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“A quick death would be undeserved and too easy for you. Do you know how many years I invested in Dusan to make him the face of the Association? Or the blood and tears I shed as I built our import/export business? Or the nights I bit my tongue as I pimped him out to women with connections to further my ambitions? Of course, you don’t.”
“You were behind everything?” I stare at her in horror. “You knew about the child trafficking?”
“Of course, I knew. Do you know how lucrative that economy is on the black market? And I was perfectly placed to take advantage by using my legitimate enterprise to smuggle them out of the country.” Her voice becomes more strained the longer she talks. “Is the fact my product was children the driving force behind you? You had a desire to play the hero? You let your savior complex rob me of the most precious gift in my life.”
Anger floods my body. If I move now, I’ll die. Despite having a gun pointed at me, the calling to take her to my cabin rises inside me. I hide the motions of my right hand as I dig between the armrest and seat cushion for the blade I stashed there. “Your son and husband deserved their fate.”
“Yeah?” Tears spill from the corner of her eyes and her lips spread in a macabre facsimile of a smile. “Well, tonight, you’re going to feel my pain, starting with your brand-new husband.And when I’m done with him, we’re going to take a visit to that little bitch’s bedroom and do what should have been done when she was still in the womb. If not for her, my son and husband would still be alive.” Nedi laughs softly, the sound eerie and causing the hair on my body to stand on end. “And I’ll make you watch it all.”
My finger brushes against the handle, and I grab the hilt. My heart beats slow and heavy beneath my breast. I refuse to let my emotions push me into acting rashly, but at any second Sansone will enter the room. We haven’t had nearly enough time together, but I already know I can survive anything but losing him.
I ease the knife from the chair and hang my hand over the arm, out of Nedi’s view. I need her to lose her cool and open an opportunity for me to disarm her. “You’re very confident for a woman who raised a son to be a crying little bitch. You should have seen how he pissed his pants when I strung him upside down and began peeling the skin from his body.”
“Shut up, you vile cunt.” Her chest rises and falls with every enraged pant.
The door clicks. I’m out of time, and out of nowhere Nedi produces a second gun she aims toward the door.
“I hope you didn’t take off that dress when you know I want to unwrap you tonight,” Sansone says as he clears the threshold.
“Sorry, lover boy. She may be wearing the dress, but you won’t be unwrapping shit. Not tonight or ever.” Ned’s voice stops him momentarily before he advances into the room.
Blue fire rages behind his eyes until he sees my hand with the knife. He frowns at me then circles the room to flank Nedi’s other side.
“Stop where you are. I want your wife to get her last view of you before you die.”
Sansone meets my gaze and almost imperceptibly shakes his head to dissuade me.
I give him a sad smile, unwilling to follow his instructions if it means his death.
“Zakiya, no!” his tortured yell precedes us lurching forward at the same time as a suppressed gunshot thuds in the room.
CHAPTER 34
Sansone
“God damn it, Zakiya! Stop trying to kill me with your recklessness.”
She leaps off me before I can check her for injuries. “You mean, thank you for saving my life.”
She walks over to Nedi’s body, a knife lodged in the dead woman’s chest.
Nedi recognized Zakiya as the greater threat too late. While I ran to tackle Nedi to the ground, my wife threw her dagger with amazing precision at our assailant at the same time she launched herself at me, pushing me to the floor and narrowly missing the bullet aimed at me.
Too much adrenaline zips through my body and my heart hasn’t slowed since the moment I saw Nedi holding a gun on Zakiya.
I stomp toward my wife and cage her face for her to see how serious I am. “My life ends the moment you die. And when you take risks that all but ensure you won’t breathe again, what the fuck do you call that?”
Zakiya wrinkles her brow. “I guess if we’re being technical about it… Attempted murder?”
My nostrils flare and I tighten my grip on her face, smooshing her cheeks.
“Involuntary manslaughter?” Her irreverence continues, made comical by her muffled voice and puckered mouth.
“You’ve got jokes?” I say, angrier than the moment I recognized her smile for what it was. A fucking goodbye to everything we planned to build together and the dreams we haven’t dreamed yet. She wasn’t going to give us the future we deserved; the futureIdeserved after waiting my whole life for her.
Loud footsteps stomp the carpeted stairs leading to our bedroom, interrupting us and forcing me to free Zakiya’s face when I haven’t made my point yet. Mattia and Aurelio rush through the door, their guns ready, but quickly recognize the threat is gone.
“We heard shouting. What the hell happened?” Aurelio holsters his gun and closes the distance for a better view of Nedi’s body. As soon as he sees the knife, he glances at Zakiya with a mixture of admiration and wariness.
