“Tatum, I don’t—”
“Thank you.” Her words cut me off, and I narrowed my eyes at her in confusion.
“You shouldn’t be thanking me, Tatum. You should hate me.”
“I did. I did hate you. And a part of me probably still does.” She lifted her eyes to meet mine. “But you saved me from him, which probably counts for something.”
I shook my head and pushed myself away from the door. “I didn’t save you, Tatum. You’re here because of me. You almost got raped because of me. And now? Now all hell is about to break loose, and I have no idea how I can stop this.” I walked past her to grab my cell phone off the cabinet.
“You saved me from being raped.” Her voice broke, and she sucked in a breath. “To me, getting raped would have been a fate worse than death.”
I froze. When all this started, any thought with her in it contained the word “death” as well. But that changed. If death should take her now, I would envy death for claiming such a beautiful creature.
“So you saved me,” she whispered, and my chest tightened.
“Don’t thank me, Tatum.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not sure whether I did it to save you…or to save myself.” It was the truth. I fucking blew Nicollo’s head off because he was touching what was mine. He wanted to taint and defile something that belonged to me. So who did I save by killing him? Did I save her, as she so eloquently put it? Or did I save myself by sparing me the anger, the guilt, the resentment of knowing another man had claimed her, fucked her when the only word that resonated through my head whenever I looked at her was…mine?
I sighed. “Don’t try to make me the hero here, Tatum, because I’m not. I might have slayed one demon for you, for me, for us—but with me come a thousand more.”
She stepped up behind me, and my skin came alive when she placed her hand on my back.
“You’re not the devil, Castello.”
I let out a halfhearted laugh. “You’re such a naïve little mouse.”
My eyes fell closed as my body bustled with so many emotions it was impossible to distinguish just one. Desire, possessiveness, a need to protect, lust…and something else. Something I didn’t recognize.
“Your tattoo.” Her fingertips started to move over my skin. “Did you design it?”
“Yeah.”
Her fingers traveled some more. “I understand the cross, Carlo’s name.” She hesitated, her fingers pausing right where I knew it was. “But why your name?”
My eyes remained closed, the image of what I knew the tattoo looked like flashing in my mind. It was a cross-shaped headstone with Carlo’s name on it, flames burning in the ground. Within those flames was my name—the morbid last edition Joey had added to the masterpiece on my back.
With a deep breath, I replied, “Because Carlo might be dead and buried, but I’m the one burning in Hell.”
I felt her stiffen, and her hand left my skin. This was all too fucking heavy right now, and I had much more important shit to deal with—like how to get her the fuck out of here in one piece.
I turned and took a strand of her blonde hair that was tainted red with Nicollo’s blood between my fingers. “You need a shower, and I need to call someone.” I stepped away from her and dialed the number of the only person I knew who might be able to help us.
He answered on the second ring. “Castello?”
“I need your help, Uncle Gino.”
Chapter 23
TATUM
After the very welcome shower, watching as streaks of pink and red flowed down the drain, I walked out of the bathroom. Castello had placed another one of his t-shirts on the bed, which I pulled over my head.
He was standing by the window, back turned to me, still talking on the phone. For a moment, I allowed myself to see him as a man, an attractive man who took care of his body. His back was roped with defined muscles, broad shoulders insuring he could intimidate almost anyone. The jeans he wore were stained with patches of red, the blood only making him seem more dangerous…darker. But that darkness no longer scared me the way it did. In fact, I felt drawn to it. My own darkness, which I tried to suppress and hide for so long, was reaching for his, needing it like I needed air to breathe.
He moved, and the tattoo on his back seemed to move with every muscle. For the first time since this all started, I was finally able to make sense of the man. The tattoo was his art, his design, and also the image of what he carried inside him every day—the image he now carried on his back, that moved with him. Carlo’s name was inked with intricate, beautiful calligraphy letters, while Castello’s name was bold, broken, and bleeding into the flames. He loved his brother but hated himself.