He swung the door open.
I smelled gunpowder. Antonio tried to hold me back, but I beat him into the big room. My footsteps echoed. Zo closed the door. Antonio checked the corners then leaned against the doorjamb to the bedroom. I swallowed, wondering if she’d be sleeping or naked. But he shook his head. There was no one.
The kitchen was open to the larger room, with a bar creating a psychological barrier. I touched the shiny marble surface. I heard a creaking sound. I looked around. Didn’t know where it came from.
I pressed my fingertips together. There was a white powder on the pads from touching the marble.
The creaking came again.
Antonio came toward me.
Zo checked the bathroom. Nothing.
I rubbed the powder on my fingers and listened to the interminable creak.
Slap. A shoe clonked down onto the counter, and I jumped. I looked up to where it came from, and Antonio followed my gaze.
I screamed.
Daniel was hanging upside down from a beam in the ceiling, ropes around his calves, feet free but squeezed enough that his remaining shoe dangled from his toes, the other foot covered in just a sock. He moved back and forth slightly, the rope creaking against the beam. A silver rectangle of duct tape covered the bottom half of his beet-red face, and his hands were tied behind his back.
“Get him down!” I shouted.
Zo jumped onto the counter, but anyone could see it wasn’t high enough. The rope was still six feet above him.
“Antonio!” I shouted his name in supplication. I didn’t know what to do, but if I prayed hard enough to the right god, some answer would come. “Get him down!”
Antonio put a barstool on the counter and hopped on it.
No. That was too unstable and wouldn’t reach the rope.
I stepped back and yanked the gun out of my waistband.
“Basta,” Antonio cried. “Wait!” He grabbed Daniel by the chest and steadied himself.
I stepped back and aimed.
“Let me do it,” Antonio said, because I could as easily shoot Daniel as get him down.
But I was upset, and it was too late for sense.
I squeezed the trigger before worrying about it too deeply, and the rope that held my ex-fiancé by the ankles cracked. Daniel fell, and Antonio broke his fall. Both tumbled to the floor.
Antonio twisted out from under him, and Daniel rolled onto his back and I saw his face. It was swollen with blood, veins popping.
I didn’t think about what I was doing. Daniel had broken my heart. He’d soiled my soul. I thought I’d never trust another man because of him. But he drove me to Antonio. I’d loved Daniel for seven years. I’d given him everything I had, and he’d given as much as he could.
I burst into tears. I cursed through them, unaware of Antonio or Zo. I hated this. Hated what had happened to Daniel. Hated that I’d caused it in some twisted way. I couldn’t remember a bad thing about him, though I knew there was plenty to complain about. I only remembered being included, being validated, feeling as if I was part of a team with a larger purpose. I remembered all the good works he’d done, his compassion for the marginalized and underrepresented. I remembered him before he’d thought he had a chance to make anything of himself, and his wide-eyed joy at the thought that he could be polished into a man who could make a difference. All of that unknotted itself from the cheating, the manipulating, the double-dealing, and the strands of my vision of him separated. I saw him for the complex person he was, and appreciated what he was, what he could have been, and how very wrong he was for me despite all that.
“Contessa,” Antonio said gently.
“Get that shit off his face!” I clawed at the duct tape.
Antonio took the other side and ripped it off, leaving spots of blood on Daniel’s mouth. Daniel coughed as Antonio got his hands untied.