Trigger warning for this chapter.

***

dinner, I wanted to tell my family about Nero. I thought I could.

I imagined what I would say, where the hell I would possibly start, but nothing wanted to come out of my mouth.

As I sat there looking at them, smiling and laughing and just almost over our tragedy, I realized that I couldn't do that to them. Not now. I tried to picture how they would look at me, what they would think.

I worried I would lose them forever. My hidden truths and the dark, sordid secrets festered, toxic, in my gut.

How do I explain that I am undeniably, catastrophically, in love with a man who threatened my life? Whose colleagues threatened their lives, who was part of the mafia, the same mafia that framed Mario and killed Caleb? That I've been living next to him and keeping it hidden from them this whole time?

Stop and consider it, for a minute, how messed up it all is. How completely, utterly insane.

So, I didn't say anything. I don't know how I ever will.

•§•

into the RCMP yesterday afternoon and handed them a pile of incriminating evidence about Marco and Franco, and now there's a warrant out for their arrest.

A huge part of me wonders, a tentative hope growing just beneath my skin, if this conflict and war and stress and the bloody, messy violence is all, finally, over.

Another part of me knows that it's probably only just begun.

And a tiny piece of my battered heart worries that it'll never end.

•§•

take a long, hot shower and can still feel the scent of Nero on my skin.

He's out grocery shopping or something right now. It feels strange not being with him, around him. His presence has seeped into my flesh, into the edges of my soul, and it's soft and bright but it hurts, too.

I bolted the door and followed his overly cautious instructions to ensure my safety. Overkill, probably. I remember the halting, heavy confessions of worry he whispered into my ear Friday night.

The way he loves me makes my heart ache in my chest. I never knew it was supposed to feel as consuming and impossible, that it was supposed to burn like this.

I'm brushing my hair, my mind drifting, when I suddenly see Marco's pale face appear behind me in the bathroom mirror.

I jump out of my skin, the brush clatters from my hands and I whip around and every last part of me fills with dread and panic and what the fuck...

He gives me a cold, yellow grin and I should scream and run but at first I'm paralyzed. This is not happening, this is not possible. "Rosa mia," he greets, leaning casually against the door. Those sick black eyes slide down my body, clad in a thin, sheer nightgown and panties. My skin crawls. "It's been a long time, tigrotta." It's that same thick, grating voice, damaged by smoke, that haunts my worst nightmares.

I stare at him for a second, in shock. I'm having another nightmare. But he smiles and I realize that this is real, this is not a dream.

My fingers hurriedly reach for my hairbrush, I try to think about what else in this bathroom I could possibly use to defend myself. "How the fuck did you get in here?" My quivering voice betrays the fact that I am already scared shitless.

"I broke the door down, baby. The shower was running. I guess you didn't hear." The thought of Marco hanging around in my apartment while I stood naked in the shower makes my blood run cold.

And so I do the only thing I can possibly do. I scream at the very top of my lungs—the shrillest, loudest, hugest sound that has ever left me. I scream until my chest burns and throat is raw and fuck he just watches, indifferently. When I can scream no more, my breaths come out in ragged bursts and nothing happens, no one comes to help, he just lets out a merciless chuckle.

"No one can hear you, bella. Keep screaming for me."

I need to get to a phone, I need to call 911. Where the fuck is Nero? "Why are you here, Marco?"

The look he gives me makes me sick to my stomach. My mind is on fire because I know, I know I know I know that this time is going to be so much worse. He's not here to threaten me, he's here to hurt me, to beat the living shit out of me.

I think I'm going to die.

And he just smiles.

"You see, tigrotta, someone tried to send me to prison." His voice is filled with an exaggerated innocence, nonchalance. But I can see the explosive anger bubbling just below the surface. "Someone turned me in to the cops. Someone tried to screw me over, rosa mia." His eyes narrow at me.

He is going to punish me for this, I realize. He is going to take out his anger and resentment and hostility on me because he's cruel and senseless and because he can.

"Don't do this, Marco. Nero will be back any minute and you'l—"

He tips his head back and lets out a barking, wheezing laugh. "That bastardo isn't going to save you today, bella. My friends are outside waiting for him." He tosses me a wink. He is enjoying every minute of my suffering, he is prolonging this on purpose.

"What the fuck are you going to do to him?" The helpless panic that unfurls in my gut is for me but also for Nero. My voice sounds broken.

I fucking wish I was stronger than this. I wish I knew how to stop this from happening.

