Sempre (Sempre 1)

A loud screeching ricocheted from the house. Footsteps pounded across the floor as a woman’s voice echoed out to them. “My brother vouched for that little bitch?”

Carmine went up the steps, but Corrado grabbed his shirt to stop him. “Don’t say anything.”

The front door thrust open, and Katrina stepped out. Her steps faltered when she saw Carmine, but she regained her composure and turned to her brother. “I can’t believe you, Corrado! What did you make my husband sign this morning?”

“He signed what was necessary,” he said, his outward appearance not reflecting the anger brewing on the inside.

Katrina laughed bitterly. “Necessary? None of this is necessary! You’re freeing that damn girl and taking her mother? What’s gotten into you? Is it because of her? Is that what this is about?”

Fire flared in Corrado’s eyes as he lost his composure. “Enough!”

Carmine’s heart thumped frantically, but Katrina wasn’t fazed. “It is, isn’t it? Trying to make up for the past? It can’t be fixed!”

“I’m not going to tell you again, Katrina.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, closing the distance between them. “You’re screwing up my life over this! Why do these people matter? Just because these stupid DeMarcos fall—”

Corrado’s arms shot out, his hands grasping her by the throat and cutting off her words midsentence. She choked, her manicured fingernails digging into his flesh as she tried to pry his hands off. Even as she drew blood, Corrado didn’t waver.

“Are you done now?” he asked, the eerie calmness returning. Katrina gurgled as she fought for oxygen and words. “Burns, doesn’t it? Imagine how they feel when you torture them. Imagine how she felt that day, Kat, when those men were choking her, when they were violating her, and you did nothing to stop it.”

Corrado continued to stare at his sister, giving no indication he was going to let go. Michael bounded out the front door of the house and gasped. “Stop! You’ll kill her!”

Corrado’s eyes snapped to Michael. There was no emotion in his expression, nothing but darkness. This was the Corrado Carmine feared.

Before he could dwell, a commotion rang out from the stables as the horses reared up, spooked by something. Corrado let go of Katrina, his eyes meeting Carmine’s as he hurried down the steps. Carmine leaped off the porch after him.

“She’s not her,” Katrina screamed. “Just because he’s doing the same thing as his father doesn’t mean they’re the same!”

Those words caught Carmine off guard. He swung around to look at Katrina, not paying attention to where he was going. He ran straight into Corrado’s back as his uncle stopped in the doorway to the stables. Corrado shoved Carmine inside, and sickness rocked through him as the air left his lungs. He dry heaved, trying to breathe through the bile that flooded his chest. It burned, suffocating, and his vision blurred as he nearly blacked out.

Flashes of memory hit him, buckling his knees. The gunshot, the blood, the terror, the hooded figure pointing the gun at him. And there was his mom, lying dead in the darkened alleyway after the shrill screams rang out in the night.

Corrado yanked him upright by his shirt and shoved him again, forcing him back to reality. “Get a grip, Carmine.”

A small wooden stool lay on the ground in front of him, tipped over in a pile of hay, while a pair of dirty bare feet swung a few inches above it. The frail, familiar form hung limp like a rag doll, affixed to a low rafter by a piece of thick rope.

Carmine lunged forward and grabbed Miranda’s legs as he yelled for help. Corrado yanked a pair of garden shears from the wall and snipped the rope. The body fell on Carmine, and he staggered a few steps, nearly losing his footing. Laying her on the ground, he checked for a pulse but couldn’t find one.

Katrina and Michael rushed in as Carmine did CPR, pounding on her chest and desperately forcing air into her lungs. Her body was still warm like she was asleep, but her wide eyes and ashen face told another story. Carmine could hear Katrina shouting and Michael’s rushed voice, but the sound of his blood pumping through his body drowned out their words.

Panic. All he could feel was panic.

Nothing Carmine did helped. Ribs cracked sickeningly under the force of his compressions, her body not absorbing any of his air. Miranda lay still on the ground, her heart no longer beating.

Corrado grabbed his shoulder. “She’s dead.”

Carmine shrugged him off. “No, she’s not! We have to save her!”

“It’s too late.”

“It’s not!” He hysterically pushed on her chest some more. “Why are you just standing there?”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“Help her! You told me you would, you fucking liar!”

Corrado grabbed his arm, pulling him away from Miranda’s lifeless body and shoving him back onto the ground. “She’s too far gone.”