Chapter Twenty

My heart is beating so fast, that I am scared that I will bleed out right in the doorway, just from one small cut.

I don't even feel the burn of the laceration. I didn't intend to cut myself, but my hands were shaking so badly that the sharp knife must have nicked my skin.

I stare at the cluster of men in the room with me, feeling like I can't breathe.

"Don't sign the deal, Elio," I demand, my voice hard. I pray that he will understand.

I pray that he will see that this is the only way to ensure that our son is not hunted down and killed by these men in the future.

This is the only leverage that I have to protect my child and I don't care who I hurt so long as Mateo is safe.

I believe Elio will try to take care of Mateo, but my child has lived behind locked doors for all of his life. If something happens to me and I die, I cannot allow him to be given to Elio just so he can be shut away in a cage yet again.

I know that these men will never let me go; Elio will never let me go, not even if it's best for Mateo. No matter how much I love Elio, I do not love him more than my own son.

I refuse to acknowledge the fact that he threatened to hurt me if I tried to take Mateo from him. It does not surprise me, but I don't care.

If any of these men kill me while I am saving my child, I don't care. Deep down, I always knew that it would come to this. That I would have to bargain with my own life to save the life of my child.

Now that I have reached the crossroads, I knew I would inevitably have to traverse, it's almost a relief.

"Kate," Enzo says to me, stepping away from Elio and Luca. "Kate, this isn't necessary. We won't harm Mateo so long as Elio signs the deal."

I shake my head and hiss when the sharp blade jabs me again. I feel a new trail of blood slide down my skin, but I ignore it. "The clause that Elio added, you will not honor it. You won't honor anything about this deal. None of you will hold to it, even if you sign that contract. You will all go to war, and my son will be caught in the middle of it all. Solely due to his bloodline. None of you care about your children or your wives. You only care about winning." I spit the last word out of my mouth like poison, my heart turning bitterly in my chest.

"If I die right now," I say firmly, knowing that I am right, "Marco will get custody of Mateo. He will no longer be useful to any of you, and I will be dead. Elio will be free to do what he has always wanted to do; kill you both without concern for the welfare of his son, or his fiancée. I am worth more to Elio dead than alive."

My vision blurs for a moment as I clutch the small knife in my sweaty palm.

Even when the Baldinis first brought me here, I never imagined that I would have to threaten to claim my own life to save my child. I was afraid of Luca or Enzo harming me, but it had never occurred to me that I would die by my own hand.

Yet, it was always there in front of me, this solution.

All along, if I had just removed myself from the equation, Elio would have been free to go after the Baldinis if he desired, to exact the revenge that he so badly wanted to take.

The realization is bitter, but undeniable. I feel a wash of incredible, numbing sadness come over me.

I don't want to die. I want to live. But I want my son to live more.

"Kate." The voice is Elio's, and the softness in his tone is nearly my undoing.

My resolve wavers, and I readjust my grip on the knife. I look at him, my gaze blurry with unshed tears. There is something I have never seen in his eyes and it takes my distracted brain a moment to realize what it is.

The emotion shining out of Elio's face is love.

My lips twist into the mockery of a smile and I nod a little in reply to the emotion that I have always wanted from Elio, but have never been able to receive.

How fitting and yet how ironic, that I should finally earn his love in this moment of terror and sadness. And yet, seeing the emotion shining from his dark eyes is making my heart quail at the thought of what I might have to do.

My brain scrabbles for other answers, for solutions that don't include harming myself to save my son.

"I can just shoot her right now," Luca says loudly, yanking his gun from the holster. He levels it at my head and I smile at him.

I think of the women who were burned as witches, falsely accused and yet resigned to their unjust deaths. I straighten my shoulders, looking him in the eye, and back slowly toward the door to Enzo's office.

"Tell me that you won't sign the deal," I say to Elio, turning my gaze to his frantic eyes. "Promise me that you will let Mateo go back to Mexico where he will be safe."

"Kate," Elio chokes out, his tone a plea. "Kate put the knife down."

I shake my head again, backing out the door and into the hall. I glance toward the playroom, where I still hear video game sounds.

I pray that my son is too absorbed in the game he is playing to notice this drama unfolding in the hallway. I step backward rapidly, moving away from the children.

The men in the office rush after me, jostling and pushing one another as they slip through the door. The sight would almost be funny if it weren't for the nature of the moment.

I realize that I don't actually know if I can take the action that I am promising to take. My mind scrambles again for other solutions.

I wanted Elio to promise me, to tell me he wouldn't sign the deal and that he would come up with another solution for the mess that we are in. Part of me expected Luca to just shoot me as soon as I started making a fuss.

Now that none of those things have happened, I'm at a loss as to what I should do.

I stumble up against a hard surface, sucking in a breath as the sharp blade bites into my skin again.

I glance behind me and see that I am leaning up against the partial wall of the stairwell at the front of the house. The graceful curves of the stairs angle down into the echoing lobby where I picked up the flowers that Elio sent to me, to win me back.

My heart is a solid point of pain in my chest. I realize I can't do this.

I don't want to die.

I love Elio, I love my son.

I want to get the chance to love my life again. It's been years since I was happy and last night with Elio showed me the possibility that I could be happy again.

I realize that I have been staring down at the shiny marble floor for a long moment, grappling with what I want, realizing that I truly was bluffing with these dangerous men who want to control the fate of myself and my son.

