Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Thank you,” Abriella said.

  “But let’s get that blood cleaned off your face,” her sister finished quieter.

  Shit.

  “Yeah, I should do that.”

  Abriella managed to walk down the hallway on her shaky legs without tripping. She didn’t look Adriano in the eye as she passed him by.

  Behind her, she heard her sister ask, “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Adriano murmured.

  “I’ve never seen her like that before.”

  “Shock is hard to deal with, Lissa.”

  “Tommas, you think?” Alessa asked.

  “Probably.”

  “I want to know what happened, Adriano. Find out for me.”

  Abriella let the bathroom door slam loudly behind her.

  Abriella tried all she could not to glare at her brother. Joel sat at the other end of the restaurant table, spooning scrambled eggs into his mouth. After a particularly quiet morning spent with her sister, their brother had shown up at the apartment and asked them to breakfast.

  As much as Abriella wanted to refuse, she couldn’t.

  Joel was more chipper than usual, flirting with the waitress and being as nice as he could be to his sisters. Abriella suspected she knew the reason for Joel’s good mood, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

  “A month to the baby shower?” Joel asked.

  Alessa nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll send out the invitations for the party. It’ll be good to have something to celebrate in the family.”

  Abriella’s head snapped up. “Now the baby is something to celebrate?”

  Joel’s gaze narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Up until recently, Alessa’s pregnancy and the baby has been nothing but a nuisance for you, Joel. If you didn’t outright ignore every situation that came up about the pregnancy, you couldn’t say enough bad things about Alessa and Adriano. What’s changed?”

  “Abriella, don’t,” Alessa said quietly.

  Joel waved his sister’s warning off. “It is fine, Alessa. She asked. What is the harm in answering?”

  “Well, why then?” Abriella demanded.

  “A boss should always celebrate joyous occasions in his family, Ella. Sure, this pregnancy and the marriage was an issue for us at first, but that was only because of the way it came about. Being the dominating family means we no longer have to worry about that little problem anymore. The first principe or principessa of the next generation is about to be born. Of course, we should let the Outfit celebrate the child.”

  A show.

  That’s all it was to Joel.

  It was something else for him to show off and brag about. Now that Alessa’s pregnancy and the soon-to-be born child could garner him some respect and admiration, he was willing to hold the baby and marriage up as something wonderful and joyous.

  Abriella was so disgusted that she could spit.

  “I see,” Abriella said, not bothering to hide the hatred in her tone. “I wasn’t aware there had been a change in the Outfit that suddenly made us the dominating family again.”

  Or for you to be the boss, Abriella added silently.

  “Ah, you know better than to be asking things about the Outfit. Careful, Ella.”

  Abriella scoffed. “Right. My apologies.”

  “You’re awfully touchy this morning,” Joel noted.

  “You’re awfully happy.”

  “I can’t be happy?”

  “Not when you’re usually so unbearable that even sharing a meal with you is emotionally exhausting.”

  Alessa pinched Abriella’s leg under the table. No doubt, Alessa had learned of the events from the night before at Tommas’ club. It had been all over the news that morning. Abriella watched from a distance, panic seizing her heart and anger boiling in her blood.

  She still hadn’t heard from Tommas.

  It took all she had not to go to the hospital as soon as she could. Someone would see. People were always watching. Abriella couldn’t risk it.

  “Why the change, brother?” Abriella asked.

  “Things are looking up for the Trentini family and the Outfit,” Joel said as he leaned back in his chair. “Now, I need the rest of my family to fall in line and help out a little bit. If there is one thing I am good at, Abriella, it is forcing the hands of those around me to get what I want. I’ve certainly learned enough from the men in this family to know how to play dirty. I don’t know why you’re acting like you are this morning, but I suggest you cut it out before it becomes a habit.”

  Was that what her brother had done? Had he tried to force Tommas’ hand into giving Joel a seat that wasn’t even taken yet? Was the bomb simply a promise of what was to come if Tommas challenged Joel?

  “And what if I don’t cut it out?” Abriella asked.

  Joel flashed a cold smile. “Then I will correct it for you.”

  Alessa passed Abriella a quick look that begged for her to be quiet. Abriella, as much as she hated to do it, picked up her fork and forced a bite of ham and eggs down her throat.

  Even eating was a chore.

  Silently, the three siblings went back to eating without another word. The only sounds in the restaurant were the scraping of utensils on plates, the shuffle of feet, and quiet murmurs from other tables. The screech of a cell phone damn near made Abriella jump out of her chair.

  She still couldn’t shake the jumpy feeling.

  It hadn’t left since the bomb blew.

  Joel glanced down at the ringing phone on the table. “I’ll be right back.”

  The moment their brother was gone from the table, Alessa turned on Abriella. “What in the hell is up with you this morning?”

  Abriella scowled down at her plate. “You watched the news.”

  “I did.”

  “Then you know what he did, Lissa.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing. Privately, he’s celebrating because he thinks he’s won. Joel believes he’s gotten exactly what he wants.”

