“It can’t be over,” Luca said, sadly. “She’s… I mean, she’s one of us.”
“She always will be, but not as my wife anymore.”
“It’s my fault,” Luca said.
“It’s not.” I scoffed. “I mean, you certainly didn’t fucking help, but this is on me. She needed me to step up to the plate, and I couldn’t. I have no one to blame but myself.”
“Maybe once all this is over, you can—”
“Let me know if you find anything else out,” I cut him off.
Luca was silent for a while before he finally said, “Okay.”
I hung up the phone without saying goodbye. I couldn’t have that conversation anymore. I was going to lose it.
I set my head in my hands and tried to imagine what my life was going to be like. I’d been miserable at my one attempt to cook, but now that Molly knew the truth, I could ask her to teach me. They were all going to tiptoe around me for a while, which was going to be painful, but it would be better than the coldness I’d received as of late. I wouldn’t see Willow when I woke up, and I wouldn’t see her before I went to bed. Those facts were real and true and were like knives in my chest. Coupled with the fact that I’d know my daughter mostly through video chats, I was about ready to jump out the window.
Where had I gone wrong? Why couldn’t I be the man she needed me to be? Why couldn’t I just do what had to be done? I was the only thing standing between me and my own happiness, and yet, I couldn’t seem to get out of my own way. I wanted to blame my dad. I wanted to blame him for the hardened people he turned us into and blame him for leading this life, to begin with, but Luca, Marco, and Gabriel seemed to be making it out of the muck okay. Why was I the only one stuck in it? Why was I the only one who couldn’t get my dad’s sausage fingers from around my throat?
I looked down at the rings encircling my fingers, the very ones he’d worn and left to me when he died. Maybe they were possessed? Maybe he knew if I put them on, he’d be able to live on a frightening legacy through me. I grabbed one, desperate to pull it from my fingers, but I couldn’t do it. All things considered, I loved my dad. These rings were what I had left of him. Maybe they were tethering me, but how could I just cast them aside?
“Willow!”
The scream took me so off guard that I jumped sky-high. It took a second for me to realize that it was my wife’s name being screamed, but when I did, I knocked shit off my desk while trying to get out of my chair and out the door. I raced down the hallway and down the stairs, and when I got to the landing, I froze. Gabriel was on the floor, cradling a shaking and fighting-for-breath Willow. Her eyes were wide, and her skin was pale as a ghost.
I dropped to my knees next to them. “Willow! What happened?”
Gabriel looked up at me, and I could see the regret seeded deeply behind his eyes. “Denise tried to push her over. If I hadn’t been here, she would have been successful.”
A blinding white noise came from nowhere. All sense of anything other than rage left my body. Denise tried to kill Willow? After I trusted her? After I brought her into my home?
“Where did she go?” My voice was alien in its tone. The monster I’d been trying to pretend didn’t reside inside of me was clawing at my bones to break free. “Where did she go!”
“She ran out back toward the garden! Molly went after her.” I looked up, and Stacy was standing guard at the front door with her gun out.
I took off running. I blasted down the stairs and through the foyer to the door that led to the back. It was already open after Molly, and as my feet started to pound through the grass, I could hear multiple sets behind me. Molly was stopped at the opening to the hedge maze. I got to her side, and she was out of breath.
“She ran in. If we split up, she won’t get out.” She pointed to the right. “Gabriel, that way, Stace, you go to the left.” Her eyes scanned over and went wide with shock. I turned around, and Willow was standing there.
“You should go back ins—” I started.
“Alessandro, that woman tried to kill me.” She reached into my waistband and pulled out one of the guns I kept there. “I want to take her head off myself.”
“I’ll go around back, you two go in the front. Go!” I ordered.
Molly took off, and Willow and I blasted into the hedge maze. I had no intention of leaving Willow’s side, but she was fast and ducked around a corner when Stacy yelled that she’d seen her. I followed after her, but when I turned the same corner, Willow was nowhere to be seen.
“Stacy! Do you see her?” Gabriel yelled.
“I just saw her!” Molly screamed.
“Willow?” I shouted out. “Willow!”
“Sandro? Alessandro?”
“Come on, boys! If you can’t get out, you’ll starve to death in there.”
“I can’t find it!” Marco yelped.