He walked on the pavers that led directly to the center of the garden, where the fountain roared. Little lights illuminated the water from inside the tiered bowls, making it sparkle as it splashed about. The only other light in the small garden was above a plaque that read, “This garden was planted in memory of Kadisha Halim, beloved wife, mother, and daughter.”
Rocco glared at those words. Lies. All of them. He had never loved her. He’d never trusted her. She’d never been a woman who stood true for a cause, whatever that cause, whatever the cost of that cause. She was secretive and manipulative, caring more for her own interests than the well-being of her village or her own children.
She was everything he’d been.
But unlike her, he’d been true to his mission.
And from the hell of their union, two sweet gifts had come. Zavi, and the baby Kadisha had killed when she took her own life and leveled the village.
Rocco ripped out the small plaque and tossed it like a spear as far away as he could. He stumbled backward, screaming at the water, but it couldn’t hear him. He took more lurching backward steps, then spun on his heel and left the garden through the bed of little evergreen shrubs.
He hated Kadisha. Fucking hated her. She’d taken his mind, his soul, his baby, and blew them to bits. And it was all his fault. He should never have involved her. She seemed an easy path to what he wanted—her father—and he’d used her, like every man in her life had done. He was no different than Ghalib Halim or Ehsan Asir.
He had to pay for his arrogance. He choked on a laugh. He’d thought he could find a way to keep living. He’d thought he could stand in the sunshine again. But he couldn’t. No, he couldn’t.
Rocco realized he was back in the safe black hole of the barn. This was all that his life could offer him, because of his arrogance. He’d be half here for Mandy and Zavi, half there for his dead baby. Rocco slid to his knees on the floor.
This was fucking hell. He was sick of the pain in his heart, sick of himself.
He looked over at his trunk. His gun was no longer there. Because of Mandy’s curiosity, he’d moved it to a new hiding place in the rafters, along with the bullets he’d bought for it. Pushing to his feet, he dragged the chair over to the wall and retrieved the box of bullets. He took one out and put the box back, then grabbed it again and removed three more bullets. If his hand shook or he somehow missed, he better have a backup bullet.
He reached for his revolver. Holding it in his left hand, the bullets in his right, he felt at war with himself, as if one hand pushed and the other pulled. He did not want to kill himself. He did not want to live alone in a dark hideaway, abandoning everything and everyone he loved. He could not continue this existence.
Rocco opened the cylinder and loaded the bullets. Images floated through his mind; beautiful things, they were. Mandy telling him she was pregnant. Zavi sleeping on his chest. Kitano trying to trust him. They were just alike, him and Kitano, except they were opposites, too. Kitano couldn’t be in the confines of a building, and Rocco couldn’t be in the sunshine.
They both were owned by their hells.
He had enough bullets for both of them.
Chapter Eight
Moonlight lit the path through the back hills of Mandy’s place in crisp relief. Rocco walked through the shadows of the shrubs. His heart was screaming. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. He could almost feel the cool touch of angels on his wrists and hands, their arms wrapping around his chest, as if to pull him back from where he was headed. The wind in the pines made it sound like the angels were crying.
Maybe it was just his own sobbing he heard.
He touched the hard steel of the revolver in his waistband, its cold, unforgiving outline reassuring. The gun didn’t cry. It didn’t mourn his decision. It would end his pain once and for all, simply and without drama.
The angels were screaming now. The noise in his head was explosive.
He crossed from Mandy’s property over to the back of Blade’s, his way brilliantly lit by the moon. This side of Blade’s was near the stables. Kitano sensed him first. A shadow of death slipping down the hill. Rocco swiped the back of his wrist across his eyes. Kitano’s whicker wasn’t his usual. He knew Rocco was a predator tonight.
The angels flew in front of Rocco now, pushing against his chest. Wailing. He shut his eyes, rejecting them. Their touch was nothing but the cool breeze, he told himself. There were no celestial beings. God couldn’t want him to stay here in his hell.
He climbed the fence at Kitano’s corral, pausing at the top. He didn’t want to do this. Angels be damned. He didn’t want to die. Not now. But he couldn’t take living in the dark any longer. It fucking hurt too much.
Kitano stood on his hind legs and kicked at the air. Maybe he felt the angels, too. Rocco slipped down the fence on the inside of the corral. Kitano screamed in a way Rocco had never heard a horse do. He screamed, too. He shouted and shouted and shouted, roaring out his pain like a black cloud spilling into the night.