by Bethany-Kris
“What was it?”
“Joel showed up. Abriella came, too. Even the Trentini family showed up. Peter and Sara, I mean.”
Theo cussed. “Riley didn’t turn them away?”
“Apparently, he invited them last minute.”
“Why?”
“Why else, Theo? My father is insane, and he still thinks he is the one controlling the games. That includes Joel.”
“I think the better question is why did Joel agree to an invitation knowing how Riley feels about him?”
Evelina didn’t have an answer.
Neither did Theo.
Theo stayed hidden in the shadows of the hallway at the back of the large bar. As far as he could see, the dark corridor wasn’t used for anything except a back exit. No one had even come close to his hidden spot. He had the perfect view of everyone else, though.
It damn near killed him inside to let Evelina walk back out onto the floor and join the people. Something was nagging at his middle, making him want to keep her safe and hidden in the hallway while he did what needed to be done.
Shaking off the unnerving feeling, Theo found the most important people in the crowd of guests. He wanted to make sure he knew where everyone was, and to keep them constantly in his sights so that no mistakes would happen.
Damian and Lily sat at a booth at the far end of the bar. With his arm slung around Lily’s shoulder, Damian chatted with his cousin, Tommas, beside him. Evelina stood beside the booth, but she was looking over her shoulder in Theo’s general direction. A few booths down, Theo found Adriano sitting with his new wife. Alessa’s hand rested on her rounded midsection as she watched her sister from across the room. Following Alessa’s gaze, Theo found Abriella and Joel. One watched a man on one side of the bar while the other watched another man. Riley chatted with the bartender at the bar while his wife stood, pretty and quiet, at his side.
The bar held at least sixty to seventy guests.
The more people moved, danced, and talked, the more concerned Theo got. It was hard to keep track of where everyone was when it seemed like the floor was a sea of moving bodies dressed up to the nines and getting louder by the second.
When the lights dimmed more than they already were and the music turned down a few notches, Theo stepped further back into the hallway. Sparklers were handed out to the people by the servers as Riley led his young wife to the middle of the floor.
Waving a hand high, Riley said, “Tonight, we put aside our differences to celebrate the life of a beautiful woman. Happy birthday, my dear.”
People began to light their sparklers. It was distracting and bright, but Theo kept his gaze trained on the man in the middle of the room. When Riley pulled his wife in for a kiss, the lights went out and all that could be seen were the shapes of people and the sparks from the sparklers lighting up the ceiling as people held them high.
Clapping thundered in the room, making a volcano of noise. Happy birthday rang out from several voices as people started to sing for Courtney. Theo hadn’t taken his eyes off where he was supposed to go, or rather, where Riley had stopped to stand with his wife.
Theo moved out of the safety that the dark hallway had provided him and moved forward as quietly and fast as he could. He weaved in and out of people who sang with their sparklers held high. No one seemed to even notice someone pushing through them.
Soon, Theo could hear Riley’s voice over everyone else’s.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Riley said.
Courtney’s laughter rang out two feet in front of Theo.
Another couple of steps …
He drew the gun out, clicked off the safety, and cocked the hammer. Pulling the eight inch long silencer from his pocket, Theo screwed the device into the barrel of his gun. He wanted to make this fast and the darkness allowed him to make an easy getaway without being seen.
It was dirty as fuck, but it would be clean.
“It’s so pretty,” Courtney said.
“They’re almost burned out, I think,” Riley replied.
Theo was behind the man in a second. It almost seemed like the crowd had crushed in on them, surrounding him. Maneuvering around another person, Theo found himself directly behind Riley and Courtney.
“Riley,” Theo said.
It was just loud enough for the boss to hear.
Riley turned fast on his heel. No doubt, he recognized Theo’s voice. He’d probably been waiting for Theo to show, but not like this. Not tonight. Someone grabbed Courtney’s arm and pulled her, drawing her into the crowd and away from her husband. Theo didn’t know who it was.
Even in the darkness, Theo could see Riley’s gaze widen with fear.
“Don’t play with snakes,” Theo said. “You always end up with a bite.”
Theo’s gun met Riley’s forehead and he pulled the trigger. Above the clapping and the singing, the shot barely made a sound. Riley was dead before he even hit the floor. Theo was already half way back toward the hallway when the screams started.
He heard the feet hit the floor hard as people moved and rushed. Lights were turned on and the cries turned desperate and loud. Through the sea of people, no one seemed to take notice of him. People shoved and shouted, trying to make it to the doors. Several rushed right past Theo, intent on making it to the back door. Not one looked him in the face to realize who they were passing.
Suddenly, a presence was beside him. A familiar one.
“There you are,” Damian said. “Give me it and I’ll get it out of here.”
Theo knew what his old friend was asking for. He handed the gun over. Damian had black gloves on and a rag in his other hand. The man wiped down the weapon quickly before he held it out behind his back.
Confused, Theo watched as Tommas Rossi strolled past Damian with another wave of guests, grabbed the gun, and kept on going without even looking back.
“Where is Evelina?” Theo asked.
Damian jerked his thumb toward the corner where they had been sitting. “With Lily. I told them to stay put when the lights went out, no matter what, and I left the table.”
