Chapter 22: Five

Fiorella raised her right hand.

It was small, and it shook only a little.

The first slap landed on Rocco's left cheek, flat and loud, and his head snapped sideways.

He laughed.

It came out of him on a reflex, high and astonished, and he looked at the room for someone to laugh with him.

Nobody did.

The second landed on his right.

The sound went off the glass walls and came back.

He did not laugh this time.

The men on his arms held him, and he pulled against them, and they did not give.

"Fiorella," he said. "Stop."

She did not answer.

The third turned both his ears red.

He blinked fast and tried to turn his face away from her, and the man at his collar turned it back.

The fourth split his lip.

A thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth to his chin.

It was the exact place where mine had run, and no one had arranged it.

Fiorella stopped.

She shook out her wrist.

I knew that motion, and so did every other person in that room.

The red-tie director lifted his phone.

I saw the glow of the screen, and I understood what he was about to do.

"No," I said.

He lowered it and looked at me.

"No photographs," I said. "That's his trade, not ours. Put it away."

He put it away.

Rocco looked at me then.

He was breathing through his mouth, and the blood had reached his collar.

"Britta," he said. "Baby. Please."

It was the first time in three years I had heard him ask for anything.

I felt nothing at all, and it was clean.

Fiorella turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Laughed While I Was Hit from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.