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The voice is like cashmere and chocolate. Like a gentle kiss on the cheek, a warm bath on an icy night. “Hello? Are you okay?” It’s a ray of sunshine through an open window, a cool breeze on a hot day. I want to die to its soundtrack. I want to hear it again. I scan the horizon for its source, and when I find it, my vision jolts. Under the next streetlamp stands a girl. No—an angel. Not one of those biblically accurate ones they’d draw on the whiteboard to scare the shit out of us in Sunday school, but one from the movies. The human-shaped, heaven-sent kind with outstretched wings and a halo
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It’s October thirty-first. Halloween. Of course I’d die on Halloween.
I’m as unlovable as I am untouchable. So why the fuck is she now touching me?
“Is that blood?” “No, it’s ketchup,” I grit. “It looks painful.” “No shit.”
“You realize I’m going to die, right?” She tuts. “Well, you will with that attitude.”
Christ. I really must be the number one player on God’s shit list.
Rule seven, my father hisses from between the trees: The Villain never taps out. Yeah, well. Here I am, old man, finally tapping out. I’ve fought my whole life, and I’m tired of it. I don’t even care to make it to the church anymore; I just want to go home.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Guess death softens your insides, and liquid shit is coming out of my mouth too. Her wings flutter beneath the light as she cocks her head and flashes me a broad smile. It’s like looking at the fucking sun. A bitter amusement filters through me. “You hear that all the time.” “Yes, but tell me again.”
She’s heaven-sent, I’m hell-bound, and here we are, crossing paths in the middle.
“You’re actually going to die, aren’t you?” “I will with that attitude.”
But for once in my goddamn life, I don’t want to know. The moment’s too perfect, she’s too perfect. I ruin everything I fucking touch, and I don’t want to ruin her.
Her name carves into my heart and etches into my skin. I hope the Devil allows keepsakes in hell, because fuck, I’m taking it with me.
Rule ten: The Villain never ever gets the girl.
I’m good at talking for two.
I catch his eye over the roof of the car and raise a brow. “And it shows. I can tell you take your makeup off every night without fail.”
Because that’s the thing about feeding your addictions: the high is only ever temporary.
I recognize those eyes—only, I don’t. It’s a weird, fleeting feeling. A short, sharp tug on a memory I didn’t know I had.
Hihihihihih
I’ve suddenly remembered why I’m not afraid of the dark. It’s because I know those cautionary tales and horror movies are just fiction. In real life, monsters don’t live in the dark; they live in the light. They hold your hair back when you’re puking. They bake cakes, make signs, volunteer in hospitals. And sometimes, they even wear pink.
I love their love story; it follows a plot I could only dream of. It started with an explosive meet-cute, jumped right over the dreaded third-act breakup, and now they’re waltzing toward the happy ever after.
From the moment I looked up, Angelo hasn’t taken his eyes off of his fiancée, nor has that satisfied smirk left his lips.
Raphael Visconti steps out of the crowd, casts an amused glance at the table spread, then winks at me.
“Please don’t shout at me, I cry easily.”
Me too girl
ABBA. Rafe Visconti. Right.
Gabriel, like the angel?
“He’s my brother.” My ears ring. Ink, scar, green. I’m not religious, but in this moment, I thank God. I thank God he’s alive. And then I thank God I didn’t tell him my secret. Because I didn’t know there was another Visconti brother. But I do know that man.
My pulse aches from throbbing as I remember his earlier warning. Stick your tongue out at me again, and I’ll cut it out of your head.
Oh my God. It wasn’t an empty threat.
He could have delayed the wedding. He could have done it behind closed doors or over Zoom for all I care.
But more fool me, because I’d turned up at her house in an attempt to teach her about the age-old adage of fucking around and finding out, but instead, I fucked around and found out what her heavy breaths feel like against my palm, and how her hair smells when it’s freshly washed.
“Listen and listen good because this is your one and only warning. No fighting, no fucking, no stepping out of line. Today is my wedding day, and if any of you idiots fuck it up, you’ll be dead before you can squeal out an apology. Got it? Good. Now get out.”
Angelo Visconti was born to lead. He was born to look good in a suit too,
I suspect his sudden change in demeanor has something to do with red hair and a smart mouth.
Peeeennnyy
Secrets are my most powerful weapon but also my darkest obsession. I bury them. I dig them up. I listen to them. Feast on them. I make it my job to know every secret up and down this coastline, and beyond. My attention goes back to the girl in pink. I know every secret. Every secret, except Hers.
Everything is scarier in the dark. Everything except Gabriel Visconti.
He’s hot where I’m cold, breaths steady between my ragged pants. Our heartbeats, they’re out of sync. Clashing against one another’s chest, his tempo slow and strong, mine skittish and tripping over itself.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Don’t have the time,”
Fuck. I’ve spent the last three years thinking about her. Obsessing over all the things I know and battling with all the things I don’t.
Then I drive my knee up into his balls. A humorless smirk touches my lips as I shut his bedroom door on his screams with a quiet click. That was for calling Rory a gold-digging whore.
He punched that man for me. Me.
“Now what?” he murmurs, almost softly. My heart is pounding. The lack of oxygen is turning me insane. “I’d fight,” I whisper back. “Then fight me,” he says, his breath crackling on my earlobe.
This girl, honestly. There’s not much of me that’s soft, but there’s a tiny speck, somewhere between my top and bottom rib, that’s a little soft for Vicious’s wife.
“And in English?” His jaw tics. “It’ll hurt them more, and you won’t break a nail.” “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
I let out a disbelieving laugh, but it wilts in my throat when his gaze drops to my lips and flickers with a different strain of annoyance. It’s softer, with no sharp edges. I don’t know why it twists my insides or why I have the sudden urge to reassure him I don’t.
“Good girl.”
“Smart girl,” he murmurs. Christ.
Of course I scared her. Scared my-fucking-self too when she burst into my garage mid-panic attack and my gut twisted into a shape it’s never made before.
I’d fired the first shot because the thought of another man seeing what I was seeing made me feel violent. The second shot was at the light because I wasn’t worthy of seeing it myself.
I’ve lasted three fucking years. She’s perfect, in her little box. My little angel with wings from Amazon. With a touch too warm for my skin; with a name too sweet to ever pass my lips. I want to keep her there forever. A reminder of all the good in the world, of everything I’ve never had or deserved.
Doesn’t have the same ring as Wren and Gabe, either.