Theo looked. Evelina was not beside a frightened Lily. He couldn’t find Evelina. The more he looked, the heavier his stomach felt.
“Shit,” Damian growled, realizing the same thing Theo had. He pointed in two different directions. “You go that way, I’ll go this way.”
Theo couldn’t leave the goddamn bar until he knew where Evelina was. He shoved his way back into the stampede of people and made a beeline for the direction he knew Evelina had been before the lights went out.
“It was him!”
“You asked me for an ally,” Evelina cried.
Her shout echoed from somewhere to his left. Theo cut in that direction and saw Evelina backed into a corner. Courtney stood only a couple of feet away with a gun in her hand and the weapon pointed right at Evelina.
Theo’s heart stopped.
“You asked me for an ally,” Evelina repeated. “That’s all I was trying to do, that’s why I pulled you away, Courtney.”
“You knew,” Courtney hissed. “You knew what was going to happen tonight!”
Evelina’s gaze darted around, and landed on Theo. He could see the terror and pleas that were right on the tip of her tongue. And he had no fucking gun.
“I just thought … I thought—”
“That I would want to go back like I was before?” Courtney asked, spitting the words. “To being a whore and nothing else? Move on to the next man that will keep me? Was that it?”
“No,” Evelina said, shaking her head.
Theo had moved a few steps closer. Another few and he could hit the bitch from behind. Evelina looked over Courtney’s shoulder again at him.
Wrong move.
Theo knew it instantly.
Courtney turned on her heel to face Theo, her gun dropping slightly to her side.
“Run, Eve!” Theo shouted.
Evelina bolted to the side and Theo lurched toward Courtney. The b
itch barely got out of the way. He was just a couple of feet in front of Courtney but off to the side. It gave her the perfect aim to shoot at Evelina. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two things. Evelina shot a fleeting look over her shoulder at him, and Courtney pointed the gun at Evelina.
Theo moved faster than he thought was possible. Gunshots echoed one after the other. He felt all three bullets when they hit his back. Pain sliced through his nervous system. Theo turned slightly at the force of the bullets entering his body, making him fall on his side when he hit the floor.
Theo choked on something rusty, unable to get a proper breath. His hands slid on the floor when he tried to right himself. He glanced around, trying to find Evelina again. Instead, he watched as someone grabbed a screaming, fighting Courtney, disarmed her, and pulled her away.
Soft, familiar hands fluttered over Theo’s hair, down his face, and to his jaw.
“Oh, my God,” Evelina mumbled.
Theo couldn’t talk. He tried, but that rusty, metallic taste just got worse.
Evelina cried above him.
Don’t do that, he wanted to tell her.
He’d be okay.
He just needed to breathe.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Move,” Evelina heard growled at her.
A hard shove tossed her backwards from Theo.
She fought to get back. She fought hard. She wanted to hold him, to make it stop. The blood kept coming. Her white dress was stained a morbid crimson and it soaked right through to her skin. Evelina didn’t care.
She just wanted to hold him.
“Let me go!” she cried.
“Eve, stop it,” Adriano hissed in her ear.
Instinct drove her closer. It made her kick her brother and hit him with her fist. The desire to be closer to the man on the ground, the one who was dying for her, thrummed hard and fast in her bloodstream.
The tears streaked down her face. She couldn’t wipe them away quickly enough. The coppery taste of Theo’s blood on her lips made her sick to her stomach but she ignored the urge to wipe his blood away.
Adriano’s grip around Evelina’s waist tightened. “Stop fighting me.”
Why did he keep pulling her away?
Theo’s face was ashy, his lips were slack. His eyes were open but vacantness filled them. So fucking vacant. Theo gave no response. He’d stopped trying to speak, but blood still trickled from his mouth. While Damian worked on Theo, Evelina tried to comprehend how much time had passed. A minute, maybe a little more.
He couldn’t be dead.
Someone had called the ambulance a few minutes earlier for Riley. She wondered if they’d make it here in time for the person who really needed it.
She barely recognized the body of her father a few feet away or the rushed movements of people as they fled the club. She didn’t know where Courtney had gone, except that Joel had dragged the woman away. Evelina was far too focused on Theo.
Tommas joined his cousin on the floor, and he and Damian worked on Theo. One man pumped Theo’s chest while the other forced his head back and pushed air into his lungs.
“Fuck, come on, Theo,” Damian mumbled. “Please don’t do this to me, man. Don’t do this to Lily. Please don’t do this to her.”
Evelina couldn’t breathe.
Apparently, neither could Theo.
“Why isn’t he breathing?” Evelina demanded. “Make him breathe!”
“Get her out of here!” Damian roared.
It was only then that the background noise began to bleed through Evelina’s shocked senses. Lily’s screams, heartbroken and terrified, echoed above the catacomb of noise from everyone else in the club.
There was blood on the floor. Evelina’s heels slipped in it as Adriano dragged her closer to the front door. It was hard to get out with all the people. Evelina felt sluggish, slow, and frozen. Her heart ached.
