A Sense of Guilt (Carlisi Familia Book 3)

by Maia Dylan

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2019 Maia Dylan

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-939-3

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Audrey Bobak

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  On March 15, 2019, my country changed forever.

  For Christchurch.

  #kiakahachristchurch

  A SENSE OF GUILT

  Carlisi Familia, 3

  Maia Dylan

  Copyright © 2019

  Chapter One

  Gino came awake with a start. His heart pounding, sweat pouring from his body, and an urgent sense that something bad was about to happen. He took a few swift deep breaths, desperately trying to gain control of his panic, his gaze darting around his hospital room, looking for the danger that felt heavy in the surrounding air. The light from the glass windows over his door cast the room with enough of a glow to prove that whatever the danger was that he felt, it wasn’t in the room. The clock on the bedside table told him it was close to three-thirty in the morning.

  With a groan he couldn’t hold back, he pushed to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. His ribs, his arms, his face, everything throbbed with pain as he moved. Hell, his left hand felt like it was on fire, and the missing finger burned like fuck. He’d had no idea something like that was even possible, that something that wasn’t even there could hurt like hell, but his doctors explained they were phantom pains and had warned they would come. It felt all too real at that moment.

  Gritting his teeth, he removed the drip from the port on the back of his hand and stood up, fighting nausea and a wave of dizziness. He waited for it to ebb before he stepped toward the door. Each step hurt, but he had to move to the door. He had to see what it was that had every survival instinct he possessed screaming within him, and he cursed the fact no one had left him with a damn weapon.

  As quietly as he could, he opened the door slightly, blinking his eyes to get used to the bright warm light that lit the corridor. He could see one of their young enforcers, a man named Nico, sitting in a chair down the hall from his room. He was slumped in the chair and fighting sleep, but still awake.

  Taking a quick look back down the other way and seeing it clear, he stepped out into the hallway. Nico caught the movement and spun in his direction. When he saw Gino walk out, or more accurately, shuffle out, slightly bent over, his eyes widened in shock and he jumped up.

  “Damn, Gino,” Nico said as he hurried in his direction. “I don’t think you should be walking around, man. Or even standing.” Nico reached him and gripped his arms, helping him to stand upright. “Gavriil is down in the doctor’s lounge with Abby sleeping. I’ll go get him.”

  The last thing Gino needed was for Gavriil to walk into whatever the hell it was his instincts were telling him was coming. “No, leave them there.” Gino’s voice was harsh, but there was an urgency in his tone. “Does he have a guard? Who else is here?”

  Nico went on alert, his gaze sweeping the hall. “Leona is down the hall to the left, and Tony’s with her. He’s armed to the teeth, and Finn is outside their door. The woman that was found with you, she’s across the hall here.”

  The hair on the back of Gino’s neck rose at the mention of that woman. “She still in there?”

  “She hasn’t left the room and I’ve been in this hall all night.” Nico suddenly frowned and his gaze slid to the side. “Except…”

  “Tell me.”

  Nico grimaced. “There was this nurse, and I talked to her for about fifteen minutes down at the nurses’ station.” Nico pointed to the reception area behind him, not far from where they stood. “She’s gorgeous, and I got her number. But I swear to you, Gino, I never left the hall.”

  Cursing, Gino stepped away from the younger man and pushed the door open, knowing before the light from the corridor cast over the bed what he would find. The woman was gone. He stepped into the room, his gaze going to the machines by the bed that were flashing, no doubt because they were no longer connected to anyone, but had been silenced somehow. He caught the scent of rain on the air and noticed the curtains in the window moving.

  He stepped over to the window to slide the curtain aside and stood staring out at the night from the second-floor window, that sense of panic still riding hard within him. He took as deep of a breath as his abused ribs would let him and wondered at the sense of loss he was feeling. She’d left. The woman he’d stepped in to save then had saved him in return at great cost to herself. She was gone, and he had no idea what her name was.

  He closed his eyes, remembering how scared she’d been the day before, but baiting Tito to get his attention off Gino and on her despite his protests. She had been prepared to die, may have even welcomed the release death may have afforded her. He’d seen it in her eyes. She—

  His eyes flew open as he was suddenly struck with insight. She had been prepared to die. He spun from the window and ran past a surprised Nico. He moved as fast as he could to the elevator bank. She wanted to die, and she was an intelligent woman. Jumping from the second floor wasn’t guaranteed to kill her. But the roof was a different matter entirely.

  ****

  “Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos.” Rosa Hernandez heard the tremor in her own voice and felt the tears streaming down her face, but nothing could sway her resolve. “Santificado sea tu Nombre, Venga tu reino.”

  She continued to recite the Lord’s Prayer, her eyes locked on the concrete parking lot ten stories below her. When she’d stood before her hospital room window, contemplating this very act, she’d known she had to be higher. Now, once she’d recited the prayer her abuela had taught her as a child, she would step from this roof and join her in the afterlife. Her heart stuttered. Maybe. She’d been brought up to believe that suicide was not acceptable in the eyes of God, that she wouldn’t find her way into the arms of the Lord if she did this. But she figured, surely, if He knew what she’d lived through over the past eight years, he would forgive her.

