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No. No. No, there had to be another way. No. I wouldn’t.
“Please, Santino. What’s love anyway, without sacrifice?” She pressed her face harder against the bars. “Now kiss me and send me home the only way you can.”
Slowly, I leaned down and picked up the blanket, hands shaking, I rolled it up until it was tight, then I very slowly wrapped it around her neck. I tugged her forward with it and kissed her. Mouth hungry to taste her one last time, my body needy to prove to her that I was hers and always hers.
My desperation turned to searing agony as I kissed her slowly and pulled the blanket tight.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “I’ll see you soon.”
I nodded. “Sooner than you know.”
“Meet you in the lighting aisle?”
“Keep the lights on, Katya.”
I pulled tight.
And the last bits of my soul left my body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse wouldn’t quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.” – Frank Abagnale Sr.
Santino
The clock went off. The alarm filled the room. But I couldn’t look away from her lifeless body, lying on the ground as if she was just napping, when I knew the truth.
“Send me home the only way you can,” she’d begged me.
Whispered.
I wanted to beat the clock into submission, but it was on her side. It just kept ringing and ringing and ringing, reminding me of what we’d just done.
I wanted her to say something.
I wanted to say something back.
Maybe my father was right. In the end—I was just like him.
The sound of footsteps echoing down the cement floor didn’t even get me to budge. I just sat there and counted, one, two, three, four, five, six—the hallway was clearly long.
I remembered the room she’d been in with her brother. Given the longer hallway, I assumed we were on the main level of the lighthouse, but it was definitely the same place.
My dirty hands shook to wipe away the tears on my cheeks. The snick of a key in the lock and the squeak of the door opening filled the room.
I checked the clock and tried not to panic, I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of what I was about to do, but I would fight.
To my death.
“Where’s my bride-to-be—” Mattia stopped talking and stared at her lifeless form on the floor. “What the hell is this?”
“I killed her,” I whispered. “So you wouldn’t.”
“You fucking idiot!” Mattia came over to the bars and kicked them, then ran out of her room, ripped open her door, and ran back to mine. He charged me with a knife. I dodged the first stab, but the second connected with my hands before driving into my shoulder.
I stumbled backward. Then, with all the strength I had left, I kneed him in the balls, took his own knife and pointed it toward him, stabbed him in the chest, then knocked him out with my head.
Guards would be outside.
