by Cora Reilly
I could only stare at Kiara who was clutching our son with tears in her eyes, and the love in her face grounded me, gave me peace and certainty. She’d live no matter the price.
Mother opened the flap of the lighter and I took a step forward. “No!” she screamed. “All three of you will cut your wrists now. I’ll wait until you’ve passed out before I burn down the mansion and your bodies in it. If you don’t, I’ll burn her and the baby right in front of you and have my men shoot you anyway.”
Carmine and the men exchanged looks, obviously not in on the plan until now. Hadn’t they realized how crazy our mother was?
“You’ll burn them anyway. The moment we’ve passed out, you’ll kill them,” I said tonelessly.
Our mother shook her head with a soft smile. “No, no, she’s a victim like I was, and the boy isn’t yours, so he can live as well. We have to go but not them, boys, don’t you see?”
Savio stared at her in disgust. “Fuck, if I’d known how batshit crazy you are, I would have killed you myself.”
“See?” she said. “It’s in you like it is in them, like it was in your father.” She regarded us. She motioned at Carmine, who gave her an incredulous look, then he handed me my knife back. “Either you’ll cut your wrists now, or I’ll burn them. I’ll count to three.”
Kiara began crying softly, rocking Alessio.
I brought the blade to my forearm, then slashed horizontally, never taking my eyes off Kiara.
“No!” she gasped, but it was the only way, and she knew.
“Good,” Mother crooned. “Now the other.” I slashed my other wrist, feeling the warm liquid slithering down my palms then my fingers before it dripped to the floor. There was no pain, no fear, nothing, only the determination to save my wife and son.
“Two,” Mother counted. “Savio, Remo.”
I glanced at my brothers and held out my knife for them to take, feeling empty inside, and at the same time filled with a terror like never before, not for myself, but for Kiara and Alessio.
Remo grasped the knife with a growl, and holding my gaze he cut his wrists open and my shoulders sagged.
“Fuck,” Savio breathed, closing his eyes.
Fabiano’s eyes glistened as he pressed his lips together. I could see him working on his bindings but from his look of despair he wasn’t making progress.
“One,” Mother warned.
Savio opened his eyes, snatched the knife from Remo and slashed his wrists. I gave him a grateful look before he lowered his gaze to the blood running down his hands. I wished he didn’t have to share this experience with us.
CHAPTER 27
KIARA
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.
I sucked in air but it didn’t reach my lungs. I took in the growing pool of blood on the floor, dripping from the veins of the men who’d become my family. All of them putting down their life so I and Alessio could live, but I couldn’t let them, couldn’t allow it. Remo had Serafina and the twins who needed a father and husband, and Savio was too young, he needed to get the chance to find what we had—someone he loved and who loved him back. I wouldn’t take that from him.
Mrs. Falcone pointed at one of the men. “Now get me that knife.”
“We want the rest of our money. We aren’t your soldiers, remember that.”
Mrs. Falcone only smiled. “There’s plenty of money in the glove compartment of the car. It’s yours. Now give me that knife.” She’d closed the lighter but it wouldn’t take long to open it again.
Remo laughed darkly and wiped sweat off his forehead, spreading blood all over his face. “She tricked you. She doesn’t have more money. Or did she show you?”
The men exchanged looks.
“Not another word,” Mrs. Falcone warned, raising the lighter once more. “I’ve had enough time to hide money before you arrived in Vegas.”
A shadow in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and from the brief flicker of recognition on Nino’s face, he’d seen it too. Someone was crossing the garden from Fabiano’s mansion.
“We want our money. We need it to establish control. You said you could hide several millions.”
“She’s a lying bitch,” Remo growled.
“Don’t call me that!” she shrieked.
Remo’s mouth curled. “Do my eyes remind you of Father?” He smiled. “Oh, they do, don’t they? He didn’t turn out to be the prince you hoped for, right? Was it worth it killing his fiancée to become the alpha bee yourself?”
“You ... you ...” she gasped, moving closer to Remo, panting. He was taunting her, drawing her away from me.