  Alessa frowned. “Don’t push him. Wasn’t it always you who told me to tread carefully where Joel is concerned? He turns on people faster than anyone we know, Ella.”

  Abriella was aware.

  The bigger problem was that she couldn’t let her brother win.

  What would that mean for her?

  For Tommas?

  Alessa glanced down at her lap. “Oh.”

  “What?”

  Her sister waved a phone before it disappeared under the table again.

  “Adriano just got out of the hospital. He went to see Tommas on the low when he thought it would be safe to do so.”

  Abriella’s shoulders tightened. “You told me he was working!”

  “So I lied. Back off.”

  “Well, what did he find out?”

  Alessa looked down at her phone again. “Tommas wasn’t there.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what it says. There was no Tommas Rossi checked in at the Presbyterian, Ella.”

  Where was he?

  “A different name, maybe?” Abriella asked.

  “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Abriella thought about the cracked phone in her purse. She had turned Tommas’ phone off to save the dwindling battery. She had the right contacts to find out where Tommas really was when she got the chance to use them. Before she could consider the phone more, Joel returned to the table. The angry scowl he sported now was far more familiar to Abriella than the smile he had been wearing earlier.

  “Bad news?” Abriella dared to ask.

  Joel’s cheek twitched. “Mind your business, Ella.”

  She took that as a good sign. Bad news for Joel was great news for her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Rossi, it’s nice to see you again.”

  Tommas clenched his teeth to keep from barking at the detective. The familiar man strolled into the room with his smirking partner on his hee
l. Ignoring the pain in his chest and the dizziness when he stood too fast, Tommas moved from his spot at the end of the hospital bed.

  “I didn’t invite you into my hospital room. Leave.”

  “Nope,” the cheery man replied. “Detectives Crown and Delog from—”

  “I know who you are,” Tommas interjected sharply. “I said get out.”

  “We had to make some calls to figure out which room you were in, Tommas,” Crown said. “Using an alias. Nice trick. I never knew you to be a frightened man, but you must be if you’re hiding out in a hospital.”

  Tommas crossed his arms, refusing to give the man a reaction. “Concussion, a cracked rib, internal bruising … frightened, same thing.”

  “That’s what we’re saying,” the other detective, Delog, said with a grin.

  Knowing it would only exacerbate his cracked rib, and make his pounding headache twenty times worse, Tommas held himself back from forcibly removing the detectives from the hospital room. It wouldn’t be the first time he had done something of that nature to these men.

  These fools had been following him around ever since he was twenty-two and earned his button into the Outfit. He figured it was because they saw him as an easy target, what with his drunk parents.

  They wanted a rat.

  They needed an in to the Outfit.

  Tommas wouldn’t be it.

  “Haven’t you gotten the hint yet?” Tommas asked.

  Crown fiddled with a phone on the moveable table at the foot of the bed. “Got what hint, Tommas?”

  “You two fools have had me on your radar for eight years, and our meetings keep ending the same way. You want something, I make you leave. It’s not going to change. Get out.”

  Crown placed the phone back on the hook. “Let’s talk instead.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Don’t be like that, Tommas,” Delog said. “You nearly died early this morning. They’ve been waking you up every half hour, refusing you food, and you’ve been demanding to be released for the last three hours. You’re tired—we know. Let’s just do this quickly, easily, and you’ll be on your way.”

  “With what, a wire taped to the crack of my ass?” Tommas asked cuttingly.

  “Oh, stop. The bomb, who set it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do,” Crown said.

  “I don’t know for you,” Tommas replied with a sneer.

  “My guess,” Delog drawled, “was that Joel Trentini set it. See, we’re watching, Tommas. You know we are. The new boss is dead, and his biggest challenge for the seat was Joel. Now, Joel probably has it in his head that he needs to go after it, but maybe you’re in the way somehow. Are you in the way, Rossi?”

  Tommas shrugged. “About as much as you’re in my way. Which isn’t a whole lot.”

  Crown shot his partner a look and nodded.

  Delog turned his attention on Tommas again. “We can give you what you need, Tommas. Safety, a new life, and freedom from this. Anything.”

  “And as I’ve told you several times, I like my life just the way it is. But thanks.”

  “We can get—”

  “Me straight into a makeshift grave,” Tommas interjected coldly. “Your efforts would be better spent trying to find a way to get me behind bars instead of attempting to use me to turn rat against the Outfit.”

  Crown shook his head, sighing. “Be careful what you wish for, Tommas.”

  Was that supposed to scare him?

  It didn’t.

  “You know, when the police didn’t question me early this morning or afternoon, I figured you two fools would be around. If I didn’t already have a few enemies coming at me from behind, I might actually think that you two set the bomb in my car.”

  Delog laughed. “Now that’s just rude, Tommas.”

  “No more than you are. Please leave.”

  Crown waved a finger in Tommas’ direction. “We will get what we want, Rossi. Eventually. It doesn’t have to come from you. Anyone with the right access can give us all the information we need to eradicate the Outfit from Chicago.”

  Tommas nodded. “Yeah, yeah. The war on crime. I’m aware. What’s in your bonuses if you put a few mobsters in for life, huh?”

