76
Bianca
I was panicking.
The guy with the greasy hair had just grabbed me and pulled me away from Adriano.
I shrieked, then nearly gagged from the stench coming off him as he wrapped his filthy arm around my neck.
I’d expected danger today
But more like getting shot at by a bunch of mafiosos.
Not getting attacked in a back alley by a meth head.
I struggled to break free, but he was surprisingly strong. His arm locked around my neck like a vise.
I looked over at Adriano, hoping to see him racing towards me
But he still had his back turned.
And the drug addict behind me was pulling me away.
Oh God, no
And then half a dozen things happened in just a few seconds.
Adriano threw something into the air
Then he was running towards the other junkie
And I saw him twist the gun off to the side with a loud snap.
The man screamed
And immediately went silent as his head slammed into the brick wall.
Then Adriano turned around…
The gun in his hand and murder in his eyes.
I had seen him look like that once before, after the shooting at the hotel.
I’d been terrified at the time, thinking his anger would be directed at me.
Now I rejoiced silently.
The guy behind me?
Not so much.
“Oh shit,” he whispered.
Then Adriano did something I didn’t expect:
He flicked the gun out in the air
And dropped all the bullets on the ground.
Clink clink clink clink clink.
I was stunned.
Why did he do THAT?!
The asshole holding me hostage was elated.
I heard him chuckle, like he couldn’t believe his good luck
Which lasted all of two seconds.
Adriano switched his grip on the gun so he was holding it by the barrel
And then he rushed forward, his face insane with rage.
Adriano’s left hand tore the man’s arm away from my neck, snapping the guy’s fingers.
The man screamed.
As I scrambled away, I heard a heavy THUNK behind me
And the man screamed again as he fell to the ground.
I watched in shock as Adriano repeatedly clubbed him with the gun, grunting every time he landed a blow.
“YOU MOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT ”
The guy shrieked as he tried to fend off the blows
But Adriano just smacked aside his arms and went back to bludgeoning his head.
The guy’s face was already covered in blood when Adriano started stomping him in the head with his Doc Martens.
“STOP!” I screamed, and ran over to pull Adriano off him.
I hated the guy on the ground.
I knew what he’d intended to do to meOriginal from NôvelDrama.Org.
But I had never seen another human brutalized like that before…
Not even by the mafia.
And it terrified me.
“STOP, please STOP!” I cried as I pulled at Adriano’s shirt.
He immediately quit as soon as I touched him.
But he loomed over the man like the Grim Reaper, breathing hard as he glared down at the guy’s ruined face.
Then Adriano looked at me and all his rage instantly dissipated. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I sobbed, “just, please… don’t hurt him anymore.”
Adriano looked down at the limp body on the ground and bared his teeth in a snarl. “He deserves to DIE for touching you.”
I was pretty sure that’s what would have happened if I hadn’t intervened.
As it was, the guy would never look the same and he’d probably be sipping his meals through a straw for months.
“I know, I know, just… please… don’t,” I whispered frantically, trying to pull Adriano away before he started again.
His breathing gradually slowed, and he nodded.
He walked over to the cinderblocks where he’d hidden his gun…
Took off the piece of newspaper everything was wrapped in…
And used it to wipe flecks of blood off his hands.
Then he wiped the entire revolver, probably to remove any fingerprints…
And tossed it onto the guy’s broken body.
Finally, he retrieved the magazines and pistol and stuffed them into his pockets and the back of his jeans.
Then he turned to me. “I need to wash up… and I think you need a drink.”
I nodded numbly and let him lead me out of the alleyway.
Adriano
We sat in a booth in a hole-in-the-wall dive bar.
It was around 4PM, so we were the only ones in the place besides the bartender and a couple of barflies.
Still, though, I kept an eye on the door. The encounter with the two addicts had unnerved me a little.
It had apparently shaken Bianca to the core.
I’d made her accompany me to the restroom, where I’d washed the remaining blood off my hands.
Then I paid for two shot glasses of brandy and carried them back to the booth.
“Drink that,” I ordered.
She downed the first shot and coughed.
I slid the second one over to her in case she needed it.
The color gradually came back into her cheeks, but she still didn’t say anything.
I regretted she’d seen it…
But I sure as hell didn’t regret doing it.
“You’re safe now,” I said.
“Am I?” she asked in an accusatory voice.
“Well, there’s still whoever killed the Agrellas, but ”
“That’s not what I meant,” she whispered as she dropped her eyes to the table.
“…are you talking about me?!”
She glanced up at me fearfully, then looked back at the empty shot glass.
“Babe ” I said as I reached across the table for her hand
But she jerked it away.
I sat there for a moment in silence, thinking about how best to approach the situation.
“What did I do to the guy with the gun?” I finally asked.
Her gaze rose to meet mine.
Before she could answer, I said, “I knocked him out. Broke his finger to get the gun away from him, yes but other than that, all I did was knock him out. He’ll probably wake up with a concussion and he’ll have to get that finger splinted… but that’s it. You know why he got off so easy?”
She shook her head slowly.
“Because he told the other guy to stay away from you.”
What I didn’t tell her was that if we’d been out in the countryside where nobody would have heard or seen anything, the guy would’ve gotten a couple extra nostrils.
He was lucky he’d pulled this shit in the city on a day when I didn’t need any extra attention.
I didn’t want to muddy the waters, though, so I left all of that out.
“But the other guy he put his hands on you,” I hissed. “That guy was going to hurt you. And that’s why I did what I did.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she whispered, “You could have killed him.”
“Damn straight. NO ONE touches you. Not like that. NO ONE.”
She continued staring into my eyes.
Then she finally said what I figured was at the root of all this.
“…what if I make you mad?”
I shook my head. “No. Never. I would never raise a finger against you. I don’t give a shit how mad you made me I would never, ever hit you. NEVER.
“Number one, because I don’t want to…
“And number two, because I don’t hurt women. Only weak-ass pieces of shit who aren’t real men hurt women. And I am not a weak-ass piece of shit.
“I would never, ever, not in a million years hurt you, Bianca. That is the God’s honest truth. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
Bianca just kept looking at me…
And I could see that the fear was gone from her eyes.
I reached across the table for her hand.
This time she gave it to me.
I pulled her hand to my lips…
…and I kissed it. Hard.
“You are beyond important to me,” I said. “Never doubt that. I will always keep you safe… and I will KILL any motherfucker who tries to hurt you. That I swear on my father’s grave.”
“Let’s… maybe… just not talk about killing people for a while?” she asked softly.
I kissed her hand again. “You got it.”
She nodded… took a deep breath and blew it out… then downed the second shot. “Okay… I think I’m good now.”
“Okay.”
We got up out of the booth and she turned towards the door.
“Bianca,” I said.
She turned back towards me
And I circled my arms around her waist and kissed her.
Softly… gently.
She stiffened at first
But then she melted into me, returning my kiss with equal tenderness.
We broke off when one of the old men at the bar yelled, “Get a room, you two!”
He laughed after he said it, though.
Bianca looked at me apprehensively, like she was worried about my reaction
But I said, “Nothin’ I’d like better, old man,” as I took her hand and led her out of the bar.
The old guy and the other barflies cheered as we walked out.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for what I really wanted.
Because we had a job to do.