“Giacomo!” I screamed. Futilely, I struggled against his iron grip. Tears started welling up in my eyes. “Giacomo, what are you doing? Let go of me!”

He didn't answer. His face showed no emotion, as he took my purse out of my pocket and threw it to the grinning man.

I couldn't believe it! I'd just been robbed. Not by a stranger, not by a criminal – by my own boyfriend. The guy I thought I could trust more than anyone in the universe! What was happening? Something had to be wrong with the world.

“Now you have what you wanted,” Giacomo said. “Let us pass.”

I still struggled against him, as he attempted to pull me past and away from the men. But at a sign from the leader, two of them blocked his way.

“Not so fast. Since you're being so nice and helpful, you surely wouldn't mind if we had a bit more fun, would you? Who knows? We might even let you join in.”

“We are not very funny,” Giacomo stated. “In fact, we are not at all interesting.”

The leader snickered. “You might not be, but the chick... that's another matter.” Laughter again. Strange. Why were they laughing? I found the situation less and less amusing. I looked around at the eager smiles of the men. Everything seemed slightly unreal to me. Was I dreaming? Was I mixing my life with an adventure story from one of my books? If so, I was doing a bad job of it. This wasn't at all thrilling and adventurous. It was terrifying.

“She wouldn't be any fun,” I heard Giacomo's voice from above me. “Don't you see she's just a kid?”

“I don't know, you seem to enjoy holding on to her. Can't be that bad.”

I turned my head, attempting to see his eyes, but he still didn't loosen his grip. I could only see his chin, right above me. I couldn't read his face. He was still. But he couldn't be thinking about letting me go, could he? No. Even after what had just happened, I couldn't believe that. He was still my boyfriend. He... cared about me, right? He had to, at least a bit. Otherwise, what was the point of us?

He couldn’t give me up to them. He wouldn't.

There was an immeasurable second of silence. And then... Giacomo let go of me. I tried to hold on to him, desperate for the arms around me which only a moment ago I'd been trying to escape from. But he pushed me away. Giacomo pushed me away.

He would. He would let them have me. I sank onto the ground, crying, my heart in a thousand pieces. God, how could I have been such a fool? No, that was wrong. It didn't belong in the past. How could I be such a fool? For in spite of what he had done, in spite of what he was going to let them do, I still lo-

A voice from above me interrupted my thoughts.

“Leave now.” It was a harsh voice. A rough and deep voice, that didn't sound familiar. Probably one of the gang members sending the sniveling coward away, who I thought was my boyfriend. I caught myself hoping that he would get to safety, and cursed my own weakness! “Leave now, before it is too late!”

But the answering voice wasn't Giacomo's. It was the raucous laughter of the leader. That didn't make sense. Not unless it had been Giacomo speaking before... but I knew his voice, right? Better than anyone's, in fact. What was going on?

I looked up, and through a veil of tears, I could see Giacomo standing before me like a shield. One of the more drunken men stumbled forward, trying to push him aside. In a lightning-fast movement, Giacomo gripped the man's arm and his knee came up to meet the man's elbow. There was an earsplitting crack, and the man went to his knees, howling in pain.

“Leave... nooow!” It was Giaocomo speaking. No, not speaking. Growling. His voice became increasingly deeper, and his accent more pronounced. Yet hands weren't clenched into fists. Instead, they were contorted into the same strange position I'd seen once before, in front of the shelter, when he was being attacked by those men.

“What the fuck...!” one of the men cursed. Then things began to happen very quickly. Two of the scumbags sprang forward, trying to grab Giacomo. There was a strangled yelp, and they went down before I had even seen him move. Followed by another. And another. When I managed to blink my tears away, Giacomo was no longer standing in front of me. Instead he was whirling between the rest of the men like a dervish. His fists flew through the air like a pair of deranged sledgehammers. Two more of the men were knocked to the ground before the rest seemed to catch on to what was happening. Then they all started to converge on him.

“No!”

My anguished scream was lost in the bedlam. For just a moment, Giacomo was obscured from my vision. Then he suddenly reappeared: He was scaling the tree in the middle of the group like a cat. Before he had reached the first branch, he kicked himself away from the tree and sailed over the heads of the men, landing easily behind them, on his feet. Two got knocked in the back of the head before they knew what was happening.

“Turn around, you idiots!” the leader shouted. “There he is! Get him! Get him alive! I want him alive!”

Giacomo smiled. Never had his smile been more beautiful. And never so terrifying.

“No,” he said. “You don't. Nobody does.”

The men hesitated. His smile grew wider, and he crouched, beckoning them closer.

“Andiamo,” he whispered. “Andiamo, Caccasotti! Ecco la morte!”

With a scream, they charged at him!

His boot came up, kicking the first man who came at him full in the chest. He fell back, taking three others down with him. The next attacker Giacomo simply hit full in the face, with such force that he flew six feet through the air before smashing into a bench. There was a crack. Wood? Skull? Probably the latter. The man didn't get up.

Suddenly, I saw something silvery reflect the moonlight and my eyes darted back to the center of the fight again. My breath caught in my throat, as I saw knives glinting in the hands of some of the men. Apparently, their necks were more important to them than their leader's orders. Their necks – and Giacomo's blood!

I tried to get up, but stumbled and fell down again.

“Giacomo! Look out!”

He didn't even seem to hear me. He hadn't stopped smiling, and suddenly, he, too, was holding a knife. No, not a knife, two knives. One in each hand. They were long and slim and all in all, didn't have much resemblance with the average kitchen utensils in the hands of his opponents. And then, he did something that I'd never thought I'd see in real life. With a twist of his hand, he threw one of his knives into the air. It swished through the air like a buzz saw with wings on, making a graceful ark, and after only a moment was back, securely in his hand.

