I showed Rolando my teeth. His eyes went wide and I saw the fear. He knew what I was about to do. He understood what Carmine was saying.
“Carmine, please—” Rolando begged. Fucking coward.
I hit him so hard he’d have trouble talking ever again. He fell backwards, crashing onto the couch.
I glanced over my shoulder. Carmine left the room, head hung low.
I returned my attention to breaking Rolando.
I got to work.
Chapter 28
Capri
It was worse this time.
I lost track of the days and nights. The lights were always on. Meals appeared, but I hardly ate them. I couldn’t bring myself to choke down the hastily prepared food. I kept track of the hours by the sound of footsteps upstairs. I slept fitfully, randomly, if at all.
I drifted around my cell waiting to die.
Mal and Carmine. Both of them gone. My life was over, and now I was a ghost clinging to my body, waiting to be set free.
I wandered. I walked circles. I tried to do yoga—something to pass the time—but gave up. I stared at the ceiling. I stared at the floor. I felt the numbness take hold and grip me tight.
Everything good in my life died. Anyone that loved me got murdered. Anything worthwhile was crushed, and ruined, and trampled. My dad always won in the end, and I was nothing but a curse.
I waited for the end. I thought about being dead and it didn’t mean anything. Not really. I was already dead. But I was suffering. I imagined Mal’s fingers touching my skin. I remembered him between my legs. I felt the orgasm, over and over. The only time I was ever truly happy. That beat-up old Chevy and Mal’s hard body and his need for me, spilling over in joy, and pleasure, and more.
I missed him so badly it hurt. I hated myself for leading him into a trap.
I stared at the sheets and tried to make myself do it.
But there was a small voice that kept the noose from my neck.
It said I didn’t deserve the coward’s way out.
It said I should stay alive and face what I’d done.
So I drifted. I wandered. I waited. I paced.
Until hours after the evening meal, I heard footsteps on the stairs outside my door.
That was unusual. I never heard steps this late. At least I assumed it was late. It’d been quiet for a while, and it only ever got quiet in the night time. I strained to hear as someone stood outside the door. I heard a key in the lock, and the lock clicked open.
I scrambled away as the door swung open.
Mal stood there staring in at me like a demon.
Nobody moved. I stared, my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“You’re dead,” I said. My voice was a croak. I hadn’t used it in a long time.
“What the hell did they do to you, Cap?” He stepped into my room and looked around. “Have you been in here since the ambush?”
I scrambled to my feet. “You’re real. You’re really here.”
He reached out to me.
I threw myself at him.
He wrapped his big arms around me and squeezed tight. I groaned, dying to feel his touch as relief flooded me so hot and hard that I thought I might pass out. My feet and hands tingled with it, and I cried into his chest. “I thought I got you killed,” I said. “I thought I killed you after I got Carmine killed and, god, Mal, you’re alive, you’re alive.”
“I’m alive,” he said softly and pulled me back just enough to bury his mouth against mine.
I lived in that kiss. It brought me back to the world. I kissed him so hard, I thought my lips might break and even that wasn’t enough. I needed him, all of him, wanted him to wrap me in his arms and hold me forever, but the kiss was enough, it was more than enough.
Mal was alive. God, he was alive. Joy coursed through me, stupid and giddy and wild.
He broke off the kiss, breathing hard. I saw the anger in his eyes as he took in the room, but he shook his head, as if he didn’t have time to deal death and retribution.
“We’ve got to go,” he whispered. “Right now. We’ve got to go.”
“How are you here?” I touched his cheek softly.
“Rolando.” He looked over his shoulder and I followed his gaze.
Rolando stood in the doorway. He was a wreck. His eyes were swollen and his nose was wrapped in bandages. He looked like someone beat him within an inch of his life and held him there for hours. He looked like hell.
He looked like I felt.
“Mal’s right, we’ve gotta go,” Rolando said.
Mal’s hand found mine and squeezed it tight. He pressed a finger to his lips. “I got you,” he said.