A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

I skidded against our marble floor as my eyes found Lorenzo, sitting in front of the television, his nose almost touching the screen. The volume was a low rumble in the room, drowning out the pops that were much louder now, the French doors off the living room open and blowing the curtains inward.

My heart was in my throat as panic threatened to paralyze me.

The marble was cold against my bare feet, and it seeped through my skin. “Lorenzo,” I hissed as I rushed toward my brother, grabbing his shoulder.

He jumped in shock before his eyes met mine, and then his dark brows furrowed in annoyance.

“I’m watchin’ somethin’ here!”

My grip tightened on his shoulder as my eyes darted to the curtains. The gunshots were louder now. Loud enough to overpower the sound of the television, and Lorenzo’s expression moved from annoyed to afraid.

Though my brother was young, he too was far from ignorant to the realities of our life. And there was the fact he was a boy. The heir. He hadn’t been sheltered like I was. He knew what gunshots sounded like.

“What is that, Bella?” he asked, sounding more childlike than I’d heard him in years. For the past three months, he’d been speaking in a forced low tone in an exaggerated accent, trying to mimic Uncle Marco, who he worshipped.

“We need to get up and hide, right now,” I hissed, pulling him upward. Father had a panic room in his bedroom, one with a code we’d all been forced to memorize. There was food, water, a phone and guns in there. I cursed myself for not running to get a weapon first. It was a foolish decision that my father would scold me for later. But my thoughts were purely on my brother.

“What’s going on?” he whined as I pulled him toward the stairs. “I want Papa.”

His voice had regressed to how he used to speak when he was four, and I forced myself to stay calm. I was the adult in this situation.

“We just need to go—” I turned toward the French doors, noting I hadn’t heard a gunshot for a handful of seconds. Or minutes.

I let out a little scream as someone in black stepped out from behind the white doors, until I recognized the face.

“Isabella, Lorenzo! Come with me, now!” Gabriele, one of our father’s men called. He was holding his gun at his side.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I did not have to be the adult or the hero now. Wordlessly, I pulled Lorenzo toward the door, but he was dragging his feet, his hand clutching onto mine in a death grip.

Then there was another gunshot, and Gabriele’s head exploded.

Lorenzo let out a cry from behind me, but I didn’t scream. There was nothing but a low ringing in my ear and a knowing that I had mere seconds before my brother and I were both dead or worse.

My father taught me that death was not the thing we had to fear from our enemies. And my mother had educated me on the ways that men in this life liked to exert power over women. What they liked to take from them.

Moving quickly, dragging my brother, I opened the antique armoire that we often hid inside when we used to play hide and seek. A million years ago when my brother was innocent, when this room was a place of laughter and love instead of terror and death.

My eyes darting toward the blood-spattered curtains blowing in the wind, I grabbed my brother’s face. “I need you to pretend we’re playing hide and seek, paperotto,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.

Tears were running down Lorenzo’s cheek as he shook his head. “No, I want to stay with you.”

“You are to listen to me,” I hissed. “Get inside, and no matter what you see, what you hear, you stay there until either me or Papa opens it, okay?” Something in my voice must’ve sounded as panicked and terrified as I felt because Lorenzo moved, climbing into the small spot he was much too big for.

But he fit.

Just.

I leaned in to kiss his forehead and rub the tears from his cheeks. “I will see you soon, paperotto,” I whispered. Then I closed the door, making sure there was no evidence of him being inside.

I couldn’t go upstairs now. Not with Lorenzo here, unprotected and vulnerable. I needed to stay close but hidden. My eyes went to the kitchen, across the room where I could hide behind the island with a direct view of the armoire. I was halfway there when someone spoke.

“Ah, the little princess.”

Everything in me froze, even though I knew I should’ve kept running, if only to lead them away from Lorenzo’s hiding place.

But I couldn’t help it. Not when I heard that voice. A voice I knew.