And then everything happened too fast. Adamo stormed inside through the French windows and barreled into his mother’s back, clamping his hand down on her fist with the lighter and at the same time he drove a knife up into her stomach. Her eyes grew wide and they both tumbled to the floor.
For a moment, the whooshing in my ears was the only sound, then the screams crashed through the blissful cacophony.
Nino stormed toward me. One of the men stepped in his way with a raised gun. I jumped up and kicked his shin at the same time as he fired. The bullet tore through Nino’s upper arm but then he was upon the man, broke his leg with a kick to the knee before gripping him by the back of the head and jerking his face down on his knee. The man fell to his side, gurgling. Nino took the gun, feeling the man’s chin. “I broke your jaw. I hope you can scream anyway.” He gripped the man’s fingers and jerked them back, causing him to cry hoarsely. “Not the best screams I’ve heard, but they’ll do. Later.” He straightened, stepping over the man. Remo and Savio had knocked out the other men and were freeing Fabiano.
“Are you all right?” Nino asked, cupping my cheeks with his bloody hands and kissing my cheek, my forehead, my temple then my lips before he pressed a kiss to Alessio’s head.
I nodded dazedly. “But you’re not. You need a doctor.” Nino’s gaze wasn’t as focused as usual. I grabbed his bloody hand and squeezed. Blood was still sliding out of the cuts. I pressed down on his wrist wound but the red on his upper arm spread quickly. “Nino, you need to treat this.”
Nino still stared at me as if he worried I’d vanish into thin air any moment. “It’ll take a long time for me to bleed to death from a wrist laceration of this depth.”
“Nino,” Remo rasped, kneeling beside their mother who was sprawled out on the ground in a pool of blood, Adamo’s knife still stuck in her belly. She was gasping for air. Adamo sat in her blood, chest heaving. Savio hunched next to him; he was pale. The hit to his head and the blood loss were taking their toll.
“Go,” I whispered to Nino. “Go to Remo.”
Nino released my hand and slowly made his way over to his brothers. They were all covered in blood, still losing it from the cuts on their wrists.
Fabiano staggered toward me, bleeding from a cut on his forehead that hadn’t been there before. “We need to get you out of those clothes and wash the gasoline off.”
I nodded but couldn’t take my eyes from the four brothers gathered around their mother. Remo curled his hand around the handle of the knife, then Nino closed his own fingers around it. Remo looked at Adamo who gave a shaky nod, then at Savio who tilted his head in agreement. And then Remo and Nino changed the angle of the knife and jabbed it the rest of the way in. Their mother jerked, then the tension left her body, and relief flooded me. I clutched Alessio closer to me, breathing out.
Remo gripped Nino’s shoulder, said something then jumped up and disappeared into the garden, storming toward Fabiano’s mansion.
Nino staggered to his feet and walked toward me. His expression was beautiful ice, shut off from his emotions, and maybe it was for the best right now. Adamo closed his mother’s eyes and let his head fall back, staring up at the ceiling.
Nino touched my arm. “Remo’s on his way to the panic room to check on Serafina and the twins,” he said emotionlessly. My eyes took in the blood trail leading out onto the terrace. Nino sq
ueezed my hand and I glanced down toward his wrists, still dripping blood. “You need to shower, get rid of the gasoline,” he urged.
I motioned at Fabiano. “Fabiano, Adamo, get bandages. We need to make pressure bandages to stop the bleeding until the doctors arrive.”
Fabiano lowered his phone that he’d been using to alert the Camorra doctors and ran off.
“Kiara,” Nino murmured. “You need to shower.”
I peered into his eyes, determined, worried. He wouldn’t relax until I did, I could tell. “If you let Fabiano and Adamo dress your and Savio’s wound.”
After Savio had stumbled to his feet, he sank down on the armrest of the sofa and stared down at his hands, one of them clutching one wrist as the other kept bleeding.
Fabiano returned with two first aid kits, and thrust one against Adamo’s chest. “Get up and help. Now.”