I look up and gasp when I see that Elio is very close to me now, his dark eyes boring into me, imploring me.

"Give me the knife, amore," he says to me, his hands outstretched as if he will grab me back from the railing.

I feel tears sliding down my face. They are cold and I think that is strange. Shouldn't they be warm? I lean back away from him, not sure what to do next, wishing that there was a better option for me, for my child, for the man that I have loved since I was a young girl.

"Elio, I…" I start to say and then I cry out as Elio tumbles into my body. My arms windmill and I catch the edge of the half wall at my back, the collision with the hard surface causing a sharp pain to ricochet up my legs and into my spine.

The letter opener flies into the air and clatters to the floor.

"I'll kill you both!" Luca screams, grabbing a fistful of Elio's hair and pounding a fist into his face. Elio pulls away from me, trying to spare me the force of Luca's attack.

I run into the wall again, nearly losing my balance, but catching myself at the last moment. I cling to the wall, panting, staring down at the drops of blood that are turning into a pool at my feet.

I wonder, have I injured myself badly after all?

A steady stream of Italian curses is emerging from Luca's mouth as he struggles with Elio. Abruptly, Elio breaks free of Luca and punches him over and over in the face.

Luca stumbles back, his arms flailing, trying to catch himself. I dance away from the railing to avoid Luca's body as he falls against the wall I was just leaning against.

I hear the children asking what is going on and Enzo's voice receding from the fight, clearly taking the children back to the playroom. I'm confident he'll secure them away from this chaos with the nanny.

I clench my jaw. It's just Luca, Elio, and me now. I glance down the stairs. I could run. I might even be able to get away, but what would happen to Mateo then? What would happen to Elio?

My resolve firms as I watch Elio pace forward toward Luca, ready to deliver more punishing blows. The anger I have felt at my confinement, at the risk to my son, floods through me.

I now know what people mean when they say that they "saw red".

My gaze falls on the letter opener on the floor right in front of me. I bend over and pick it up, watching Luca rise to his feet again. He straightens his shoulders, and lifts his fists again, clearly ready to go back to sparring with Elio.

I clench the small knife in my hand, slippery with my own blood, and I run at Luca, leaping onto his back. I see Elio's eyes go wide when he realizes what I have done, but then all I can see is the back of Luca's head as I hold onto his neck as tightly as I can.

Luca reels back, surprised at the extra weight on his shoulders. He claws at my arms, but some kind of preternatural strength is flooding my body.

I lift the letter opener and stab blindly, not sure if I am hurting Luca or not. I hear him roar with pain and feel a moment of vicious satisfaction singing in my veins.

Luca stumbles back a few paces, clearly disoriented. I lift my hand to stab him again, when suddenly, he wrenches my arm from his neck with a heave.

My eyes fly wide as I become weightless, launched into the air by his strength. I see Baldini family members staring down at me as I sail through space, and realize that I am falling toward the stairs which are lined with family portraits.

I cry out sharply as my body connects with the first step, the pain like a thousand knife cuts stabbing into my back.

I tumble down the stairs, the pain becoming one solid, wrenching agony compressing my nerve endings and scrambling my thoughts. The fall seems to last forever until mercifully, I fetch up against the banister and come to a stop.

I can't breathe. I'm drowning. I hear a terrible sound and realize in a distant way that it's the sound of me trying to suck air into my lungs.

I am staring at the ceiling, at the giant, ostentatious chandelier hanging in the front hallway. It's hideously ugly and I hate it, but I can't close my eyes. I can't do anything.

"Amore!"

I manage to incline my head slightly in the direction of Elio's voice. I give him a misty smile. My scrambled brain is making me see double, but I don't mind. I want to see his ethereal, deadly beauty one last time before I die.

I must be dying. No one could be in this much pain and live.

"My God, Luca, what have you done?" Enzo shouts.

I hear feet clattering down the stairs.

"Call 911!" Elio screams, clutching at my hand.

I realize in a dreamy way that I can't feel the pressure of his fingers on mine. I try to squeeze his hand, but I can't.

I frown a little. Oh yes, I fell. I'm very hurt. I'm probably dying. I had forgotten.

"Elio, I didn't mean to hurt you," I say to him, a tear slithering down my face. "I love you."

Elio's face contorts with pain and his beautiful pianist's hands trembled as he touches different parts of my body, disbelieving, uncertain of what to do for maybe the first time in his life.

"I'm more useful to you dead, Elio," I say to him, trying to smile through the pain. "It's better to let me go."

"No!" Elio screams out, the sound jagged, like splinters driven under my skin.

He grabs my hand again, pressing it against his face which is wet with tears. "Don't die, goddammit!" he cries, rocking back and forth a little as he grips my hand. "I need you, Kate. Don't die."

My mind, which feels as battered as my body, feels a momentary pang of defeat. Even now, as I am dying, he won't admit to himself that he loves me.

He won't even give me those precious words on my deathbed. I think of Mateo, and feel a terrible wash of sadness for my child, but I also feel triumph.

He is losing his mother, but he will win his freedom.

"The ambulance is on the way," I hear Enzo say.

"They're taking too long!" Elio rages, still rocking back and forth in an agony of emotion.

It's fine, I want to say to them. Just let me go. But I can't make my lips form the sounds.

I turn my head a little to see Elio better as the darkness slowly washes over me and I know, no more.