Page 107 of Dreadful
“Goddamn, Tallie.”
He wraps his hand around my nape and brings me up to kiss him. My raw lips still greedily meld with his before he pulls away to press his forehead against mine. His voice is intense and speaks straight to my soul.
“You’re mine, Talia. Wewillhave a future together, a happy ever after waiting for us after this. I swear to you that we’ll get these bastards, but it willnotbe the last thing we do.”
Act 5
Scene 30
I’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU
Sever
My apartment is dark and cold when I wake up. But for the first time ever, I’m waking up with the warmth of a woman in my arms.
Tallie’s sweet scent settles me as she sleeps on the uninjured side of my chest. I should get up. There’s a lot to do today now that she and I have joined forces. But I’ve been laying here for the past ten minutes, and every time I so much as shift, Tallie’s long limbs tighten around me, and I suddenly have zero urge to do anything other than squeeze her back. So instead of leaving, I caress her curves back and forth while I wait for her to wake up.
My rough fingertips memorize every hill and valley wherever they go. She shivers, so I wrap my gray satin sheets around us both to trap our heat in. With the fabric snug around us, she scoots even closer, and her foot brushes my brace.
I’m thankful I had the foresight to put it on last night. An orthopedic surgeon designed and modified it specifically for the slight bend in my ankle, so it’s comfortable, but the titanium bracing does most of the work for my foot. To avoid muscle atrophy, I only use it when I have to lift bodies quickly or when I’m anticipating a fight. Both applied last night with Tallie, and after Claudio’s little stunt, I’ve needed the added pressure to compress the swelling. That has lessened,andI carried my woman up to my bedroom, so the brace has been a win-win this time.
Eventually, but still entirely too soon, she stirs, stretching first before her sleepy golden-green eyes blink up at me.
“You’re here.”
“Where else would I be?”
She shrugs. “People leave. The promises you made last night…they’re the kind that seem too good to be true in the daylight. I kind of expected you to be gone this morning.”
Her gaze leaves mine, but I lift her chin to keep her focus on me.
“They’re the kind of promises that you deserve. I’m not going anywhere.”
A small smile deepens the dimple in her right cheek. “I like the sound of that.”
I kiss her forehead and go back to brushing the back of my fingers over her skin. Neither one of us is in a hurry to leave, so we rest with our thoughts in the quiet moment. My fingertips trace one of the snake outlines of her tattoo, and I count the rest.
“Twelve snakes,” I murmur. “Five filled with gray-green scales, one white. I’m guessing the ones without ink represent the names in your song that are still left?”
“Yup.” She turns her arm in the dim light, making the white snake seem like it’s shimmering. “I already have an appointment to fill in two more. Now that I know you killed the capo, I’ll have your cousins fill in his, too.”
It’s crazy to think that Roman, Tiero, and Raze all knew Tallie before I did. She’s been here this whole time, on mystreet, no less. I was too blinded by grief and revenge to see that the person I mourned was always right in front of me. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for lost time.
My thumb brushes over the sole white snake. “And this one? Why isn’t it gray-green like the others?”
Her face softens. “She was forgiven.”
It takes me a moment to go through the song in my head before I whisper the answer out loud. “Antonella.”
Tallie nods. “She pretended I was dead. Took me to mynonni. Then Tony and Gio saved me by confiding in that customer who’s a doctor. All the secrecy kept me alive, but I was left with scars, and Antonella was murdered anyway.”
My blood runs cold. “Murdered? No, myziaAntonella had a stroke—”
Tallie’s face softens with sympathy. “I heard you at that dinner, Sev. Youknowwhat happened to your father. Why wouldn’t it have happened to Antonella, too?”
“You think—” I suck down a deep breath. She’s confirming a fear I’ve held for a long time, one I’ve been afraid to say out loud, terrified that accepting the possibility would make it true.
“I don’t think. Iknow. There are reasons why the Vincellis kept their peeping Tom of a gardener around for so long. Not only did he knoweverythingabout the plants that grew there, he no doubt knew what they were used for, too.”
