Nina
"Can I ask you something?"
Santo crouches several feet away, in the darkness where I can barely see him. I can only pick out the sculpted slope of his jaw if I know exactly where to look.
We've been locked in this position for a while. After resting for most of yesterday, we now have less than an hour until dawn. The same dawn that we're supposed to be airlifted out of here. I try not to let myself think about the ticking clock. The possibility that we'll still be locked down here when they arrive.
Or the unknown monster of whatever's going on with Santo right now. His head, and how the drugs are fucking with it. He hasn't had another slip—or whatever you'd call it. That might be because when Antonio came down once several hours ago with our food, Santo flat out refused to eat his.
This led to a beating that had me pressing my face painfully into the wall, unable to watch as Antonio's foot drove repeatedly into Santo's already bruised ribs. Santo played his part well, going still to seem unconscious. Antonio quickly realized that his son definitely couldn't eat if he beat him to death, and retreated upstairs in a storm-cloud of anger.
I was terrified that Antonio would resume his torture right then and there, but the piece of shit thinks he has all the time in the world. His arrogance works deliciously in our favor.
After splitting my plate of food—which Santo insisted on, no matter how many times I told him he needs the sustenance more than me—we settled on what seemed to be our only option. It's haphazard, but it's all we have.
Wait at the door until someone opens it again, jump whoever that is, and get the fuck out.
"What question could you possibly have in this moment?" he murmurs back.
I shrug, a little self-conscious, not wanting to flat out admit I just really want to hear his voice. "Who is Arioch?"
Surprise registers on his face for a moment. "Where did you hear that?"
"At the concert. That guy called you Arioch." I'd meant to ask him about it before, but after that concert everything had quickly spiraled out of control.
He considers his words for a few moments, reluctant to broach the topic. "Each member has a different name—it makes it harder for outsiders to understand if they hear us discussing matters. Over the years, we just started using the names at meetings, and all the time." He shifts, swallowing a groan of pain over his sore muscles.
"Why?"
"I think because it makes it all a little more convenient. Arioch is the name of a fallen angel who became a demon bent on revenge." He clears his throat. "It's easier to be a bad person if it's a different part of you, you know? Some dark section of your soul that's responsible instead."
"Will you miss Serpentine?" My voice is a mere whisper, either from the gravity of our situation or anxiety over his answer.
He doesn't answer, breathing out a low chuckle. "You'll always be my questions girl, won't you?"
I immediately nod in agreement, and he shakes his head in begrudging amusement. Appreciation surges through me as he visibly pushes back trepidation at revealing something he thinks might drive me away.
Maybe once he does that enough, he'll see nothing can accomplish that.
"Yes, tesoro," he says softly. "I'll miss it. I'll miss it the way I miss my mother."
And what can I say to that? To the sinner who's become a glutton for his punishment?
The only thing I can think is that if Santo's a demon bent on revenge, I'll follow him anywhere. I'll let him take down anyone he deems deserving, and I'll crave the protection he provides—even in all its depravity—because the worst parts of him still depict a wonderful picture of someone I desperately and wholeheartedly need. And I'll return the favor as best as my heart and soul let me.
"Any other questions completely relevant to the life-threatening task at hand?" Dry sarcasm replaces the raw emotion in his voice.
I shake my head, rolling my lips into my mouth.
A couple minutes pass.
"Hey, Santo?" I whisper.
"Yes, Nina?" he whispers back indulgently.
"I love you," I say.
His breath hitches. Then the door right in front of me is whipped open.
+
Santo
Luciano stands tall in front of her, his face drawn in surprise that quickly transitions to irritation. He reaches for her angrily, like he has the right to touch her.
"What the fuck are you—"
His words end in a sickening crunch, dissolving beneath my fist.
He's not touching her ever again.
He reels back, stumbling into the wall, and I'm on him in less than a second before he can shout and raise a warning. Nina slips away to find a weapon in our near vicinity, and my fists obliterate his consciousness in one go, motivated as I am to return to her side and make sure she stays safe.
