Page 25 of Iron Bride

Chapter ten

I Forgive You

Gia

“Mamma!” I called, like a little girl that was lost in a mall. Crying for my mother like a pathetic, weak little thing. “Mamma!”

“I’m coming,Bella!”

My mother was hard on our heels.

“Where are you taking him?” I pulled against Cillian, but it was no use.

That witch, Randa, had a gun to Marco’s head, as she marched him through a black door. A dark room, covered in white subwaytiles. The floor bowed in the middle to a drain, and manacles hung from the ceiling.

I knew what this was.

“No,” I whimpered. “Please, don’t do this. Cillian.”

I fell to my knees, as the tall redhead bound Marco to the ceiling, my husband let me go as he rolled up his sleeves.

He ignored me. He wouldn’t even look at me, as he flashed that cursed blade in his hand.

“Marco Rossini.” Cillian justsayingthe name placed the threat in the air. Like an executioner, before he declared the crime. “Where were you the night my wife was stabbed?”

Marco wasn’t looking at him, though. He was looking at me.

“He rescued me!” I screamed, throwing my arm out towards him from my place on the floor, but a single glare from Cillian kept me from running to my friend. Myonlyfriend.

My mother fell beside me, holding me back by the shoulders.

Her common sense hadn’t died like mine. She knew that we could not fight what was about to happen.

“I found her! I got her out of there!” Marco stammered his confession. “I saved her.”

“And what about before?” Cillian waved the iron blade in his hand, and I shuddered like it was the scythe of death itself.

Before? What was he talking about?

“Why were you in the area less than forty minutes before my wife arrived?”

What was he talking about?

Marco’s eyes widened, as Randa pulled the chain on the manacles until he floundered, the toes of his shoes barely grazing the ground, his shoulder sockets bearing the brunt of his weight.

“I-I-I…” Marco slipped, his weight collapsing beneath him as his shoulder cracked out of place. He screamed, and I screamed with him.

I covered my mouth, holding back the whimpers and cries.

“Gia,” my mother hissed into my ear in Italian. “Do not show them weakness.”

“They’ll kill him,” I grabbed onto her as she held me back. “Stop them, Mamma.”

Mamma looked at my husband, then grabbed my face like she did when I was a child. Holding my attention to her because she had something important to say.

“Don’t waste your breath,Bella,” she said, the despair laced in her features. “Don’t bother asking anything of a Green.”

“I’m sorry, Giovanna,” Marco’s bellow pulled my attention from my mother. “I was trying to stop them.”

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