Page 80 of Isle of Seduction
“Sorellina, no…” Nico’s voice comes out laboured behind me.
“Please Louis. I’ll do anything you want.”
My Giulia.
That’s what Louis called me.
I close my eyes, and wish I didn’t let a man hurt me, yet again.
It was never Addams, nor Carmichael, nor the Russian mafia dropping bodies of my exes at my doorstep.
“It was you,” I breathe as I clutch my shoulder to stop the blood from pouring out of the gunshot wound.
“I tried to warn you, my Giulia. Of the consequences of associating with another man. But you didn’t listen. Always so stubborn. Now two people died because of your selfishness. How many bodies will your choices reap?”
“They didn’t die! You killed them!”
Louis just shrugs like life and death are just the same to him.
I walked right into a trap, like a lamb to slaughter.
THIRTY-TWO
LOSS…
“Follow me, or he dies.”
The tears that fall down my cheeks are silent and taste like fury. Hot pain lances where the bullet is still lodged inside my shoulder. Every movement takes my breath away, but I obey.
For the sake of my new brother, I need to obey.
“Don’t look at me like that, my Giulia. It’s your fault. I had to kill them. I had to warn you.”
He eyes my ring like it insulted his mother and cursed his family. The venom that drips from his tone tells me I shouldn’t bring Andrea into any further conversation. Louis has gone mad. He shot me without blinking. There’s no knowing what he’ll do.
I always knew he had an air of danger and darkness around him. If I’m fully honest with myself, it’s one of the reasons I let him get away with his clinginess for so long when I lived in London. Danger feels safe when it’s all you’ve ever known.
He just harmed me. And that chills my blood. I’m not precious to him. His goal is. It brings back thoughts of Andrea and how reverent he is towards me. I’m his everything and though he loves to tell me I’m his, he doesn’t own me. I’m no one’s property, but Louis seems determined to prove me wrong.
Louis still holds his gun to me, a clear threat, but I don’t move. His arm shifts to behind my shoulder, directed at Nico. Fear takes hold of my whole body, icy cold sweat dripping down my back while I can barely breathe in.
“No,” I whisper. “Don’t do it.”
“Get in the car.”
“Please, call an ambulance. Nico, he’s…” He slaps me across the face and pain reverberates in my skull. I guess I should be grateful he used his hand and not the gun. Shock finally registers, and my jaw slackens.
He’s ready to hurt me badly. My hands start to tremble and I clench my fists to hide my reaction to this man I thought I knew.
“You won’t fucking utter another man’s name in my presence,” Louis seethes.
With tears trailing down my cheek, I move and watch as Nico’s eyes lose their light, his eyelids fluttering open and close. More blood seeps under him, expanding like spilled paint. It’s morbid. I don’t yell this time. All I do is watch as Nico’s life ends.
My stomach hollows and my heart breaks, the place where Nico should be emptying until all I can feel is a hole in my chest.
A hand on my face brings me back to my body. The touch is gentle, at odds with the slap I experienced minutes ago, giving me whiplash. Louis’s fingers sift through my hair to put it back behind my ear.
“We need to get you checked. Here, take this.”