“First of all, everyone knows God is a woman. Second, you know what they say about digging a grave, right? You better dig two. One for me and one for you.”
“Oh, yeah? And just how do you think you’re gonna kill me when your hands are tied behind you?”
She leaned down in my face, sneering at me. Her breath smelled like she had been munching on a day-old tuna sandwich and washed it down with hot beer. It was all I could do to keep from hurling. Since my hands were now loose, all I had to do was give her a piece of what she served Nicolo.
“Like this, bitch!”
Tightening the grip on the knife handle, I brought the steel up and plunged it into her neck. She lunged backward, grappling at the knife handle. If she was dumb enough to remove it, this thing would be over before it began. It seemed like she was aware of this fact because she felt around the wound but didn’t remove it.
While she was caught off guard, I punched her in the throat and then kicked her in the stomach. She fell backwards on her ass, giving me time to jump on top of her. I rained a series of punches down on her face and body, not letting up. She was unable to retaliate. I was just about to deliver the coup de gras when I heard a stampede of boots up above. Distracted, I made the mistake of letting her go. The bitch punched me in the face, causing me to fall back.
“You fuckin’ whore!” I called out.
It was on like popcorn! Zelda threw a few punches that had me reeling. Shaking my head to clear the cobwebs, I kicked her in her stomach and followed with an uppercut. I stomped on her face and punched her until she was almost unconscious.
I could hear several voices coming from on deck. They were speaking in Italian, so I couldn’t understand what was being said. Then I heard someone calling out for me, just before the door opened.
“Simone! Simone, call out to me, baby. I’m here. Simone!”
“Nicolo? Baby, I’m down here!”
There at the top of the stairs stood my husband. He looked weak, and there was a knife sticking out the side of his neck, but he was the best-looking thing I had seen all day! He stumbled down the stairs, followed by two other men in suits. Glory, glory hallelujah. My man was still alive, and the calvary had arrived.
Nicolo grabbed me and pulled me into a strong embrace. He was shaking and looked disheveled, but he felt so damn good.
“Baby, thank God you’re okay. We got to you in time. Let me look at you.”
“I’m fine, Nicolo. I was so worried about you. Why haven’t you gone to the doctor?”
“I had to find you, babe.”
I held onto him as we watched the other two men carry Zelda up the stairs. She was a bit out of it, but she was cursing like a sailor and swinging wildly at the men. None of the punches she swung landed. She looked like a mental patient flailing her arms around. Nicolo and I followed them upstairs as we tried to figure out why they took me.
“Nicolo, this piece of shit just told us that The Saldonos were behind the kidnapping. They wanted you dead, and they kidnapped Simone to get back at her father.”
“Those bastards are going to pay. Wait until Enzo and Mr. Baldwin find out,” Nicolo exclaimed.
I turned to look at Nicolo in the light to make sure he was okay when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zelda escape the hold of the tall man in the suit and run toward Nicolo. She had a crazed look in her eyes, and she started screaming how he was her man. She was really coming unhinged.
There was no way I was going to let this bitch put her hands on my man again. I stepped in front of Nicolo, smacked Zelda, and then pulled my knife out of her neck. She stumbled backwards, but the bitch wouldn’t go down. It was like fighting Michael Meyers. She just kept coming and coming. She came running toward me again, but instead of smacking her, I kicked her in the chest. Her momentum carried her backwards, and she fell over the rail of the yacht, landing in the water.
“You stupid bitch!” she screamed on the way down into the water.
She was flailing around, causing her wound to bleed profusely. She wasn’t in the water but a couple of minutes before one of the guys spied a large dorsal fin slicing through the water. The next thing I knew, Zelda was screaming in pain as the great white shark took her leg. She bled out so fast after that, there was no saving her.
Now, I was a shark week fanatic, but I had never seen a more gruesome sight in my life. I told the woman she would die by my hand. Technically, the shark got her, but my knife wound was the reason the shark came around, so…