Blood drips to the floor in sporadic, crimson teardrops. Surprised, I step back, steadying the punching bag in front of me. It's then I feel the sting.
The knuckles on my left hand are busted and bleeding. The wound smarts, but not uncomfortably. In fact, it's a welcome sensation.
Standing barefoot on the cold floor for the last hour, my only companion the sound of my breathing and my skin on the punching bag, I can see for the first time why Santo spends hours down here alone sometimes.
It's dark and quiet, so quiet that it feels claustrophobic in a way that makes you want to scream. But instead, you punch and kick and exhaust your body until you feel deliciously empty.
My upper body strength is on par with that of a wet noodle, but all I had to do was pretend the bag was Luciano's face, and strength I never knew I had drove my fists into the bag with precise fervor.
Hearing from Santo what Luciano is doing, how many people he's hurting, angered me. After he finished speaking, Santo was practically hovering over me to try and ensure I was alright, but all I felt I needed in that moment was to fucking hit something. The anger was all consuming, and it took me by surprise. Fear has always been the default. Not anymore.
I'm not sure Santo knew how to go about helping me in that moment—he's still learning how to deal with certain emotional things, especially things that hurt me. Specifically when those things can't be immediately and violently eliminated. Someone bothers me when we're out? Santo would have it—and them—handled in seconds. My estranged, lunatic not-father's horrible business revealed to me when the man is state lines away? Not as easy of a fix.
The look on Santo's face when I left told me that he thought I was coming down here to scream and cry and pound the punching bag until I was blue in the face. Like a scene from a movie that ends with the girl dissolving to the floor in a puddle of tears and snot.
But I'm resolute. Hearing about all the poor women Luciano has been enslaving in every single city in a beeline from Vegas to Chicago filled me with disgust so strong, I felt it crawling up my throat. Hearing about what he has planned for Christmas day has made my bones buzz in anticipation.
If I saw Luciano in front of me right now, I would shoot him. Probably in the thigh. The shoulder, maybe.
I don't think I have it in me to kill someone, but if I did, I'd kill him.
I'm forced to face the things of my childhood that I'd always been surrounded with, but never with a clear lens to view them through. I always knew that Luciano liked to "sell humans." Before I was five, Carlo sat me down and explained it to me in those very words, the both of us huddled together cross-legged on the floor like we were discussing a game of pretend, not the imprisonment and slavery of humans happening under our noses. I quietly played with my toys one room over from Luciano and his men discussing auctions and buyers. I slipped silently through the house in the midst of his meetings, bumping into the legs of the men whose sole job it was to lure away and isolate vulnerable girls, forcing them to work at Luciano's casinos or selling them to men even more depraved.
I've always been partially blind, but I can see clearly now.
I wipe up the blood, wrapping a rag around my fist as I head back upstairs. It's nearly 1 a.m. and I'm sure Santo is waiting for me in the kitchen. Probably in some state of stress.
If the only thing I can do to help is ensure I'm not entirely helpless, I'll do it. I won't pretend like I can save the day, but if I can at least throw a punch? That's better than nothing. That means Santo can spend less time protecting me and more focusing on the shitshow that has become our lives.
Activity assaults my eardrums when I enter the main level, which is odd for this hour. Following the noise, I step into the living room to the sight of Tommaso laying back on the couch, teeth gritted in pain. Santo is leaned over him, shirtless, pressing his bundled-up shirt to his brother's hand. The others hover around, and Nico spots me first.
"Nina, everything's fine. Tommaso is just a fucking idiot," he says kindly, clearly seeing the concern on my face.
At my name, Santo cranes his neck to pin me with his fierce glower. "Stay over there," he orders me, and I cock a brow, heading over to Nico. Santo's eyes narrow at my direct act of disobedience, but then Tommaso snaps something at him and Santo's preoccupied arguing with his brother.
"What happened?"
"Well... Tommaso cut his hand," Nico winces. "It's going to need a few stitches, so we're just waiting for Samuel to arrive. Santo can do it, but there's no way Tommaso is going to let him."
I'm about to ask why, but by that point their arguing has escalated enough for me to understand both sides of the situation. It goes like this: Tommaso is worried Santo will stab him unnecessarily hard with the needle. Santo says he most definitely will.