“Andiamo, Cacasotti,” he hissed again, his hot eyes fixed upon his enemies. And From the way he said the words, I surmised that they didn't mean anything nice.

The men suddenly didn't seem quite so sure anymore about attacking him as they had been just a moment ago.

'Yes,' I prayed. 'Let them run off. Please let them run away, and we can go home and forget this nightmare.'

That's when Giacomo spit one of the men straight into his face.

The man gave a strangled cry of outrage and stormed at Giacomo – who didn't move one inch. When the man's knife flew towards him, he caught it on his own blade and with a flick of his hand, ripped it out of the grip of his opponent. The second knife soon followed suit. Unarmed, the man backed up, cursing. But he wasn't quick enough. Giacomo's heavy boot caught him full in the chest and sent him flying through the air as if he didn't weigh more than his knife.

Now they came at Giacomo from all sides and my view was obscured. I could only hear the occasional yelp and rejoice when it wasn't his voice that cried out in pain. And then it happened: I heard another yelp, and saw red drops spatter the ground. There was a thump. I shivered. Somebody's blood had been spilt.

“Back! Back everyone,” the leader yelled. “He'll pay for that! I'll handle him myself!”

Everyone backed up, and finally I could see again. Almost immediately, I wished I couldn't. A man was lying on the ground, red liquid staining his jacket. With a trembling finger, the leader pointed down at the man on the ground.

“He was a friend of mine,” he snarled, the promise of death in his voice.

Giacomo looked down at the man, a disdainful sneer on his face. “That one? He isn't dead. Dio Mio, man, don't you know the difference between a flesh wound and a stab to the heart? What sort of sissy are you?”

The leader jumped at him, cursing, his knife raised. Giacomo let his weapons drop.

“No,” I wanted to shout, but before I could do so it was too late: Giacomo had grabbed the leader's arm. That was it. The arm was simply stopped in mid-air. The leader strained to move, but couldn't get his own limb one inch forward.

“You're pathetic,” said Giacomo. His Fist swung around and slammed on his opponent's shoulder from above. There was an unhealthy noise, and the leader went down to his knees. Giacomo positioned himself above the man and smashed him into the ground, as if he was no more than a disgusting piece of garbage. A strike of his fist opened the leader's fist, and the knife dropped to the ground. Giacomo kicked it away, and proceeded to beat the dazed man before him. Hard.

His blows rained down onto the man like a hailstorm. Chest, stomach, ribs, groin, nothing was safe from his attack. The other men watched aghast how their leader was beaten into unconsciousness.

“When I am finished with him,” Giacomo hissed, insanely enraged calm burning in every syllable, “I will look for other things to do.” He did not stop, did not look up while he spoke. “If I were you, I wouldn't still want to be here, then.”

They ran.

Giacomo continued hitting the moaning man on the ground. After a while, he stopped. Instead, he took the man's head and started to ram it repeatedly into the ground. After a few minutes of this, the man stopped moaning.

With a sudden cold shock, I realized that if he didn't stop soon, he was going to kill the guy. But... he couldn't mean to do that, could he? This was Giacomo! My sweet, loving Giacomo. I hadn't ever see him hurt as much as a fly. And then I remembered his words: I swear, no harm will come to you! I will do whatever it takes.

No! He couldn't. Suddenly, strength flooded back into my weakened limbs. I sprang up from the ground and stumbled forward, throwing myself at Giacomo, trying to grab his arm.

“No, Giacomo! Don't!”

It happened so fast that I almost didn't realize the events. He turned to the noise of somebody's approach, and the knife he had dropped was already in his hand again. As I tried to grip his fist to stop it from delivering the fatal blow to the guy on the ground, Giacomo's blade and head, mahogany hair flying around it, swung around in perfect synchronization. I could see his features, almost twisted into an unrecognizable mask by the rage of battle. The slim silver blade was aimed directly at me. It stopped a hair's breadth away from my throat. The cold metal just touched my skin.

I froze.

My eyes were wide with fright as I stared into his raving face. The warmth in his eyes wasn't gone, no. It had ignited into a raging fire, that extinguished all the goodness I had come to know. His jaw was tight, and yet, there was a smile on his face – a smile I hoped never to see again. It was the smile of a man who was thirsty for blood.

One single tear ran down my face. I could feel it pass over my cheek and my chin. Slowly, it ran down my throat, and then touched the blade which was still pressed against my jugular. For a moment, it hang there, in the miniscule gap that separated me from death at the hands of the most important person in my world. Then it dropped to the ground. And with it went the knife.

Giacomo's arm fell limply into the dirt. The Smile drained from his face. Slowly, he began to shake, harder and harder, until he was shivering like a man about to freeze to death. And maybe he was – inside. Well, perhaps he needed warmth? Slowly, very slowly, I raised my arms and hugged him to me. Why I did it? Don't ask me. There was no sane, no rational reason for it. Hadn't he just almost killed me? Okay, before that he had probably saved my life, but still! If I were sane, I shouldn't be doing this!

Except that it felt right. And so I sat there, Giacomo in my arms, twitching and moaning things in Italian I didn't understand. I just stroked his hair and pressed him against me and hoped against hope that this night was a bad dream.

Because if not... if not, then...

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Hi!

My flu is passed; I'm back on my feet and writing again! :) :) I hope you enjoyed the chapter?

By the way, the next chapter of 'The Robber Knight' will be ready by next friday! :) :)