  “Como nosotros perdonamos nuestros deudores, y no nos dejes caer en al tentación—” Rosa stopped, her mind going blank. “Y no nos dejes caer en al tentación—si—sino”

  “Sino que líbranos del malo.”

  Rosa gasped at the male voice that spoke from behind her, and she spun on the narrow ledge of the building, throwing her arms wide to hold her balance.

  “Dio no!” Gino, the man she’d helped to be tortured yesterday, shouted from ten feet behind her, his arms reaching for her, but not taking another step forward. “Please, stop. It’s okay.”

  Rosa inhaled sharply, her body tense, her heart pounding so hard, she thought it might actually burst free. “What do you want?”

  Gino was breathing hard, too. She could see his muscular chest, obscured behind a swathe of bandages, moving rapidly. “I want you to step down off the ledge and walk over here to me. Can you do that, cara?”

  Rosa felt a moment of warmth at the endearment he used before the ice-cold of shame quashed it. “I’m sorry, Gino, but I can’t do that.” She turned to look over her shoulder. “You should go back downstairs.”

  “No, don’t turn away from me!” Gino shouted and when she turne
d back to look at him, he’d taken a few steps in her direction, only stopping when she threw him a panicked look. “I won’t come closer, cara, just stay there for a minute and talk to me. Don’t take those beautiful brown eyes off me. Just stay.”

  Rosa bit back a sob. He actually sounded like he meant it. Like he cared.

  “I c–can’t stay,” she whispered. “There’s nothing here for me. They—they’ll come for me. I know … stuff. But I won’t go back. I won’t.” She inhaled, steeling her resolve once more.

  “Sweetheart, no one will make you go back,” Gino implored.

  “Gino!”

  Rosa looked behind him at the three people running in their direction. So much for simply stepping off and ending her life her way. She never wanted to do it with a damn audience.

  “Stay back, Gavriil!” Gino shouted, never taking his gaze from her. “Stay the fuck back and let me handle this.”

  From her vantage point, she could see that the man who practically oozed dominance and power was not used to taking orders, but it was a testament to Gino’s place in the man’s world that he did what was asked, hauling the woman who had come up with them into his arms. Rosa could see tears falling down her face. Holy Mother of God, that had to be Gavriil Solkov. Poppa John Carlisi’s son, for all intents and purposes, and second in charge within the Carlisi family. Had she gone from the frying pan and into the fire?

  “Cara, look at me, only at me,” Gino said in a soft but authoritative tone that had her obeying immediately. “You don’t want to do this. Not really.”

  Rosa shook her head. “I do. I’m not strong enough—”

  “Bullshit!” Gino cursed, edging forward a little more. “A woman who can stand up to a piece of shit like Tito and try to protect someone she didn’t even know is strong. So damn strong. Stronger than this.”

  He pointed behind her with his hand and her gaze went to the thick bandages that covered his hand. “You shouldn’t be out here. Your hand … you should be on high-spectrum antibiotics. You could get an infection.”

  Gino rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Dio. The woman is standing on the edge of a building seventy feet in the air, about to step out and end her life, and she’s worried about me catching a damn cold.”

  Rosa frowned. “Not a cold, Gino. An infection in an injury like yours could lead to life-threatening medical complications. You shouldn’t have removed the IV.”

  Gino narrowed his gaze at her. “Sounds like you know what you’re doing, cara. Why don’t you step down off that ledge and come give me a hand with that? Taking the damn thing out seems like it was a lot easier than trying to get that thing back in.”

  Rosa shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so, Gino.” Gino moved forward again, and Rosa put a hand out. “Stop. Please. Don’t make this any harder on me.”

  “Fuck that.”

  Gino practically growled, anger apparent on his handsome face despite the bruises and swelling. She had expected him to try to cajole her into stepping back from the ledge, maybe even make her feel guilty, but she hadn’t been prepared for his anger.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You should be fucking sorry,” Gino snapped. “You don’t want me to make this harder on you? On you! What about me, cara, huh? How is this supposed to go for me, because I can tell you right now if I have to watch you fall from this damn roof, then I am more than likely to go with you.”

  The female gasp from behind him was clear and Rosa looked back at the woman who was now clinging to Gavriil Sokov. He and the other man who had run out onto the roof both looked panicked at the thought of Gino jumping from the roof. He was cared for. It was clear to see.

  “Why?” Rosa whispered. “Why would you want to kill yourself when you have people who love you? Who will be there for you?”

  Gino’s gaze slid away for a moment, and she watched a myriad of emotions wash over his face before he looked back at her, his expression so open and vulnerable she wanted to cry for him.

  “I carry a lot of baggage,” he said quietly. “Things from my past that I am ashamed of, that I am haunted by. I can honestly tell you, cara, that I have stood where you stand and fought myself on the same decision you are thinking of making now. But it is because of these people, the people in my life now that I stand behind and beside, that I am still here. I want to be that person for you.”

