Page 57 of His Wife

“Isaia sure as fuck didn’t sound like he’s kidding.” I follow Nicoli across the foyer, people scattering out of our way as we dart for the stairs. “Which floor?”

“Third,” Maximo calls out behind me, and the three of us sprint up the stairs, taking two at a time.

I can hear my blood rushing in my ears, my pulse racing and thoughts stumbling around the words Isaia said when he called. All I kept thinking while listening to him speak was that this couldn’t be true. That none of what he said was real. Even his voice, so flat, so emotionless, didn’t seem right.

We reach the third floor, the pounding of our heavy footsteps resonating down the hall.

“This one.” Maximo bangs on the door once. “Isaia. Open up, man.”

I’m not in the mood for waiting, so I brush past Maximo, grab the glossy doorknob, and jerk the door open. The sunlight coming through the apartment's floor-to-ceiling windows is blinding, bouncing off the stark white walls. I stomp inside past the kitchen, entering the living room through the large archway. “Isaia! Where the fuck are you, man?”

I turn when I find the living room empty. It’s when I glance up at the second floor that everything inside me chills. “Jesus Christ.”

My heart drops to my feet, and my lungs deflate. I don’t even blink when Nicoli bumps into me and follows my gaze, the scene bringing him to a screeching halt. “Dear God.”

I’m frozen, my every muscle iced. It’s like the world stops, and nothing else exists but this sheer terror that sinks into my chest and steals the breath from my lungs. Black shadows close in around the edges of my vision, zeroing in on the bloody body hanging from the second-story railing.

“Isaia!” Maximo’s voice seems to echo far in the distance even though he’s right in front of me, a flash of leather and panic. When the vile stench of blood fills my nostrils and infects my brain, the world starts moving again. But it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.

“Jesus, Isaia,” Nicoli calls, and my attention snaps to my little brother sitting on the spiral staircase, elbows on his knees, clutching a bottle of bourbon. “You okay, man?” Nicoli rushes up the stairs, Isaia taking a long swig of the bourbon, not saying a damn word.

“Melanie,” I whisper, staring at her almost unrecognizable body, her dirty, blood-soaked hair framing her face as her head dangles eerily to the side with cable tied around her neck. “Jesus.”

Her eyes have been cut out, two gaping holes with congealed blood clinging to her cheeks like runny paint, her lips sewn shut with black thread, tears of crimson dried on her chin. It’s like the devil made her face his canvas—his own sick, vile masterpiece of pain. There’s a pool of blood on the carpet below her, the thick liquid seeped into the white fibers. Cuts all over her body left gaping holes of flesh and jagged wounds crusted in blood. It’s a goddamn horror scene no ordinary mind can imagine.

I tread backward until I feel the leather couch behind my knees and sit down. “This is…” I shake my head before pulling my palms down my face. “Jesus Christ, this isn’t fucking happening.”

“I’ve been telling myself that ever since I walked in here and found her like this.” Isaia pours more alcohol down his throat, thirsting for the escape it can give. The bottle is already half empty, which explains Isaia’s lack of freaking the fuck out.

“All this time,” I start, my voice low. “All this time, we’ve been upping security at the clubs, waiting for him, thinking that’s where he’ll strike. And then he…” I point at Melanie’s lifeless body, my jaw clenched as anger surges up my throat, forcing me to swallow my words.

I scream. I fucking roar, grabbing the vase on the coffee table and throwing it across the room. Crystal shatters, and it’s an explosion of yellow rose petals everywhere. “Motherfucker!” I growl, kicking at the fucking table. It’s like the devil’s serpent crawls all over my last goddamn nerves, destroying every ounce of control I have. “How is this fucker doing this?”

“She was an easy target for him.” Maximo paces, his hands on his sides and his gaze fixed on her lifeless body. “We didn’t have her protected.”

“Because we didn’t think she was a target.” I rough my hand through my hair, fighting the urge to tear it from my skull. “We didn’t once think—”

“No,” Isaia interrupts, his eyes downcast. “I didn’t think. I didn’t protect her. There’s no we in this fucked-up equation.” He chugs down more bourbon before swinging it across the room, amber liquid splattering against the wall and joining the ruined vase and roses on the floor. “It was my responsibility to protect her, and I didn’t. I might as well have invited this fucker in here.” He chokes on his words and straightens, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “I might as well have sat there on that goddamn couch and watched while he…while he tortured her to death.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, my chest tightening as I watch my little brother struggle to keep it together.

“Of course, it is.”

“None of us thought she’d be a target. We only thought about the girls at the clubs.”

“And your wife,” he snaps, then turns his attention to Nicoli, who’s pacing up and down the second floor. “Mirabella. We doubled security around them. Not once did I think it necessary to do the same for Melanie.”

“We couldn’t have known.”

Isaia slams his palm down on the staircase barrier. “I should have! I should have known. I should have protected her. But I didn’t.”

“Jesus, Isaia.” Nicoli stands tall at the top of the stairs. “No one could have predicted this. You were just fucking the girl, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like you were going steady with her.”

“Nicoli,” I snap. “Seriously?”

“What? It’s the truth. I’m just saying it as it is. Isaia’s been fucking her for years. It’s never been anything more than that, so how the fuck were we supposed to know this motherfucking son of a bitch would even think about targeting Melanie?”

“You’re an asshole.”

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