It sounds like another gunshot quieted by a silencer, but I can’t place from where it came. My mom’s eyes fly open. Gus looks down. A red stain grows on his shirt over the left side of his chest. It takes me a moment to get my brain to function and to put two and two together.
I glance over my shoulder. Leon is standing in the doorframe with an outstretched arm and his Glock in his hand.
He shot Gus.
Then two things happen at once. Gus returns fire, and Elliot jumps through the French doors with a gun pointed in front of him. Locking his fingers around my bicep, my stepbrother yanks me in front of him like a shield while pushing his gun against my temple.
My mom screams.
“Take that, motherfucker,” Gus grunts, sinking to his knees as his legs cave in.
Elliot sidesteps his father, pulling me with him until we’re in front of the fireplace.
My gaze finds Leon, my heart threatening to explode from my chest, and then I go colder than what I already am. A trickle of blood runs from my husband’s side, dripping down his leg.
No.
My world tilts off-kilter. Everything I believed to be important and real turns inconsequential as my whole existence is redefined by the one person who matters most to me—the man who freed me, the unwanted husband I love more than myself. Without him, happiness won’t be more than a pastel color on paper, an unobtainable illusion forever confined to the lines of a picture. I can’t go back to that place. I can’t live in drawings. I can’t live without him.
I fight Elliot’s hold, straining forward. “Leon!”
A look of fury is etched on Leon’s features as he focuses on the gun Elliot pushes against my head. He doesn’t even seem to register pain.
“Drop the gun or I shoot her,” Elliot shouts, the volume of his voice making my ears ring.
My mom screams again. Gus aims loosely in her direction, battling to keep his hand steady. He blinks. The weight of the gun seems to pull his arm down. He points blindly and pulls the trigger, but he’s slow. My mom has already ducked behind the sofa. The bullet goes through the window, shattering the glass.
“Fuck,” Gus says, and then he falls facedown, trapping his hand that holds the gun under his body.
Leon advances, his Glock trained on Elliot.
“I’ll shoot her,” Elliot yells, shaking me so hard my teeth clack. “Right in the head.”
Leon stops a short distance away. “Let her go. Your fight is with me.”
“Put your gun on the floor,” Elliot orders, his voice shaking with fear and anger and every other emotion that makes a man volatile.
Rage and panic make even weak men dangerous. Everyone knows that. So does Leon, because he raises his palms and goes down on his haunches.
“Easy,” he says, carefully laying the gun on the floor. “Let the women go. This is between us, between men.”
Elliot laughs. “If you’re implying I’m not a man for hiding behind a woman, you can save your breath. Your appeal to machismo won’t work on me.” Pushing the barrel harder against my temple, he orders, “Kick the gun under the sofa.”
Leon straightens and does as Elliot has ordered. The gun slides over the tiles and disappears under the sofa.
“Gia,” Elliot says, uttering my mom’s name like an insult. “Get over here.”
My mom moves out from behind the sofa, tears streaming down her face. Our gazes lock. Heartbreak reflects in her eyes as she mouths, I’m sorry.
Like I forgave Leon, I forgive her too. I forgive her for all the nights I spent hiding in the backseat of a car, more frightened of men with guns coming after us than the monsters of childhood dreams. When I finally have the courage to be honest with myself, I most of all forgive her for not having my leg amputated. I forgive her for making me go through hell instead, all because she couldn’t accept my imperfection. My beautiful mother couldn’t live with having birthed anything less perfect than she. It’s always been more about her than about me, and I’m done living in her shadow. I’m done carrying her guilt.
I smile at her. It’s the first honest smile I give her without pretending. I’m not acting for her benefit. And it feels good. Despite the anguish and the horror, a weight lifts off my shoulders.
“Go stand next to him where I can see you,” Elliot instructs my mom.
“Elliot, please,” she says, giving him a beseeching look as she rounds the sofa.
His voice rises in volume. “Shut your fucking mouth and do as I say.”
My mom sails around the coffee table, her tears flowing faster as she walks backward to where Leon stands.
My arm hurts where Elliot is gripping me. It burns where his nails break skin.
Elliot addresses Leon. “Pull the cable out of the lamp.”
Leon looks at me. His gaze is reassuring, the tilt of his lips meant to give me comfort, but I don’t miss the terror that sparks in his eyes. It’s the worst kind of terror, the kind you can only suffer when you care more about someone than yourself, when the thought of losing that someone is worse than dying. I know, because that terror beats in my chest too.
Leon takes the lamp on the side table and plucks the cable from the back before ripping the other end from the wall plug. How can he still stand on his feet? How much blood has he lost?
“Give it to Gia,” Elliot says, indenting my skin with the tip of the barrel.
Leon hands the cable over.
Elliot motions with his head at the twin lamp on the opposite side table. “Now the other one.”
After repeating the process, Leon gives the second cable to my mom.
“Tie him to the chair,” Elliot says to my mom. “Hands and feet.”