"You care about him. Isn't that so sweet," he purrs. He reaches into his pocket, casually pulls out a small knife. The sharp blade glints in the light.

Images of the last time, of that same blade against my throat, fill my mind. He just twirls it around leisurely in this stubby, wrinkled fingers.

"You see, tigrotta," he explains, "Nero is going to die. We both know this." He shrugs, unfazed. "But there is only so much pain I can inflict on him, bella. There are only so many teeth we can pull, for example." He sounds bored. "Ten fingers, ten toes. Two hands, two feet, two eyes." He grins a wide, filthy smile, eyes travelling down to between my legs. "One cock, a pair of balls. I know you know about those."

The blood pounds in my ears. I'm too shocked to say anything, to spit in his face and yell obscenities. It'll just make him laugh, or make him angry. I don't know which is worse.

"And eventually, he'll die. It's too easy, rosa mia. It's not enough."

He takes a step closer, and I take a step back. Amusement and irritation flash across his beady eyes. Another step. My back hits the glass door of my shower. He's a foot away now, I can see the grease in his thin hair, the papery lines in his snarling, leathery face, the faded, dirty wrinkles of his sagging clothes.

"But you, rosa." His hand presses into the wall of the shower above me, he leans in, I can feel the revolting heat of his sour breath on my face.

I recoil as far backwards as possible, my back arching into the shaking pane of glass behind me, away from him. "That stronzo has thrown everything away, has turned his fucking back on us, on our famiglia, for you."

There's hatred and curiosity in his eyes.

"Please Marco, don't do this." My voice is a feeble, strangled plea.

For a second, he pretends to consider showing me mercy. He leans away. He looks at me and tilts his head to the side, tapping the back of the knife pensively against his eyebrow.

And then, faster than I was ready for, his arm shoots out, grasping my neck hard in his beefy hand, calloused fingers pressing into my skin.

He grips me so tight that I struggle to breathe, and my nails claw at his fist that holds my neck, he's constricting my windpipe. He brings his face so close that his nose almost touches mine, and my eyes widen and my face is red, like a flailing fish. "When I'm done with you, that bastard is going to beg for me to kill you, puttana." He scrapes the tip of the knife slowly across my top lip, then the bottom. "I am going to hurt you, rosa, slowly. Until your own mamma won't be able to recognize you."

He lets go of me and I collapse, doubled over. I clutch my burning throat and force myself to stay on my feet, not to fall choking to the ground near his shoes. Not to picture all the vile, evil things he's going to do to me.

"And because he is so fucking in love with your sweet little cunt, it will be worse than death for him. And for you, bella mia."

I feel the wetness on my cheeks, tears leaking from my eyes. I am going to die, I'm gonna die, I'm definitely going to die a horrible, horrible death.

I've done a lot of bad things but I don't think I deserve this.

I beg and plead, wet tears streaming down my face, for him not to do this. He just grabs my arm in his thick hand, pulls me roughly out of the bathroom as I kick and claw and scream but fuck he's too strong, he drags me and there's nothing I can do.

He tosses me like I'm a limp rag onto my bed and I try to scurry away from him, but he yanks my leg, a hand clamping around my throat, pressing a knife against my jugular, and I'm forced to stop moving or else I will suffocate or be decapitated.

I have never been so unbelievably, impossibly frightened in my life.

And then I start begging. I beg and plead and cry and he just watches me, amused and indifferent.

And I look into those black pits of his eyes and I realize that he doesn't feel anything, no guilt or shame or remorse. He just takes a sick, inhuman pleasure in my pain and suffering.

He's a psychopath. I will never manage to appeal to his better nature because he doesn't have one.

A hand still gripping my neck, he trails the tip of the knife down, travelling past my collar and over the thin material of my gown. He watches, pleased with himself, as he digs the knife into the space between my breasts, the dusky outline of my nipples visible through the fabric. "Look at your tight body, puttana. No wonder Nero enjoyed fucking you so much."

"You fucking sadistic bastard," I spit in his face. I try with all my strength to whack him away. "Fucking go to hell."

He looks irritated now, tired of my protests. So before I can flinch out of the way his fist is in my face, one hard, brutal punch and I feel my teeth rattle in my skull, the sharpest pain I have ever experienced numbing my entire head.

I feel hot liquid pour down my face and taste metal, and I know he just broke my nose. The tears and blood and snot mix together and I'm whimpering, I can't help it, he is going to break me and fuck fuck fuck there is nothing I can do about it.