  Rosa sobbed, her resolve cracking beneath the sincerity in his tone. “Why?”

  Gino took another step closer. “Because you feel big to me. Like someone I am supposed to protect, and I want to do that. More than anything in this world, I want to protect you.”

  “The Battaglias will—”

  “Never get near you,” Gino swore. “I promise you that. You come with me, and we will protect you.” He reached out his good hand toward her. “Please, cara, please.”

  Rosa stared into his eyes for a long moment. Her abuela often told her that life was a series of crossroads, and depending on which way you turned, you could encounter either good or bad in your life. This was one of the moments. She had no idea what the outcome would be. Good or bad. But she discovered one thing about herself. She was strong.

  Rosa reached out her hand in Gino’s direction, and with a single step, she took a leap of faith.

  Chapter Two

  “Gino, Rosa needs you.”

  “What’s happened?” he asked as he left the kitchen table and headed outside to where he’d parked his truck.

  Marissa sighed. “She’s been doing a lot better, Gino. She actually sits down to eat with some of the girls in the kitchen rather than up in her room.”

  He’d known that she was keeping mostly to herself. They’d moved her into Marissa’s place as soon as she was out of the hospital. Gino figured she would be more comfortable there than here at John’s or at his apartment.

  “That’s good.” He opened his truck and climbed in, frowning when Tony and Nico both joined him. “But it doesn’t tell me why you think she needs me.” He started the truck and let the phone system connect the call before he placed his cell on the middle console.

  “Two men turned up tonight in the bar.” There was no missing the displeasure in Marissa’s tone. “Wouldn’t have meant a damn thing to me, but they were Hispanic and as soon as they saw Rosa, who was walking back to her room, they started in on her.”

  Gino pressed his foot harder to the accelerator. “Started in on her how? What the fuck does that mean, Marissa? Did they hurt her?”

  “No, at least not physically. But whatever it was they said to her, it left her pale and shaking. She ran from the room, and I called you. If I was a betting woman, and you know I am, that girl is fixing to run.”

  “Don’t you let her leave, Marissa,” Gino ordered down the phone, running a red light as he sped around a corner. “I’ll be there in less than five minutes, and she’d better be there.”

  Marissa growled. “If she’s gone by the time you get here, it’s because you didn’t come for her fast enough, asshole.” Then the call disconnected.

  “Fuck!” Gino roared, slamming his hand against the steering wheel before turning hard to take the next corner in time.

  “Son of a bitch!” Tony growled, throwing his hand out onto the dashboard. “Can you concentrate on keeping this fucking vehicle on the damn road? Leona will be pissed if you end up killing me.”

  Gino snarled but eased back on the speed a little. “I didn’t ask you to get in the damn truck.” He shot a look at Nico, who was grinning back at him. “Either of you.”

  “True,” Nico responded with a nod. “I got in because I was curious. Rosa was discharged five weeks ago, the same day as you. You visited every day for like three weeks, then suddenly you stopped going to see her two weeks ago. What’s up with that?”

  Gino felt frustration with a healthy dose of guilt slam through him. He remembered the night the two of them had been talking, and she—fuck!

  “I’ve been busy, Nico,” he snapped, not wanting
to think about the reason why he’d been keeping his distance. “But I thank you for keeping up with my fucking work schedule. In case you’ve missed it, the Battaglias are coming at the business hard and fast, hell-bent on causing as much trouble as they can. When the hell have I had time?”

  The silence was as damning as the thoughts rolling through his head. He could’ve gone to see her. Hell, he’d promised he would. But it was … difficult. The more he got to know Rosa Hernandez, the more he liked her. The more he liked her, the more guilt he started to feel. Making excuses not to see her helped, and wasn’t he just one large selfish bastard for thinking that?

  “You made her a promise, Gino,” Nico said quietly from the back seat. “I was on that rooftop, too. You said you would protect her. That she felt big to you, important. Were those just words to try and get her to step back off that ledge, or did you mean them?”

  Tony turned to look at him, the dark cab illuminated by the passing street lights doing nothing to disguise the intensity of his stare. “That’s a damn good question, Nico. If they were just words, lies you told to save her life at that moment, then don’t go into that house. Leave her to me and Nico. She saved Lee and I owe her more than I could ever repay her. I’ll look after her.”

  A wave of heat swept through him at the thought of another man taking care of her. Hell, he knew Tony and Leona were committed to each other, but at that moment, he didn’t really give a shit.

  “She saved me too, Tony,” Gino snapped.

  “Really? I don’t know much about that. You’ve never talked about that night.”

  “What, you want to play psychiatrist now?” Gino sneered. “What’s next, a fucking couch and asking me about my relationship with my father? No, that would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it? You know all about that asshole and what he liked to do to young kids. I was a mess before that night, and maybe, just maybe, Rosa is better off alone than being around someone as fucked-up as me.”