Adamo stumbled to his feet and with a last glance at their mother, he walked over to Savio. Fabiano made Nino sit down but his gray eyes were only on me.
“We’re okay. You have to be okay too,” I said, then quickly moved upstairs and into our master bathroom.
Alessio had stopped crying as I rocked him. The moment I stepped into the shower with him and the warm water rained down on us, he started again. I began humming as I tried to wash the gasoline out of our hair and skin. Soon my sobs broke through the melody and I had to stop.
“Shhh, Alessio, shhh. Everything is okay now.”
It took ten minutes to get clean, not just from the gasoline but also the blood sticking to our skin. When I turned the shower off, I froze. Nino sat on the edge of the tub and was watching with a haunted expression.
He was covered in blood from head to toe.
He got up slowly, grabbed two towels and handed one to me so I could wrap Alessio in it. Once he was swaddled, I handed him over to Nino, then dried myself. Nino’s eyes rested on mine. His bandages were already turning pink.
“You need to be stitched up.”
He sighed. “I almost lost you today. I’m sorry, Kiara.”
“Why are you sorry? It was your mother. You slit your wrists to save me and Alessio.”
“I promised to protect you, to keep you two safe, but today I failed. I won’t ever again. I won’t ever hesitate to kill someone I deem a threat.”
I touched Nino’s cheek and he pulled Alessio and me against him. “You couldn’t know what would happen. It’s not your fault, Nino.”
He nodded slowly and kissed the top of my head.
“The doctors are here!” Fabiano shouted.
I pulled away. “Go downstairs. Get stitched up.”
Nino shook his head. “I won’t leave your side.”
Sighing, I moved to the bedroom and pulled on a dress, then dressed Alessio in a romper. “I hope he didn’t get any of the gasoline fumes into his lungs.”
“We let the doctor check him first.”
Nino took my hand and led me back downstairs. Everyone had gathered in the gaming room once more, even Serafina. She had her arms wrapped around Remo’s waist while one of the doctors took care of his wound. Her eyes were red from crying. The second doctor was attending to Savio who’d stretched out on the sofa only in his briefs, pressing a bag of frozen peas against his head. His blood-soaked clothes lay on the floor beside him.
Fabiano was talking to the third doctor and sent him over to us the moment we arrived. After the doctor had taken a quick look at Alessio, Nino sank down on the other sofa then held out his wrists so the doctor could tend to them. I cradled Alessio against me then went over to Fabiano, touching his shoulder.
“Thank you, Fabiano.”
Fabiano gave a tense nod.
“Where are the bodies?”
“I dragged their mother outside. Carmine and the other men are still alive. We’ll deal with them later to find out what they know.”
I nodded and went over to Remo.
Serafina hugged me tightly. “I’m so glad you and Alessio are all right.”
I swallowed, realizing she had almost lost her husband because Remo would have laid his life down for me, for Nino, for our son, and the baby neither of them knew about yet.
I asked her, “Are Greta and Nevio okay?”
“They are upstairs in their room, playing. They thought Remo was covered in paint. They don’t understand what happened.”
“Good,” I whispered, then pulled back and turned to Remo. Tears sprang into my eyes as I met his gaze, and words got stuck in my throat. He nodded before I’d uttered anything, his eyes dark and angry but also soft somehow. Remo, the constant enigma.
“Thank you,” I got out.
“You don’t have to thank me, not for that. I did it for you, for Nino, for all of us.”
“I know.” I hugged him. “You saved not just me and Alessio.”
Remo frowned down at me and I touched my belly. He exhaled, looking to Nino who watched me but couldn’t see my hand. “He doesn’t know yet?”
“I didn’t have time to tell him yet. But I will tonight.”
Remo nodded, then released another harsh breath. “Are you done?” he asked the doctor. “I have someone to tear apart.”
I stepped back and moved toward the sofa, sinking down on my knees beside Savio. The doctor was stitching him up and Savio’s eyes were closed. They opened when I touched his shoulder. Despite everything, he gave me a smirk, and though it didn’t reach his eyes, I was glad to see it.
“Have you come to grope me while I’m too weak to fight you off?”