  “Depends on the mobster,” Delog answered. “But the fact is, we really don’t need you Tommas. We simply like you. You can either be the one we put away, or the one that helps us put them away.”

  Obviously the police had a hard-on for the Outfit again. It wasn’t the first time they had tried to infiltrate the Chicago mob in an attempt to take down the organization. Joseph DeLuca had fallen into that trap when Tommas was just a teen, and the man lost his life for it.

  Despite his young age at the time, it was an event that Tommas couldn’t forget. He would never turn rat no matter how bad shit seemed.

  Never.

  “Find something on me,” Tommas said quietly, “and I’ll do my time, boys.”

  Crown smiled. “We’ll see you again, Tommas.”

  “Make sure it’s when I’m in handcuffs, or don’t bother. And when you go past the front desk, make sure they correct the nonsense about my room. I don’t need or want to hide. My name can be on this room. They refused to change it for me. You two aren’t nearly as smart as you think.”

  Once the detectives had vacated his room, Tommas fell back into the closest chair with a groan. It had taken all he had just to keep standing and not show the fact that he was dizzy as hell, in some serious pain, and not up for a verbal sparring match with the officials.

  The quiet creak of the bathroom door made Tommas’ head pop up. He found his cousin leaning in the bathroom entryway with a scowl and a glare focused on the spot where the detectives had gone.

  “Snakes,” Damian muttered.

  “You’re lucky they don’t pester you.”

  “They tried once. I seriously considered killing one of them just to make a point so they wouldn’t do it again.”

  “Did they try anyway?”

  “No,” Damian replied. “Our meeting ended in a way that made it clear I was not open to play.”

  “Good thing.”

  “I am surprised that it was them who put the restrictions on your room. Especially the name change thing and all. That could look really bad on you if someone found out it was the officials who cooked up that nonsense, Tommy.”

  “I’m more concerned about what they said before that, D.”

  Damian’s gaze narrowed. “Like the fact that they felt it was necessary to point out how they didn’t need you.”

  “Yeah. It makes me think they might already have someone else or they’re working on it.”

  “But who?”

  Tommas winced as he stood from the chair. “Hard to say.”

  “Tommy, you can stay another couple of days in here. I’ll keep an eye on your room.”

  “No, I’m safer if I’m out, D. Besides, you’ve got a pregnant wife to get home to. I’m going to force the discharge and get the hell out of here.”

  “When you do …”

  “What?” Tommas asked.

  Damian glanced away. “Just be careful about certain people, okay.”

  “People like who, D?”

  “You know who.”

  Abriella.

  “She is not who they were talking about,” Tommas said, his tone heating instantly.

  “I never said that. But I do want you to be mindful. You get stupid and crazy when that girl is involved, Tommy. You don’t think shit through and you make rash decisions.”

  “You’re one to talk. Look at what you did in this whole mess.”

  Damian straightened fast. “I—”

  “Don’t deny it. You helped to start a war between the families under the idea of something, not the truth of it. You could have ended it before Terrance and saved everyone a hell of a lot of trouble and bloodshed, but in an effort to keep your wife safe, you finished the job.”

  “I don’t kn
ow how to leave a job unfinished. I wasn’t taught to work that way.”

  “My point is that you’re no better than me, D. Judgment looks well on no one. Before you start pointing dirty fingers in my direction, make sure the ones pointing back at you have been cleaned.”

  “There’s a difference,” his cousin said quietly.

  “Do tell.”

  “I have my wife.”

  Tommas stiffened. “So?”

  “You don’t have Abriella at all.”

  He had her in all the ways that mattered.

  For now.

  “I’m working on that,” Tommas settled on saying.

  Damian sighed. “Well, get smarter about it. Joel did exactly what I thought he would do, Tommas. He gave it some time, he waited it out until he thought you were distracted and focused on something other than him. And frankly, he couldn’t have hit you at a better time. If you don’t start hitting him back, his next move might be the last one he has to make where you’re concerned.”

  Damian was right on every single point. Tommas wouldn’t deny it.

  “Just ... get smarter about this,” Damian repeated. “You’ve never been a fool. You know how to play this game. They don’t call you bloody for nothing, Tommy.”

  “I’m working on that, too. Go get my fucking discharge papers.”

  Tommas had shit to do. He wasn’t staying in the hospital for a cracked rib, a couple of bruises on his internal organs, and a headache.

  “Before I go force them into giving you the discharge papers, we should talk about what happened when I picked up Abriella,” Damian said.

  “What about it?”

  “She was out of it, Tommas. She didn’t know if she was coming or going.”

  Tommas’ chest ached at that admission. More than anything, he wanted to find Abriella and let her see that he was okay. Unfortunately, that couldn’t happen. It wasn’t safe. His second biggest concern was making sure no one knew just how much that really bothered him.

  “Let me worry about Abriella,” Tommas said.

  “She’s got your phone.”

  “I know.”

  “Make sure that girl knows you’re okay.”

  “Back to the two-seater, boss?” Nate asked.