Chapter 1
I’d left work thinking it was finally just an ordinary night. I was scared for my life at the beginning of the week knowing there’d been a death threat against me. But Renzo did what he needed to do and fixed all that.
After so much worry and confusion about Renzo taking a life and another man wanting a life in exchange, I was relieved for the normalcy.
I also thought it felt surreal to be living a normal day after all that. Just a girl at work who would go home and sleep. Who’d get a paycheck at the end of the work week and read a book.
The hardest thing about all this now was just the heartbreak of asking Renzo and Dante to stay away from me. And for distancing myself from Grace and Rocco too.
It’s heartbreaking. It is. I wish so badly they’d never killed someone so I wouldn’t have been forced to be so shocked and disdained.
To be disgusted by the blatant disrespect for human life. To fear their hearts and how they can sleep at night so easily.
I thought my night was going to be a normal one.
Elijah picked me up from work as he always does. His greeting to me earlier when he picked me up for my shift had been so genuinely warm and kind.
He said it felt like forever since he’d given me a ride and that he missed me. It was nice. And so was the ride home when we chatted idly about mundane things.
The first time my phone rang with Renzo’s number I didn’t answer it. My gut flipped and I panicked, not wanting to speak with him and crumble my resolve, so I just didn’t pick up.
I continued speaking with Elijah.
I was dropped off and went to my mailbox when I remembered I never grabbed it this morning. Then my phone rang again. I saw it was Renzo and my gut told me this wasn’t something I should ignore.
I answered it this time.
“Kat! Where are you?! Don’t go inside or stay around your apartment. I need you to leave and be sure no one is following you. I’m almost there. I’ll get you” Renzo blurted out in a clearly concerned voice.
It made the hairs on the back of my neck raise up. This is a normal night, isn’t it? No more fear, right? So, then what was Renzo so panicked about?
“What? Why? What’s going on Renzo” my own voice turned to panic. “We can’t find Sven. I’m right here turning the corner in a second. Come to me” Renzo told me.
I was both stunned and afraid hearing about Sven still being a problem, but relieved that Renzo would be here to protect me.
It’s twisted, but I do feel safe with him. No matter how brutal a man I find out he is...I still feel safe with him.
A pair of strong headlights turned into the lot and I released a breath knowing he was here for me. “Okay, I see you.”
I started for the car. I dropped my phone from my ear when suddenly it wasn’t a 6′3 obsidian haired man with a blue eyed gaze, but rather a blonde man with a less impressive build and evil set in his eyes.
I think I heard Renzo shout something but I just dropped my arm away and released the mail that was in my hands. It scattered behind me.
I was halfway across the street, out in the open with nowhere to run or any place to duck behind.
Standing in front of me was Sven Van Dijk, the man who stabbed my door with a death threat. The man who they’ve been looking for. The man who was supposed to be on a plane back to Amsterdam.
He had a gun in his hand, though he didn’t point it at me yet.
He started walking in front of his headlights so that his appearance turned more like a silhouette in the dark. It was eerie. He looked so pleased with himself knowing I was afraid.
He made the gun obvious in his hands but hadn’t pointed yet. Then there were the sounds of screeching tires from somewhere behind us. My heart stopped when I saw Renzo barreling toward us at full speed.
All my mind could think about was him being shot. I wish he never came for me. He’s going to be killed tonight and so am I.
I wanted to shout for him to run away while he still could. I wanted to save him but I knew he wouldn’t leave me. I just know he wouldn’t.
Sven’s hand shot up and now the gun was pointing directly at my heart. My poor bleeding heart. How poetic a finish this will be.
Sven hollered for Renzo to stop and he did. He’d been running so fast and hard that he almost skidded on the loose gravel beneath his feet. It crunched beneath him.
How strange it is to know you are about to die. Even the smallest detail like the sound of crunching gravel was something I was entirely aware of. Everything was heightened.
It’s like my mind wanted to remember life for just a second more before it was snuffed out.
To memorize what trees look like. To remember what a heart beat--even one as fast as this one--feels like. To snap a picture like a freeze frame of my final moments.
My fight or flight mode had clicked on, but I’d been too late, so all I could do was smell mulch in the distance and remember it.
I didn’t want my last image to be of Sven Van Dijk. If I could only remember one thing I wanted it to be Renzo Revello.
My eyes shifted to him instead of the gun. What a beautiful man. Tall, dark, and handsome. A recipe for disaster.
The man whose allure was just a shade too dark for me.
I took in the image of Renzo in his infamous black suit done down in its relaxed version of undone buttons and rolled up sleeves. His hair was only partially styled and looked so good on him.
Those blue eyes. Gosh did they always burn me wherever they looked.
Renzo Revello is both sex and sin and everything I didn’t know I wanted in this world. The things he did to my body, how that felt, what he did to my heart. I wanted my last image to be of Renzo Revello.
But I hated how he looked worried, but then calculated.
He didn’t want to show Sven he was worried for me, so he shut it off as he so easily does. I wanted to catch eyes with him one more time because Sven lifted the gun and was shouting something.
I missed it because all I saw or heard was Renzo.