The light leaves his eyes, and I lug his slumped body onto the top stair of our prison, resisting the urge to slam the door on his fucking neck. I root around in his pockets, retrieving a key I figured would be there.
My head swims with the exertion. I don't have the time or energy to kill him as quickly and quietly as I'd need to, so I have to settle on locking the motherfucker in the basement.
It's the one thing Nina seemed adamant about. Do not kill Luciano. I reluctantly agreed that we need to focus on incapacitating the Genovese boss, and killing my father. The first cannot come at the expense of the second, not when Antonio is the wildest of wild cards.
But if I accidentally give him a little shove that sends his unconscious body clunking down the stairs...
Well, no one ever said I'm a saint.
Keeping an eye out for my father, I go looking for Nina. Whatever we do, it needs to be clean. It's the two of us versus however many men are in this house, so we can't be alerting anyone to what we're up to. Clean and quiet. Nina kept repeating the words to me, as if I'm not capable of it.
And, to be fair, it's never been my method. But I can do it.
I round the corner to see a large guard with a burly forearm pressing Nina's neck into the wall. I immediately see fucking red and start towards them, fully intending on extracting his trachea from his fucking body and wrapping it around his puny balls. And that's only because I'm feeling weaker than usual.
He grunts in surprise as I come up behind him, hooking my elbow around his thick neck. He rears back against my grip and I wince as one of his elbows jut into my bruised ribs. But his split attention means he lets up slightly on Nina's neck. She keeps trying to dismantle his chokehold just like I taught her, but he's simply too fucking big.
I tighten my forearm around his neck, tugging him back into my sore body. My entire torso fucking screams in pain, but I breathe through it, muffling his shouts with my other hand the best I can. It takes several long seconds to cut off enough of his airflow that he finally, finally releases her.
She collapses to the floor, drawing in gasping breaths, and soon I feel the man go limp in my arms, unconscious for now. I resist the urge to snap off every single one of his fingers for touching my woman, and crouch next to her.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," she rasps, and I tug her to her feet. I frame her face between my hands, pushing her hair back from her neck and watching her draw in full breaths for a few precious moments. Once her face has returned back to its normal color, I go to release her. My head practically explodes as she goes to button up her pants.
Her hands pull uselessly at me as I grab the guard again. He tried to touch her.
"Quiet and clean," she hisses, "you promised. Quiet and clean."
My head is full of white noise, broken up only by the stabbing reminder of he touched her, he touched her, he touched her. I'm already positioning him in my hold, getting my hands in place to stretch and twist his neck. If I'm not able to muster up enough strength to break him that way, I'll try my luck with slamming him to the floor at an angle that will twist his neck to its snapping point. Neither methods are quiet or fucking clean.
She won't stop pulling at me until I loosen my grip, inch by inch. The second he's on the floor, she's stepping in front of me to frisk him for weapons. I watch in numb silence as she sighs, finding nothing.
"I'll be right back," Nina whispers, and I just barely resist shouting her name as she runs off to another room. Fuck. If there's one way to kick my heart back into gear, she'll find it.
Brave of her to leave me alone with the human shit stain I was just trying to kill, but I don't move. She knows I'd choose her above anything else, too confident in her ability to influence me.
"Fucking fuck," I mutter, heaving myself to my feet and stalking after her. The world around me suddenly dips, and I grit my teeth against the weakness. I can't be losing my strength this early. I can't.
Suddenly, she runs back through the door, clutching two large kitchen knives. She puts on the brakes at the last second, nearly running me through.
"Christ, woman," I snap, steadying her. This woman is going to kill me in every way possible before the day ends.
"Here," she says urgently, handing me one. I turn it over in my hand. This will have to do. I'm lost in thoughts of plunging this through the guard's neck—and then my father's just for fun—when a soft touch on my elbow steals my attention.
"Breathe for a second," she reassures me with all the confidence that I should be giving her right now. Her hands frame my face. "We're gonna be okay. We're fucking doing this."