Nico's looking strangely guilty, and I narrow my eyes. "How did he cut his hand?"
He scratches the back of his neck. "We were playing Fruit Ninja."
I bite back a laugh, unsuccessfully. "You were playing Fruit Ninja at one in the morning?"
"Real life Fruit Ninja. Maybe next time we won't do it blindfolded."
I'm still laughing, shaking my head. No wonder Santo is so upset. Pointless injuries like this will only get in the way of dealing with the bigger problems at hand. But judging from Tommaso's bitchy eye rolling, he's going to be fine.
Santo looks over his shoulder at me again, glowering when he sees I'm still there.
"Does he think I'm going to start bleeding if I get too close?" I mutter.
"He probably thinks you're going to catch whatever diseases Tommaso's got," Nico ribs, and we both dissolve into laughter.
"Thanks guys, really," Tommaso calls. "Laughing as I bleed out. It makes me feel so much better."
We approach the couch, and I cross my arms to hide the bloody rag from sight. It's such an insignificant injury, but I have a feeling Santo doesn't need to see it right now.
Nico fist bumps Tommaso's uninjured hand, grinning widely. "This means I win this time, right?"
Santo still hasn't let up on his glare and I try not to let it hurt my feelings. Why doesn't he want me here?
Right as Tommaso and Nico are about to get into a full-blown argument about who won, Samuel shoulders past us, immediately peeling back Santo's shirt from the wound. My stomach clenches as I take in the amount of blood, and Santo's words come out closer to a growl than I've ever heard.
"Go to the other side of the room, Nina. Fuck."
"I need you to still apply pressure while I start the stitches," Samuel says, forcing Santo to stay by his brother's side. "It's still bleeding too much."
"Nico, take Nina into the other room," Santo grits out, and my wide eyes are fixed on Samuel's tiny needle as he pokes it into Tommaso's skin and begins sowing.
"I can stay here," I protest, not wanting to pull Nico away for unnecessary reasons. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I don't want you to pass out when I can't catch you. At least just sit down. Please."
Surprised, I can only comply with his words, lowering myself into a chair. Santo relaxes considerably when I do so, but as Tommaso is stitched up, he keeps turning to check on me, as if he expects me to be sprawled out on the floor unconscious.
It takes nearly thirty minutes, and the whole time Tommaso is bitching about how Santo is more worried about me than his own brother, accusing Nico of purposefully throwing the fruit in a way that made him stab himself, and throwing back shots of Remy that somebody keeps supplying him with. It's a mess, and I pity any woman who ends up with the guy. She's sure got her work cut out for her.
As soon as it's done, Santo approaches me, leading me with a hand on my back to the kitchen as Samuel cleans up his tools and Tommaso heads up to bed.
"You know, I can see a little blood without passing out like a damsel in distress," I venture, and Santo grunts as he begins rummaging through the cabinets. "I appreciate you protecting me but I'm not that fragile."
"Well, maybe I am," Santo snaps, slamming a cabinet shut and turning on me. "There's already enough going on, I don't need to be stressing about you giving yourself a concussion."
I frown in indignation, even as my heart does a million tiny flips. "I only faint at my own blood or pain. And that's only if it's really bad, like if I'm bleeding a lo—"
He slams another cabinet even harder. "I really don't need to be thinking about you in pain right now, Nina."
"Hey." I round the counter to stand in front of his irate figure. He breathes out harshly as I tug on his arm, pulling him gradually to face me. After a moment's deliberation, I go on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around his neck, tucking my face into his chest. "I'm okay. The blood really didn't bother me. It's probably good for me to be exposed to some of this stuff, right? It's going to happen eventually."
Slowly, his arms snake around my back, constricting as I continue rambling. "I've never seen a wound stitched up. It was cool. And I know a lot's happening right now, so I don't want you taking on all this worry. I'll take care of myself, I promise. I know you will too, and I'm so grateful for that."
His head drops to rest on top of mine, and I smile at the long breath he releases. It makes him more pliable, and he leans into me fully.
"Tommaso is driving me fucking crazy. He's been acting out for weeks, but I don't have time to try and figure out why. I need to focus on keeping you safe from something I know nothing about, protecting my family, destroying Luciano's plans—and your brother is currently rotting in my fucking basement."
