Chapter 88

His only child, dead by my hands.

And it was too late for a countermove. Because as I saw his unhinged aura, all he had left was his madness.

Seeing it, witnessing it with him wrapped around her, I felt my heart cracking. A bursting layer that shattered into dust. A black powder that once coated in smoke exploded in sulfur and carbon, like gunpowder. Leaving me open, raw, feeling.

Emeralds.

Cherries.

Admiration.

My heart screamed in broken pumps.

Love.

It had been there, offered. Now that it could be taken, I found my biggest remorse. And it was flung before my eyes, threatened, beaten.

The woman who weakened me.

The woman who resurrected my heart into a stupor.

The woman I'd fallen savagely for.

Alessandra.

Hold on, my eyes begged hers.

Trembles furiously shook inside, awakening my pitiless soul, wrecking my demon into homicide, and taking what was ours. To hold her, possess her, and keep her for an eternity.

"What is it that you want?"

Fuck, I would kneel. I would ridicule myself in front of my man. I would disrespect and give my crown away. My seat.

Anything I once thought mattered.

But a rule without Alessandra was now meaningless.

No legacy, no fight left.

I had just been too proud to see it.

"I thought I'd made it clear, now drop your gun," Crazed black eyes spoke.

I didn't.

He drove the gun harder, causing her head to crane to her shoulder. Her teeth shone with pain, brows deepened with closed eyes.

I tossed it.

"Now kick it!"

I watched how her eyes slowly opened, and I kicked forward.

She was so far away. Closer to the front door than to the altar facing my back.

"I mean, how many young girls had to die for you to hand her over? How selfish could you be to allow bullets meant for her into others?" Giuliani wanted to be heard. He wanted to toy with guns drawn at me. My family and the Zanettis on my left with guns pointed at them, and his to her. He finally spoke openly. "I thought maybe you would see it my way. You would understand that vows were meant to be kept. But no, you figured you were above me. You thought you deserved her more than I did. You thought your arrangement was superior to mine. All you had to do was hand her to me!"

Alessandra didn't blink for too long, and when she did, it was three quick flutters. She was trying to tell me something. She wanted our eyes to speak.

But what?

"I didn't break it, Giuliani." I had to keep him talking.

Buy us all time.

For Vadim and Elio to take over.

For my men to arrive.

To decipher what Alessandra wanted to translate.

"But you didn't honor it!" Spit flew from his lips, and his face colored in flushed red.

Alessandra's right hand twitched. My eyes fell to her fist. It concealed something with curled fingers. I caught the blade's quick glimmer resting up against the inside of her arm, tucked close to her dress and hip for no one to find.

I snapped my gaze to her with straining lungs.

No. My head barely moved.

No. My eyes thundered louder than the skies.

It hadn't been a question. Alessandra gave me a heads-up. Nothing more.

A quick five-second head start.

Not yet!

Her wrist flicked, and the handle spun in her palm. She pushed her left shoulder down with a jerk, and her hand flew. Crossing up over her chest and driving straight just east of his heart.

Alessandra stabbed her target, and everything changed.

Above, struggles were loud.

To my left, a brawl broke. A struggle for power.

I ran, then slid my knees across the floor, swiping the gun I had kicked away. I cocked it while gliding to a stop and raised it from below, but his hands were wrapped around hers. Possessing the knife beneath her grip, he pulled it out with a scream. Alessandra's eyes widened in shock. Startled by how he'd captured the will of her hands and surprised to see the blade out in the open again.

Madness had no limit.

I had no clear target as their bodies erratically moved. One fought for freedom, the other to gain control. I couldn't shoot without the possibility of striking the wrong head.

It all moved too quickly.

It all moved too slowly.

And his hand overpowered hers once again, and my heart emptied as he drove his fists into her abdomen. The blade slipped and hid past her shrieking scream until all was left to see was the handle flush with her flesh. Stabbed by her own friend and the enemy.

Mouth parted, shocked, tortured emeralds cried out.

I, too, felt it. The piercing agony of hearing her pain, slicing and butchering my heart.

"No!"

My hand hit the ground as I lifted myself to reach her.

But instead, I kicked my feet at the sight of him pulling it out, and blood poured.

Giuliani took the knife from her hand and placed its tip on her neck.

"Stay down!" he threatened, taking one step back.

Taking her farther away from me!

My muscles jumped.

He nicked her skin.

"I said. Stay. Down."

I did, and my eyes followed my soul as it was towed farther away. An alone tear marked her cheek, running silently as her hand stretched out for me.

And I broke.

I was powerless as Giuliani continued to threaten her with the knife against her delicate neck. He continued to walk farther away as her stained dress swept in fresh red.

Powerless as he slipped through the door, taking her away from me.

Gone were her cherry lips, her golden skin, and her spirited emeralds.

I screamed out in painful rage in the middle of a church. Under God's eyes. The one who gave her to me and took her from me. In his home!

I yelled in blots, ruined and torn in misery as I watched the empty spot where she once stood.

One beat.

Two beats.

Three beats.

I turned.

The odds had spun.

They were at our mercy.

My eyes rose to the cross above.

And a silent prayer tumbled from my lips as I whirled back to the front doors, walking.

Mind blank.

Heart soaring.

Find Alessandra, my demon ordered.

"Kill them all."

END.