Not that you’ll need it.”
I drop to the edge of the bed.
David? My uncle?
“David sends his regards.” I hear it now. I hear him say it. I’d heard him then, too, but I couldn’t remember or didn’t want to remember.
My uncle was responsible? My uncle had my family slaughtered? My uncle had my mother raped?
“Oh, and one more thing.”
I look up. Marcus is at the door.
“Your wife is a dirty whore. I may never have fucked her but let me tell you something. After seeing her take her Uncle Jacob’s filthy dick, I really couldn’t get it up for her anymore. That’s some nasty shit.”
He goes on but I don’t hear any more words. Even his laughter is somehow tuned out. I’m not in control of my body anymore. It’s not even instinct. It’s rage. Pure, raw rage.
I’m across the room in an instant, the hilt of the blade from my side in my hand, a roar like that of an animal blotting out the heavy metal as I take him down, both of us landing heavy on the black floor in this back room.
Marcus’s eyes have gone wide, the gun knocked from his hand with the impact.
I don’t think. I don’t breathe. I don’t feel the pain of my wound as I hold his head down with one bloodied hand, leaning all my weight into it because I can’t keep myself upright, as I raise my knife hand and bring it down into his jugular.
23
Scarlett
Something’s wrong. I feel it.
It’s been hours since Cristiano left, and Noah still isn’t back. I’m anxiously sitting in Cristiano’s bedroom watching for either of them.
I glance at the pouch and the contents I’ve scattered on the bed. The gun looks ominous and I know it’s for my own protection, but I don’t want it. I don’t want Noah to have it. I don’t want either of us to have to use it.
There’s ten thousand dollars in cash along with the two passports with our new identities. American passports. I have no idea if they’re good forgeries or not, but I guess they are. The key is to a BMW.
Cerberus sits beside me looking out the window. He must feel it too, this anxiety. This feeling that something has gone wrong.
“Everything will be okay,” I tell him. It’s a lie. I have no idea if anything will be okay.
He sets his head on my lap with a small whimper.
Did Cristiano find Marcus? Is that why he’s given me this pouch? Shown me the way off the island. I know this is the one thing that’s kept him alive. His hate. His need for vengeance. The drive to kill Marcus Rinaldi. Does he still intend to be done with things now, though? Done with life once he’s had his revenge? I know the passports didn’t happen overnight. He’s put some planning into it. But what’s happened between us, hasn’t that changed anything for him?
The sound of a speedboat has me running to the window. I’m not sure if Cristiano left by chopper or boat. I heard both earlier. I can’t see who is on the boat before it disappears around the corner.
“Let’s go,” I tell Cerberus after shoving the money and passports back into the pouch and tucking it and the gun under my pillow.
My pillow.
How quickly I’ve come to call it mine.
Cerberus follows me out the door and down the stairs where I already hear Noah.
I breathe a small sigh of relief when I see him. He’s talking with another soldier, someone I don’t know, and the older man laughs at what he says. Cristiano is nowhere among the half-dozen men who enter, but Dante is. His eyes track me as I make my way to my brother.
I don’t like Dante and I don’t trust him. The feeling is mutual, I know.
“Scarlett,” Noah