"What can I help with?" I murmur, and he immediately tenses.
"You're already too close to this shit, tesoruccio. Just be there, when it's all over, okay?"
My chest tightens at the smallness of his voice, how he sounds so much younger right now. "I will. I promise."
We stand like that for a few minutes, during which my mind whirs as I resolve to do everything I can to take care of him like he's taking care of me. I don't think he's ever been cared for, and that makes me all the more resolute.
"What the hell were you banging around looking for earlier?" I laugh softly into his skin.
He sighs, adjusting his arms. "A snack. But I don't even know your favorite snack, and I can't fucking find anything."
"I don't like snacks," I tell him. "I'd rather just eat another meal."
He chuckles lowly, his chest warm. "I could've probably guessed that."
I pull back, glaring playfully at him. "Are you calling me fat?"
He glares right back. "Is this one of those traps you women like to spring on us innocent, unsuspecting men?"
I'm laughing, about to reply, when his face goes comically still. "What the fuck is that?"
He's looking down at my hand. Santo looks like he's actually paled a shade. Lord help me.
"I just busted it on the punching bag. It's nothing, Santo. It actually feels good. I think I finally figured out how to throw a punch."
His face slowly relaxes as he takes in my words while observing the wound, and he gusts out a sigh, suddenly looking incredibly tired.
"Why don't you go to bed?" I suggest softly, watching the way his head hangs, hair covering those exhausted eyes. My attention is drawn to the broad, muscled planes of his chest, still exposed, and the scar that curls over his breastbone. The tattoos cover his chest and one side of his torso, but they leave the scar uncovered, almost drawing the eye to it.
If he sees me looking, he doesn't comment on it. "I'd rather be with you for a little bit."
Mere minutes later, we're curled up in his bed, my head nestled in the sweet spot between his collar bone and the slope of his neck. My legs are tangled with his, and his breaths gust over the top of my head as I drag my fingers over a small spot of his torso to the same rhythm.
"Do you think fish get thirsty for water?"
The laugh threatening to burst past my lips is stalled when I crane my neck to see the completely serious expression on his face.
"Um. That would be like humans getting hungry for air, wouldn't it?"
He frowns, thinking about it for a few seconds and seeming to agree. "Tell me something."
"Like what?"
"When was the first time you got high?"
I bite my lip. "I was nine. I—"
"You were what?" He jackknifes to a sitting position, jostling my body.
I push him back down and he lets me, but Santo's staring at me with a horrified expression the whole time. "Jesus," I laugh, "relax. And don't interrupt my story."
He purses his lips shut in exaggerated cooperation, leveling me with a glare that clearly says 'get talking before I get impatient. Again.'
"I was nine, and it was one of the rare times I was at Luciano's. That year, I stayed with him and Carlo for a few days before his stupid fundraiser. Luciano wanted to make sure I was ready. I guess since it was my first one." The memory is faded, and I struggle to parse through the fuzzy pieces. "Carlo had some friends over one night, and I remember I was thirsty. I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle off the counter. It was... Molly."
"What the fuck happened?"
I trace an absent finger over his abdomen, delighting in the goosebumps that rise along his golden skin. "I got super nauseous and sweaty. Freaked the fuck out. I don't really remember the night after that. Luciano nearly killed Carlo the next day."
"Why?"
I shrug at Santo's frown. "In a way, he was always harder on Carlo. He hated me, but he loved Carlo and that made it so that Carlo could never do anything right. Now, tell me about the first time you got high."
Santo's still glowering with a far off look in his eyes, like he's plotting someone's death—and I'm sure he is—but my attempt at distracting him works. "It was nothing special. I was a teenager. I sat on the couch for four hours trying to order pizza without a phone."
I snort, trying to imagine that. It's weird picturing him as anything younger or more vulnerable than what he is now.
And that's how we get into tossing some of the most bizarre and ridiculous questions back and forth at each other.
What species of bird are you most like? If you punch yourself in the face and it hurts, does that mean you're strong or weak? We argue for fifteen minutes over whether hot chocolate is better with Baileys or Fireball, and I gain precious childhood anecdotes to add to my mental picture of what Santo was like when he was younger. The one food he can't stomach is mayonnaise, he started getting tattoos when he was thirteen, and he hates airplanes because when he was a child, he watched a movie with a place crash that gave him nightmares for two months.
