Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
I wonder if he’s letting Emma watch, though. I don’t know if I want that. Emotion dampens my eyes at the thought, and I steel myself. She’s only five. She won’t understand. Although she knows her father is dead. Not that he’s ever been much of a father to her. And my brother? I wouldn’t be surprised if he had her locked in her room. It’s maybe best for her. She’s safest away from him. I’m the only one who stands between her and his wrath. The one who stood between her and my father’s hate. I wanted to bring her if only to keep her with me, not my brother. She’s not safe in that house.
I draw a trembling breath in as Father Paolo clears his throat, the microphone screeching momentarily before carrying his voice over the loudspeakers. I’m not sure why he’s using it. It’s only the pallbearers and me if you don’t count the guards. The camera finally moves off me and slides over the casket.
But just as the final notes of Mozart’s Requiem fade, the doors open again. Loudly. And footsteps stalk purposely toward the front of the cathedral, echoing off the vaulted ceilings.
The priest stops midsentence, his face going ashen. He makes the sign of the cross. Screams come from outside. The man behind the camera stumbles backward in an effort to run. But he doesn’t get far. A soldier appears from a door behind the altar and cocks a gun at the back of his head.
It all happens in an instant. I turn to look and gasp at the sight that greets me. An army of soldiers pouring into the church, drawing the large, heavy doors closed again and blocking out the last of the bright afternoon light.
My brother sent men to ensure our safety, but I don’t see them. They’re gone. Vanished.
Footsteps like that of a stampede approach the altar as I watch. At their head are two men in suits, their faces half-covered with black bandanas. Two men with matching scars across their faces visible above the coverings holding shiny black Glocks at their sides.
One catches my eye as he nears. Gray eyes like the coldest, cruelest steel. And suddenly, I’m transported to that afternoon. To the garden full of bright yellow dandelions. The memory washes over me like a slip in time, a flash of another place. It makes me stagger. I grab the edge of the pew to steady myself, and as I do, the two men leading the soldiers split, the one farthest from me raising his pistol to the priest who tries to run. The other, the one with the steel eyes, grabs my arm, his grip like a vise.
This is what my brother was afraid of. This is why he did not come. We have many enemies here.
Someone fires their pistol as he tugs me from my place in the pew and toward the coffin. A body goes down on the stone stairs leading up to the altar, blood splattering the pristine white lilies.
I stumble as I’m tugged toward the coffin, and all I can think through the chaos of gunfire is please don’t let my sister watch me be killed. Please don’t let her see that.
More screams from outside. More bullets fired. More blood as red as the lipstick I wear to stain the sacred floors. It is the color of violence. Of death.
We reach my father’s casket, and the man who has me kicks one of the legs of the pedestal. I gasp as the lilies are knocked askew, and the priest scrambles backward, falling. The other man with the scar climbs the three steps up to the altar, gun raised, not caring that it’s a sacrilege, the violence of the act in this holy place.
“Up,” he says, gun arm extended to the priest. “On your feet, padre.”
I watch as the priest does as he’s told, trembling, holding the Bible up between himself and this man as if God will save him now. That’s the thing with God, though. You can serve him all your life long, but he will not meddle in our affairs. He will take our souls back once we pass, but we’re on our own down here.
“Open it,” the one who has me orders, pointing with his pistol to the pallbearers, the two who remain standing, alive, who look at each other, unsure what to do. Afraid. They turn to me, and so does the man who has me. He grins. “Tell them to open it, Dandelion.”
Dandelion.
I stare up at him and blink to clear my head. He gives me a shake, and I nod my head to the men. Two step forward to raise the lid and a shift in the atmosphere is palpable. I am released, thrown into the arms of a soldier who takes hold of me as I watch in horror while the two look at the body of my father. One spits into the coffin and the other curses him to eternal damnation before emptying his Glock into my father’s body.