Page 316 of Once an Angel
Nicky slowly lowered his pistol.
She moved toward Justin, the gun never wavering in her grip. The moonlight polished her skin to porcelain and shaded her piquant features to an inscrutable mask. Only her eyes were alive, sparkling
with an inner flame that burned bright and hot.
"I was hoping you'd leave me the pleasure of shooting the bastard," she said.
A grin spread across Nicky's face. He tossed Justin's pistol aside, pulled out a handkerchief, and scrubbed at his palm as if the weapon had defiled it. "The pleasure is all mine,cara mia."
Justin faced her as he should have seven years earlier— with his arms spread wide and his heart in his hands. "It's all right, darling. Killing me won't stop me from loving you."
She took another step toward him. A single tear slipped from her lashes and tumbled down her cheek. Her thumb toyed with the hammer; her voice was as soft and lethal as a caress. "Now you'll know what it's like to die a thousand miles from home at the hand of someone you love."
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. I am home. And I'd much rather die by your hand than his."
"Go on. Shoot him," Nicky urged. "Before he kills the both of us like he killed your father. Oh, they
were a fine pair, those two. Always had their heads together, laughing about something, shutting me out like I wasn't good enough for the likes of them. What really happened the night he died, Justin?" he taunted. "Was it truly an act of mercy, or perhaps a lover's quarrel?"
With no warning Emily swung the gun around and aimed it at Nicky's head. "Nobody talks that way about my daddy."
The derringer exploded in a smoky blur.
Nicky's hat flew off. He rubbed his head, his expression of bewilderment almost comical. "Do you
know how much that hat cost, you stupid little bitch?"
"More than your coat?" she queried politely, cocking the derringer and firing again. She winged his coat, tearing a blackened hole through the armpit. When she steadied her arm, the pistol was pointing straight
at his heart.
"You don't have to do this, Emily," Justin said very softly, inching toward her. "We can have him put away for a very long time."
Tears were streaming down her face in earnest now. "Not long enough," she said, raking back the hammer.
Nicky's eyes rolled wildly, but his attention was not on her. It was as if he could hear something they could not. They froze, listening. It was the silence. There was something wrong with the silence. In that instant of Emily's hesitation it had become a living, breathing thing. The shimmering leaves of the rain forest quivered and sighed, alive with knowing eyes. Justin's skin crawled.
The brush exploded in a screeching mass of lithe bronze bodies. Justin dove for Emily, pressing her to
her knees, forcing her face into his chest, wanting to spare her the sight of the familiar tattooed faces contorted into demonic masks of fury. Their ear-shattering cries for revenge drowned out the roar of
the sea. Hordes of sun-browned feet stampeded around them in a beat more primitive than drums or thunder. Someone was screaming. It might have been Emily or it might have been him.
Nicky's hysterical wail rose above it all. "For God's sake, you savages. Not the suit. Don't tear the
bloody suit!"
Justin lifted his face from Emily's trembling throat. A writhing mass of natives had Nicky by the arms
and legs. Justin stared mesmerized as they dragged him howling and bucking into the forest, leaving
only his panama hat flattened in the sand.
The screams and howls slowly died. For a wavering moment the silence was broken only by the
whisper of the waves and the shrill cry of a kiwi.
Someone was watching them. The hair on Justin's nape stood erect. He turned his head to find a lean figure squatting beneath the shadow of a punga tree. Their gazes met across the moonlit stretch of