Just when he's about to say something more, we hear a huge commotion outside my apartment. I know Marco knocked down my front door, and the door of my bedroom is ajar and through it I hear yelling in Italian, fighting and punching and swearing and I know Nero is back and that they're beating him half to death. I can hear flesh pounding flesh and this is a fucking nightmare and I just want it to end, please God end this right now.

I shout Nero's name. Marco smiles. I hear what sounds like four or five men in the hall outside. I hear my name, a loud howl, in a voice that's like Nero's but is so much more violent, so dark it curdles my blood.

"Let's have some fun, how about, bella mia?" I kick my foot out as hard as I possibly can in the direction of his crotch, but he moves out of the way and my toes just punch through the air. All I managed to do is annoy him.

He leans over me so the full weight of his foul body pushes me into the mattress, he uses one fat hand to pin my arms over my head and I throw a fucking spastic fit but he just leers at me. "You like it rough, puttana?"

He digs the knife into the soft spot below my chin, in the hollow of my neck, and then his hand takes my index finger on my left hand and bends it backwards, back and back and the sound that leaves my mouth is an inhuman wail and then with a sharp twist my finger snaps and he breaks it, he fucking breaks my finger.

My vision is blurry, I start to see dark splotches. Maybe if I pass out, I won't have to endure this. Marco can fuck my comatose corpse.

"Stop fucking squirming, you stupid bitch." My body stills because the pain in my nose is unbearable but the sharp ache in my hand is like hell, I imagine this is what hell will feel like. My sobs fill the room, and my helplessness just gets him off.

I feel both his hands leave me and then with a quick, rough tug he rips the front of my nightgown, the thin material shredding apart like paper in his fingers. His thighs rest on either side of my legs, his erection heavy through his jeans, pressing painfully, disgustingly, into the space between my thighs. "I'm gonna see what is so special about this pussy of yours that makes grown men want to die for you, puttana."

Every part of my skin crawls. I feel so messy and dirty and filthy and vile and his revolting breath is hot against my face and then those thick, calloused hands are groping my breasts and I scream bloody murder.

Vaguely, I think I can hear someone shouting my name. I think that Nero is probably outside my apartment, fighting Marco's gang of thugs and I'm probably hallucinating because he's probably dead already, and then my terrified brain realizes that this is all my fault, it's all his fault. And he's not here to protect me, and now Marco is going to rape me and stick a knife into my ovaries through my vagina and oh my fucking lord

He pinches one of my nipples hard and pulls at it until it goes numb and then he trails the knife slowly down over my neck, over my other nipple over my navel and my body is shaking and I think I've gone into shock but there is no fucking way I am going to let this happen to me

I kick some more and twist and turn and his knife slides across my skin and his hands leave bruises in places I can't even see and I spit the most horrible insults I can possibly think of and then I think my mind retreats into a dark place because I hear one of his hands fumbling with the buckle of his belt and he swears at me, calling me a bitch and a slut and a stupid fucking cunt and

then he starts whispering in my ear about Caleb, about Caleb's mother and sister and my mother and the most disgusting things I have ever heard in my life and describes with vivid detail how he's going to fuck me and use my body in the most demeaning, degrading ways

and how Nero is probably dead because of me and how it's all my fault because I'm a stupid whore and I stop listening because I feel his thick, hot penis resting against my stomach and

those fingers tearing off my panties

I taste bile and blood

and then I feel something cold between my legs, the knife grazes the inside of my clenched thighs

and he grunts that he's gonna cut out my clit before he fucks me so that all I feel is pain

and then I must be hallucinating because my bedroom door slams open,

Marco pulls away from me and my broken body is lying shivering on my bed and when I turn my head I see a bloody shadow limp through the door and

Nero?

Nero

Nero what the fuck, I think it's him but he's hunched over and his face is swollen and his nose is broken and blood is matted in this hair and his eyes are bloodshot and blackened, a cut running down his face and I barely recognize him but it's him, he has a split lip and his mouth is full of blood

and he clutches his chest, a gaping wound wet with thick red blood and his shirt is soaked with red and

Marco laughs some more and they say things that I'm too far gone to understand and things I can't hear because my ears are ringing and then

I think Nero says something and Marco says something and his fat ugly dick is hanging out in the air and then he punches me again, hard in the face and then the world starts to fade to black

and then my eyes catch the flash of Nero's gun in his bloody hand attached to his arm that bends in a strange direction, the sound of it loud enough to bust my eardrums

and then the last thing I see before I sink into the black abyss is Marco's brains splattered, red and pink, across my headboard.