I look up. It’s Dr. Palmeri. The bottom of his face is covered in blood as if he’s eaten a meal of raw meat. He’s holding the ceremonial wedding knife with a bleeding thumb that doesn’t look right.

“Shut up, doc.” Sergio sends a bullet for the doctor, but he’s off balance with me. It misses.

Palmeri charges forward.

“Shit.” Sergio lets go of my ankle.

I scramble for Ray’s body, crawling to the gun. I grab it and roll onto my back, pointing it upward with both fists. I expect someone above me, ready to take me someplace I don’t want to go, but all I see is ceiling.

I get up quickly. Between me and the arch to the Dome—where the commotion has quieted somewhat—Sergio and Palmeri are locked in a fierce embrace, hand to hand as Sergio struggles to keep the wedding knife from coming down on him and the doctor struggles to keep the gun pointed at the floor. I don’t know what miscalculation allowed Dr. Palmeri to get that close to Sergio without getting shot, but that’s my cue to back away, gun shaking but lifted toward them.

I’m too slow. Sergio throws Palmeri off him. Sees me. Aims for the doctor before he’s charged again.

Palmeri’s life means nothing to me—I’m not trying to save it—but there’s a hundredth of a second to spare before my own life’s meaning will be decided.

I squeeze the trigger.

Massimo’s leg was a fortunate mistake I won’t make again. Cringing, blinded by determination, I pull the trigger over and over, aiming in Sergio’s direction until the gun stops recoiling and clicks ineffectively.

Sergio’s on the floor, his blood pouring into the rivulets between the stones.

I hit him in the throat.

I did it. It may have taken ten bullets to kill him, or it may have been the first, but he’ll never call me another nonsense pet name.

“Prima?”

Dario’s voice is sharp enough to cut the cord between life and death. The sight of him outside that cell ties them back together. He is shirtless, ragged, wiry, and taut with eyes that blaze bright enough to set me on fire. The gun falls from my fingers. The clacking sound it makes melts into the hitched sob from my chest.

He came for me, and I am here for him. Our scars create the single line of a life.

We’re going to leave here together.

Arms out, I go to him, and at first, he seems ready to engage my embrace. Give us one holy second before we have to rush out the door forever.

But I’m still two steps away when his attention moves to my left and he raises the arm he’d relaxed, shouting the word “no!” too late for God to hear.

Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

DARIO