I let myself drown in her for a second, finally feeling some of my sanity return. Looking at her feels like coming home, like slipping into sleep after a long day, even now in enemy territory with nothing guaranteed except the fact that we're surrounded by danger.
She's with me, and we are fucking doing this.
Forcing myself to break from the moment, I drag the body of the guard into a nearby bathroom, locking it from the inside so nobody will try to go in.
"Stay fucking close," I mutter. "Don't run off."
Bent on not listening, she slips around my body, walking in front of me. I grab her hip.
"Ni—"
"You don't know how to get out of here. I do. Follow me," she whispers.
Fuck. She's right.
"Lead the way, cuore mio."
"What's that mean?"
"My heart."
She pauses for a second, glancing back at me with narrowed eyes. "We don't have time for you to be cute."
"Why don't you keep it moving before I show you cute."
We pass through drab, minimally decorated rooms that I have no recollection of coming through on my way in here. We both stop abruptly as we hear muffled banging and shouting from somewhere behind us.
"Fuck," I mutter. Dickhead must've gained consciousness. "I should've pushed him harder down those stairs."
"What?"
"Nothing. Let's hurry. There's no way Antonio doesn't know what's happening by now." I don't voice it, but his absence is concerning. Highly fucking concerning.
Each second that slides by as Luciano continues to make a racket makes my muscles tense in unease. I should've just snapped his neck, damn Nina's weird request. I'm so occupied by regrets that I don't realize we've made it to what seems to be a living room. Nina is striding eagerly towards a side door I never would've noticed before.
"This leads straight out into the yard," she says excitedly, her eyes bright when she looks back at me. She wraps a hand around the knob, twisting it. The second she does so, a blaring alarm sounds throughout the entire main level, and my heart fucking drops.
"Shit! There's a code," she gasps.
I try the door, using all my strength, but it's useless. The only way we could get through this door is with the code. Or a bomb.
"Santo." Her voice is dripping in fear, and I whip around to see three guards running towards us.
I drag her behind me, waiting until they get a little closer before I throw my knife like a javelin. It buries itself in the sternum of the man closest to me, and he falls forward, eyes blown wide in shock. I catch him, retrieving my knife, and his blood dribbles all down my exposed torso as he chokes and gurgles.
I shove him, hard, into the body of one of the other guards. He stumbles, hands fumbling to push the corpse away and keep his balance.
The third guard is now looking warily at me, hesitation in his step. But only for a second, and then he's lunging. He's fast—or I'm slower than usual—as he goes for my weapon. Instead of slicing his carotid artery like I'd prefer, the knife impales the center of his hand, going straight through.
Screaming in agony, he tries to back away from me, but I take his hand and slam it into his face. His screams become the unintelligible blubbering of a dying man as the blade tears his face apart.
His body has yet to hit the floor when I hear the worst fucking sound my ears could ever bear witness to.
Nina's scream, riddled with pain.
That second guard, the one I would've gotten to quicker were I in better shape, has just slammed her head into the wall. I know because she's on the floor, clutching the side of her head, and he's going back for another hit.
I don't remember feeling his skull crush between the corner of the coffee table and my fist, but when he rolls over, his eyes already vacant, half his head is caved in. I notice a pool of blood is gradually growing by his shoulder, meaning Nina got him with her knife. My strong fucking girl.
She's groaning, still clutching her head, and I scramble to her side with my heart in my throat.
"Let me see." Panic makes my tone sharp and her hands shake as she brings them away, revealing a knot already forming on her hairline. Her eyes look dazed, focusing on me slower than they should.
She's already beaten and banged up and now she likely has a concussion—and I'm trembling with the fucking possibility. It's too much. I'm suddenly faced with a bizarre, paralyzing sensation. Her injuries—some of them having been inflicted on her with me mere yards away—incapacitate me for a terrible moment.
I don't have time to begin to ascertain how serious her concussion is before loud voices approach us.
Luciano rounds the corner with a thunderous expression, followed by another two guards.
At the same time, the house begins to rumble and shake, a deafening noise coming from right outside.
Fuck.
Our ride is here.