Suddenly Renzo jumped in front of me. I wasn’t expecting it and neither was Sven. I’d been crying quietly but I wasn’t focused on myself. I’d been trying to memorize him.
Now his scent wafted in front of me. The smoky finish that makes you want to lean forward for more.
The two men were still exchanging words but when I saw Sven’s hand raise higher with determination my mouth shouted, “NO, please.”
I don’t want Renzo to die. I don’t want to bear witness to the man I am utterly consumed by being shot dead in front of me.
Renzo hushed me and made sure I was entirely behind him so he could be my shield. His arm was out to be sure to cover me.
“HANDS UP, UP” Sven shouted at Renzo for moving his arm at all. Renzo adjusted himself and started to speak with me.
He heard my mutters calling ‘oh god, no, oh my god’ and he wanted to reassure me telling me, “Kat, you’ll be oka-”
BANG. BANG.
I flinched back and let my throat release a terrified screech. I felt the warmth of blood flecking crimson across my face like polka dots.
To hear a body drop to the concrete with full heavy weight no longer able to be beared. The thud of dead weight.
My eyes were wide, my chest was heaving, and nothing made sense for a single moment. Then everything made sense.
When Sven lifted that gun higher my immediate reaction was to fist the back of Renzo’s shirt in total and utter fear.
When a person faces a threat of life and death there’s a switch inside themselves that clicks. It’s no longer you that makes the decision.
In our fight or flight response there is some primal core piece of us that moves forward and takes over.
I fisted Renzo’s shirt in fear and the lamp post behind me reflected off something. A gun. Tucked into the back of Renzo’s pants is a gun and it’s right there below my hand.
When Sven Van Dijk motioned to shoot the man I care so much about, my primal self came forward...and I grabbed the gun.
The weight of harsh metal came into my hand and I flicked the switch, that safety guard that Dante showed me. I clicked it off and flung my hand out beside Renzo’s ribs.
I think it was the wall that steadied my hand because my hands had been trembling only moments before this. With my finger on the trigger I flung my hand out from behind my human shield and let off two quick rounds.
BANG. BANG.
Only half my face was visible to Sven in that split second because Renzo’s a large man in front of a dainty sized girl. With one shadowed eye I watched Sven’s own eyes go wide with shock and confusion maybe.
And then the flicker of realization that he was dying.
I felt that splatter of blood fleck across my face and I was surprised blood could splatter from five feet away and still reach me. Then the body dropped. The gun went tumbling out of Sven’s dead hand and Renzo rushed forward to grab it.
I guess just to be sure he was actually dead and couldn’t reach for his weapon to shoot us anyway. Dead.
Dead. I just shot a man. Oh my god. Oh my god, I just shot a man. I just killed somebody. I took a life.
I reached up and wiped my face. When I looked down there was blood on my hand. I have blood on my hands. I just killed a man.
I stood in horror at the realization of what I’d just done. I dropped the gun at some point. I guess when I reached up to wipe my face of the crimson splatter.
Nothing made sense, and then everything made sense.
I stumbled backwards in true horror and Renzo put his hands up to show me to do something. What? Oh...I wasn’t breathing.
Renzo approached me, motioning for me to release my gasp, and when I did everything came rushing full force against me. My eyes felt wild in my head and I looked up to Renzo who was pulling me against him now.
“What did I do?” I had to ask so I knew it really happened.
“Kat, it’s okay. You’re okay” Renzo kept telling me. He was kissing my head and telling me I was okay but none of this was okay. I pulled away from him and looked back at the body.
“Don’t look at it. Someone’s already coming to clean all this up. Everything’s gonna be fine” he told me.
Don’t look at ‘it’. That isn’t an ‘it’ that is a ‘him’. A dead ‘him’.
I didn’t even cry. I wasn’t crying. I was just horrified and looking between Renzo and the dead man.
“Oh my god” I fisted Renzo’s shirt and dropped against him. His large warm hand rubbed circles into my back while trying to walk me inside.
“No! We can’t...we can’t just leave him.”
At the end of the day this was a human being who had a life, and a family, and a soul, even one as dark as his, and I couldn’t just leave him in the street like road kill.
“Look, hey, look, Kat. They’re already here” Renzo pointed to the approaching cars and a big white van. They’re coming. I don’t even want to know who.
Renzo just grabbed me and helped me walk inside. My legs were trembling so bad with adrenaline that I literally felt unsteady on my own two feet.
The next few motions were numb ones. Renzo brought me into my apartment. He walked over to my living room’s bay window and closed the curtains so I wouldn’t see what was outside.
What was outside is Sven Van Dijk...the man I killed.
Renzo took me into my bathroom and washed my hands and face. When I was cleaned up he cupped my face and made me look at him.
“He was going to kill you, Kat. He was going to kill both of us. It’s not your fault” he told me.
“Yes it is” my mouth moved on its own.
“It’s not-” I didn’t let him finish.
“It is my fault. Everybody gets a choice. I could die or I could kill. I made my choice” I told him, removing his hands from my face so I could leave my crowded bathroom.
I walked out of my bedroom and walked over to my teal colored sofa. I sat down on this teal covered sofa. Now what?
