ONE SIXTY SIX
The kitchen lights buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the floor, the whole house seeming to hold its breath.
“He’s lucky I didn’t put a bullet through his goddamn skull right then,” Tina spit, her accent thickening until the words twisted and snapped out sharp, practically a different language. “Now I’m gonna put one in his stomaco and his cuore.”
Gael muttered something under his breath, something vicious and desperate, and Dominic barked out, “Shut the fuck up, Gael. Shut up!” His voice cracked like a whip through the heavy air.
I shoved harder at Dominic’s side, frantic now, my palms slapping against his bare skin, nails digging in. “Let me in, Dominic, I’m not a fucking child! I can help. I can talk to her… just let me through!”
He turned his head just slightly, just enough to shoot me a furious look. “Not. Now.”
But I didn’t listen. I couldn’t. The doorway was too narrow, the space between Dominic and the frame too tight, but I squirmed and pressed and clawed like my life depended on it, until finally he relented a step back, swearing under his breath, and I stumbled into the kitchen.
The scene unfolded around me in a heartbeat. Tina’s hands trembling on the gun. Gael, wild-eyed and bruised, blood dripping from his split lip onto his collarbone. Glass shards all over the floor. A chair flipped onto its side, a broken plate smeared with sauce and shattered across the counter. The smell of something burnt and metallic in the air.
I wondered and imagined how all this mess could have been made. I could see it play out in my mind, piece by broken piece: Tina catching Gael sneaking out the back, still half dazed from her wound and the sleep but fueled by anger and instinct, launching herself at him with the kind of reckless, unstoppable strength that only someone fighting for survival could summon. Maybe he had tried to wrestle her off, maybe he'd shoved her into the counter, sent dishes flying, knocked the chair over in the struggle. I saw the furious heel of Tina’s bare foot amidst the broken glass, tiny specks of blood from where she must have cut herself but hadn’t even noticed. She wouldn’t have noticed—not when adrenaline and anger were roaring through her veins. My chest tightened as I took in every frantic detail, the way the tension still crackled in the air like a live wire ready to snap.
And then I spotted it, the bag. Tossed carelessly near the back door, half-slumped against the wall like it had been ripped from someone’s grasp. My eyes locked on it immediately. Tina hadn’t been lying. Gael had been trying to leave. Something about the sight of that abandoned bag, the proof of betrayal so casual it made my skin crawl, solidified everything in my gut.
I looked up.
Tina was shaking so badly now that I could see it from across the room. Her whole body vibrating like a live wire about to snap.
“Tina,” I breathed, barely able to get the word out. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt.
She flicked her eyes toward me, wild, glassy, and that split second of distraction made Gael move. He lunged.
A scream tore out of my throat, and Dominic moved faster than I thought humanly possible, slamming his shoulder into Gael and knocking him back into the counter with a sickening crash.
“TINA, DROP THE GUN!” Dominic bellowed, grabbing for her wrist as Gael staggered and coughed against the counter.
“No!” she cried, jerking away from him, holding the gun like a lifeline. “No! No! He deserves it! After what he did to me—he deserves to die!”
I saw it then—the bruises on her thigh, the blood blooming against her oversized T-shirt where her wound had torn open again. Gael had hit her. Had tried to escape.
And now everything inside Tina was crumbling apart in real time, her whole body caught in the freefall between grief and rage and helplessness.
“Tina,” I said, stepping forward carefully, slowly, like she was a wounded animal I needed to soothe. “Please. Don’t. You’re not like him. You’re not. If you do this, you can’t come back from it.”
She looked at me, tears spilling hot and fast down her face. Her lip trembled. Her hands shook so badly I thought the gun might go off just from the tremors alone.
“Please, Tina,” I whispered again, my own voice breaking. “Give me the gun.”
For a long, agonizing moment, nobody moved. The house was so still I could hear the faint tick of the clock over the stove. Dominic stood ready, every muscle taut, his chest heaving. Gael coughed again, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. And Tina, broken, furious Tina stood there like a statue carved out of pure agony, gun shaking in her grasp.
Then finally—finally—she let out a ragged, broken sob.
Her arms dropped an inch.
The gun wavered.
And very slowly, very carefully, I stepped forward and wrapped my hands around hers, guiding the gun down between us both, feeling the heat and tremor of her fury vibrate through my palms. Tina didn’t collapse. She didn’t crumble into tears or sag against me like she’d broken open.
No, her whole body was still humming with rage, every muscle locked tight, vibrating with the need to lash out again. Her chest heaved against mine in shallow, furious breaths, and when I finally managed to slide the gun free from her fingers, her knuckles stayed white from the force she’d been gripping it with.
Her eyes—Jesus, her eyes—darted past me immediately, locking onto Gael like she could set him on fire just by looking at him. There was nothing soft or weak in that stare. It was pure threat. Pure venom.
“You touch me again,” Tina spat, her voice low and guttural, the thick roll of her Italian accent sharpening each word into a knife, “and I will not aim for your chest next time. Capisci?”
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