Page 53 of When She Unravels
Immediately, Damiano gets in Nelo’s face. “Watch your mouth,” he warns.
“Or what?”
Around us, other patrons have begun to take note of the commotion, and some are trying to get closer to see what’s going on.
“My office. Now,” Damiano says.
“No. I think we should do this here,orphano.Let everyone see who’ll win,”Nelo taunts.
I’m close enough to see the muscles in Damiano’s back go stiff.
“I’m going to pretend all the blood in your brain is bleeding out of your hand, which is why that sentence just left your mouth. Maybe you’re not thinking straight, but I am. Look around. Does this look like a sceneIl becchinowould like to see on the news tomorrow?”
The grave digger. Unease flutters inside my chest. Who is Damiano talking about and why does that sound like the nicknames Papà gave to his men? They always called each other things like that.Il grasso, il dente, il matematico… Each name had a story.Il dentelost his front tooth in a fight when he was sixteen and walked around like that for a few weeks before my grandfather paid him to get it fixed.Il grassowas always snacking on the job.Il mathematicowouldn’t tell me when I asked, but later I found out from Tito that after every job, he’d always count how many men they’d killed and tally up the numbers in a little notebook he carried in his breast pocket.
Nelo sneers and gives a sharp shake of his head. “Fine. We settle this in your office.”
Damiano jostles the bouncers out of the way, takes me by the elbow, and leads me away. I twist my neck to see if the others follow. They do.
Ras runs up to us. “What’s happening?”
“The thin one has a knife,” Damiano snarls but doesn’t stop walking. “Get it from him as soon as we’re inside my office and figure out how the fuck he managed to get it past the guys at the door.”
“Ale! Wait!” It’s Astrid. I see her trying to get to me, but Ras stops her and says something that makes her scowl at him angrily.
Damiano pulls me through a door marked “Private” and the sounds of the club dim.
I notice there’s no one behind us anymore.
The full realization of what I’ve done slams into me right then.
I just…stabbed a man. Spilled his blood like it was nothing. There was no puppet master pulling the strings this time. It was all me.
The edges of my vision blacken. I sway on my feet, and Damiano’s grip on me tightens.
He stops moving us and brings his face close to mine. “Are you okay? Did they touch you?”
He’s so angry he’s shaking. I suck in a desperate breath and force a single word out. “No.”
He exhales in relief. “What happened?”
“He grabbed Astrid. He touched her over her clothes. It was sick, he wouldn’t let her get away.”
“Astrid stabbed him?”
“No. I did.”
Something that might be pride flickers in his expression, but that must be my imagination, because there’s nothing for me to be proud of in this situation. Yeah, Nelo is sick. But so am I.
Lazaro really did ruin me. And now Astrid knows. I saw it in her eyes when she looked at me moments earlier. She looked terrified of me. Finally, she understands who she’s been living with for two weeks.
A monster.
CHAPTER16
VALENTINA
“Nelo recognizedme from the night before,” I tell Damiano as we follow the dimly lit service hallway to his office. “He said he’ll kill me for what I did tonight.”