Cold February wind whipped around Evelina. Her coat and purse were somewhere inside. She didn’t even care. The temperature barely registered. Red and white lights pulsed around Evelina. Sirens blared.
“You can’t leave,” a man said from behind them.
The cops had arrived. How had they gotten there already?
Adriano didn’t turn around. “Fuck.”
“You can’t leave until you’ve been questioned!”
Evelina was going to be sick.
“Adriano …”
Blank.
Stunned.
Barely there.
Evelina couldn’t feel a thing but the rolling sensation in her stomach, and her brother’s fingers digging into her arm to keep her upright.
“Theo,” Evelina said to Adriano.
“Be quiet, Eve,” Adriano murmured as a man stood in front of them with an item held out.
A badge.
A cop.
Where had that man come from? How long had it taken them to get out of the club? She’d just wanted to help Courtney. She thought the girl would appreciate being away from the mess that was about to happen to her husband.
Why had she turned like that on Evelina?
Evelina blinked away her hazy vision. The cop spoke to Adriano. Evelina didn’t hear a thing. She saw the man’s lips move, but his words were lost to her.
“She is covered in blood,” the man snapped.
“She saw nothing!” Adriano barked back.
“Miss—”
Automatic reaction forced Evelina to speak.
Nothing more.
“I saw nothing,” Evelina whispered. “I slipped running out. That’s all.”
The cop kept arguing.
Evelina tuned him out.
She was too busy watching the man being wheeled out on the stretcher. A paramedic was on top of him, his hands beating hard into his chest. Another paramedic helped to push the stretcher.
Theo.
Theo … Theo … Theo.
People flooded out of the club again, making Evelina lose sight of Theo and the paramedics. The crowd wouldn’t thin.
Evelina wavered. She swayed on her feet.
“I can’t get it,” she heard the paramedic say. “I can’t get a beat. The bleeding won’t staunch. Get the oxygen, he isn’t breathing!”
Evelina didn’t even feel the ground when she hit it.
But every single piece of her heart did.
“I have news.”
Evelina looked up from her hands still stained red. Alessa had tried to help her clean them. Adriano had tried to help. The most Evelina managed to do was get out of her bloody dress and put on something suitable.
Even breathing felt wrong.
“What?” Evelina asked, her voice a raspy croak.
How long had it been since she spoke?
Hours.
So many hours.
“He’s critical, but he’s alive,” Adriano said.
Evelina felt Alessa’s hand rub her back soothingly. It did very little to help calm the raging torrent of grief pounding at Evelina’s heart and soul.
“Alive.”
“Theo got through the first surgery, Eve,” Adriano explained.
“The first?”
“He was too unstable to begin the second this morning.”
Morning?
Evelina glanced out the window, noting the early morning light. “Oh.”
“They got the bullet out of his heart, but he’s got two lodged in his lung and it’s taking a toll.”
“But he’s alive.”
Adriano nodded.
His unspoken words were louder: barely alive.
“Can I go to the hospital?” Evelina asked. “I want to go.”
“You need to stay away. Just until this calms down. Until we bury Dad, maybe.”
Riley …
“I don’t care about Riley,” Evelina spat.
“Me, either, Eve. We still have to play a part.”
Evelina’s chest hurt. She rubbed at the spot over her heart. “I want to go to Theo.”
“Soon,�
� her brother promised. “You could have told me about you and Theo.”
“You told me not to tell.”
Adriano’s expression didn’t change. “I didn’t want to refuse you something and hurt you.”
“Dad did that enough.”
“Yeah.” Adriano sighed heavily. “What do you need, Eve?”
“Theo.”
“I—”
“Can’t,” Evelina interrupted before her brother could get out another word. “That’s all I have ever heard my whole life. I can’t. You won’t. No, Eve. Don’t, Eve. Give me something. I want my own life, Adriano.”
Adriano passed his quiet wife an indecipherable look. Alessa just kept rubbing Evelina’s back, silent and strong. Alessa had always been that way. Right then, Evelina appreciated it more than she could explain.
“I will,” Adriano said finally. “But I need you to put on your mask one last time and bury Dad with me, Eve. Do this one thing for me and I will give you whatever you want after this. To the officials, we have to be the innocent, grieving bystanders. Do this for me, and I will do anything for you.”
Evelina choked on her agreement. She didn’t want to be the Conti princess ever again. She let the word out anyway.
“Okay. But I see Theo right after. Right after, Adriano.”
Adriano’s façade cracked as his eyes glazed.
“Okay, Eve. I had some other news, too, but I didn’t know if you would care.”
“What?”
“Joel put out word that Courtney is dead. Nothing else.”
“Do you believe him or do you think he’s lying?”
Courtney had been friends with Chloe, after all.
“I’d say it’s the truth,” Adriano said.
“Why?”
“Because he left her body on Dad’s front steps.”
Evelina felt sick all over again.
“There’s someone guarding his room,” Adriano said.
Evelina’s restlessness wouldn’t settle. It was the uncomfortable heaviness in her stomach and the emptiness in her heart. She fidgeted with anything she could hold in her hands just to keep her mind from straying. Even while listening to her brother, she still felt like she had to get up and physically go somewhere else. Or rather, go to someone else.