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The cool metal rolled under her palm.
And with a swift strike, Ana lifted the knitting needle and plunged it down into his outstretched hand. His agonized scream roared all around her. But she couldn’t hear, couldn’t see anything except the frantic blows of her weapon striking him over and over again until his body gradually grew limp.
Collapsing next to her.
Silence flowed all around her, an eerie epilogue.
God.
Oh, God.
She crawled away from him, wheezing from the pain and adrenaline. Moving blindly on her hands and knees. Once she was far enough away from him, she grabbed onto her grandfather’s desk chair and rose on shaky feet, tremors racking her entire body.
Ana turned around in a blind daze. Blood coated every inch of her…her face, her hands…and it was smeared all over the carpet.
Red rivers flowing…
He was motionless and had been for the last few minutes. But she couldn’t leave, fearful that he would rise again.
Click.
Click.
Creak.
Footsteps came closer.
“Ana…” Her aunt studied the room and the body in the corner, horrified. It was clear she didn’t know what exactly she was seeing, but she jumped straight into action, urgently ushering Ana back. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Auntie reached out to firmly grasp Ana’s elbow, even as she scanned the room, alert. When her sharp searching eyes landed on the knitting needle sticking out of the guard’s back, she stopped in her tracks.
The truth hit her at last.
Face drawn in shock, Auntie turned slowly toward her.
“What have you done?”
Chapter 20
Present
They say when you speak the truth, it sets you free. But there was nothing but numbness inside Ana. No thoughts, no feelings penetrated. The past had wrung her dry and spit her out, leaving her fluttering in the wind.
Seven times, she’d told Gio. She had stabbed that monster seven times. Ana hadn’t realized it at the time. Panic and fear had consumed her in a firestorm where her body had operated outside of itself, striking the guard over and over again until he’d finally let her go.
Only in the aftermath, when the cleanup crew had arrived, had she understood the enormity of what had happened. Of what she had done.
They had asked her if someone else had killed him.
Had she been attacked by an outsider?
Had the guard come in to defend her and fallen in the fight?
None of them had wanted to believe that it was Ana who had inflicted those wounds or that their guard had turned against them. But Auntie had deduced the truth and quickly covered it all up, painting a story of a robbery gone wrong. Ana’s involvement in that night had been scrubbed thoroughly, keeping her image pristine and perfect for her wedding to the Don.
She never could figure out which part worried her family more: the fact that another man had managed to touch her or that she had killed him. The context was immaterial to them. They were convinced that Ana would be considered tainted in the eyes of society if the incident was ever found out. It had been whispered countless times, until she'd reluctantly started to believe it too.
Tiny cracks formed in the night, splintering quietly.