The pieces of the puzzle come slowly together, and they're starting to reveal a man who is so extraordinarily special that it makes me lose my breath sometimes. And we get lost in our little bubble as we uncover parts of each other that have nothing to do with the craziness of the world we're both in.
I refrain from asking deeper questions about his childhood and family, although they're poised on the tip of my tongue, because this feels important. This mundanity, the uncovering of menial things that you'd probably find out about a person through going on normal dates. Normal dates with normal things like time and space to fall for each other like a normal couple.
But that's not us. So we fall through whispered revelations about dream vacations and our favorite movies until the dawn light illuminates his skin like burning honey, and then we sleep.
+
My ankle is finally better enough for me to resume my exercising. Santo's insistence on me keeping weight off it helped it heal quicker than expected. He makes Samuel look at it three times, and each time I'm given the okay.
As I pull on my workout clothes, my limbs buzz with the excitement of doing something normal. It feels like we spend our days holding our breath and waiting for something to happen, for the clock to keep ticking until it's Christmas and all hell is breaking loose.
Unease has started to creep in, and it turns out my gut feeling was right.
Santo and the rest of the guys came back from a meeting the other day with grim faces. There will be eighty-seven women in that warehouse on Christmas day. And over half of them are under sixteen. My anger is red hot and it extends past Luciano, towards my uncle and Carlo, the latter of which is still in the basement slowly bleeding.
Santo is keeping an extra sluggish pace today, no doubt because he's still wary of my ankle. He'd probably need God himself to deliver a handwritten letter that my ankle is healed, and even then, I doubt he'd believe it.
We stop at a café—because apparently, I've conditioned him to believe that I need food every time we go out. Once we're sitting, Santo stares off into space, slowly ripping apart his pastry with violent but controlled movements. His muscles are coiled and ready, like he's ready to get up at a moment's notice and take someone out.
He's been this way—more tense, tightly wound—since things have picked up. Despite me trying to support him in every way I can, he's taking on the weight of everyone's safety and I see it driving him crazy. He lets his guard down, becomes softer, when it's just the two of us. But otherwise, he's back to his normal self. Only riding a little closer to the brink of losing it.
I wore a baggy sweatshirt today instead of my usual tight, thermal shirt because I'm not confident he wouldn't pull out his gun and shoot someone who looks at me wrong.
I lightly tap his shin with my shoe, and his eyes shoot to me. After a few seconds, his shoulders seem to droop, and he stops mutilating his food, opting to stroke the delicate skin of my wrist instead.
Better.
His phone buzzes, and Santo motions at me to eat my food as he answers it. I curl my lip and he rolls his eyes, although a small smile tucks the corners of his lips up at the silliness of our silent exchange.
After a few seconds, both our smiles fade as his posture straightens, and he hangs up without a word. I'm already crumbling up my napkin with my uneaten food, sensing something has happened.
"Luciano called Simo. He's demanding the return of his son."
The news doesn't surprise me. Not because I think Luciano genuinely feels paternal love for Carlo, but because this is part of his plan. Whether a crucial element of the plot slipping into place, or just a tactic to piss off the Romanos, Luciano has a reason.
If I tried, I think I could begin to feel bad for Carlo. The one person who should care about his absence doesn't give a singular shit. Why? Because Luciano is a monster. An actual monster. Despite the effort he's put into raising Carlo, training and preparing him, Carlo's life means nothing to him.
Nobody's does. It makes Luciano frustratingly untouchable in a way that Santo, and even Massimo, are not. They have people they care about, one way or another. Luciano doesn't operate that way.
I frown, following him outside. "You think he genuinely cares about Carlo?"
"No chance." Santo's tapping away on his phone, and seconds later a sleek, silver car pulls to the curb. "But we're going to see if we can still negotiate something, use Carlo as leverage for something. Anything."
I nod, sliding into the car as he holds the door open for me. The whole drive back, I gaze out the window trying to ignore my rushing pulse. Santo puts a stabilizing hand on my leg, stopping its jittering. I take a deep breath, but still feel unsettled.
And nothing can prepare me for the words that greet us as soon as we walk in the door.
"Carlo is dead," Massimo tells us. "He killed himself."