I choked on a teary laugh, shaking my head. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Leaning forward, I kissed his cheek.
Surprise then anger crossed his face. “I was supposed to protect you and got us captured.”
“There were too many attackers. You did everything you could. You took out two, Savio.” I lightly touched his bandaged wrist. “And this ... this ...” I swallowed.
“Now all the chicks will think I’m an emo kid who slashed his wrists. I guess I’ll learn how good emo girls are in bed,” he said and grinned.
I shoved his shoulder lightly.
“How is Alessio?”
I looked down at my son. He had fallen asleep again. That was the beauty of newborns, they didn’t see the world as we did yet. He wouldn’t remember this day. “Good.”
“And the bun in the oven?”
I smiled softly. “Safe.”
He motioned behind me. “You should go to him.”
I glanced over my shoulder and found Nino staring at me. Nodding, I rose to my feet and went over to him. He pushed to his feet, shaking the doctor off who was trying to fasten the bandage on his second wrist.
“We’re all safe, and she’s finally dead. This is over,” I told him.
Nino touched my cheek. “Not quite. We’ll question the survivors now and find out if there are others holing up somewhere. We need to find every last traitor, now more than ever.”
I stroked his beard. “Don’t take too long. We need you.”
NINO
I hesitated, torn between the need to destroy these men who’d dared to threaten my family, who’d broken into my home. They needed to die, and they needed to suffer before they did, but I wanted to be there for Kiara.
She smiled, stroking Alessio’s back absent-mindedly. “It’s okay. You need to do this so we’re all safe. Just hurry.”
I bent low and kissed her slowly. “Rest.”
She shook her head. “I’ll cook something. We’re all in need of some comfort food today.” She drew back and her fresh clothes were smeared with my blood again, and so were her cheeks and hands.
Serafina came over and wrapped an arm around Kiara. “I’ll stay with her and Alessio. Help Remo end them.”
I turned and went down into the basement where the traitors had been taken. My body wasn’t as strong as usual. Blood loss had left its mark, but not enough to stop me from doing this. Remo waited in the corridor of the basement.
“You’re joi
ning me?”
“Of course.”
Remo searched my face but I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “Fabiano’s picking up Leona from campus in case there are others out there waiting for their chance to hit us again and Savio needs to lie down because of his concussion, so it’s only us.”
“No,” a raspy voice sounded from the stairs. Both Remo and I looked to see Adamo coming down the steps, still covered in blood like we were.
Slowly he walked toward us, his eyes blood-shot and full of guilt. “I want to help you. I want to make up for what I did ... somehow ... I ...” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Remo’s mouth pulled into a tight line and he nodded.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
I regarded my little brother and grabbed his arm, shoving up his shirt, revealing punctures. “Are you drugged?”
Adamo looked away. “Not really, I had the last shot yesterday.”
Remo let out a low growl. “Fuck it, Adamo. Fuck it all. I should kill you now.”
Adamo nodded then met my gaze. “If anything had happened to Kiara or Alessio, I ... I would have never forgiven myself. I probably won’t either way.”
“Regret is wasted time, so is guilt, so stop wasting your time. Spend it on something useful, like getting clean and deciding who you want to be instead of wallowing in self-pity and wishing to be someone you’re obviously not,” I said sharply. Today I didn’t have any patience to spare for him, not after what I almost had to witness.
“I’m trying,” Adamo said.
“Let’s get this started. I want to tear the fuckers apart,” Remo snarled.
We stepped into the sound-proof room where the four surviving men had been locked in. One of them stared wide-eyed up at the ceiling, the other three huddled against the walls, legs and hands bound.
I went over to the unmoving asshole and nudged him with my toe. “He got lucky,” I said. “His end was moderately painless.”
“Must have kicked his throat too hard,” Remo said with a twisted smile, then he faced the traitors. “Now who wants to go first? Any takers?” He grasped Carmine by the collar and dragged him to the center of the room. “How about you, Carmine? We want to tend to you when we’re still pumped with adrenaline and anger, right?”