The Truth Hurts: Part Two: The Twisted Betrayal Duet

Chapter 50

“What do you mean she fucking shot herself?” I scream at Matteo as gunshots reverberate in the background. For a while, our comms were cut off. I don’t know what happened while the twins, Sera, and Levi were out there, but once Raf was able to get them back online, all we could hear was chaos through the earpieces, guns firing off at all angles and Levi begging Sera for something that I couldn’t make out.

But as the ricochet of bullets slowly died down, my world cracked in two. I heard the last words I ever thought I’d hear, the words that made me sick to my stomach; Sera was shot.

Giovanni is already sprinting around the property, heading in the direction of their last known position while I try to comprehend what the hell I just heard. I fight every urge to race down there myself to help, but with my busted leg, I’m about as nimble as a newborn calf. I’d only be a hindrance at this point, even though I got rid of the cane, which is why I’ve been tasked as driver tonight, because that’s as much use as I am without a gun in my hand.

“Gio’s heading to you now,” I tell Matteo as I grip the steering wheel tight. My knuckles whiten as I stick the car into drive and swing it around the courtyard. All the fear I’ve been battling finally resurfaces. My heart pounds in time with the heavy footsteps I can hear through my earpiece, my mouth going dry as I listen to heavy breaths and muffled groans. In an instant, I can make out who they each belong to.

“She’s going to be okay,” I hear Levi say, though I don’t know who he’s trying to convince because it’s not me. Still, I swear my heart flips from just hearing his voice because it wasn’t only Sera I was worried about for a moment. My job might be to protect Sera, but I can’t deny that I feel exactly the same way about Levi. If anything happened to either of them, I don’t know what I’d do. The city wouldn’t be standing, that’s for sure. I’d burn it down and leave it to a crisp if there was even the slightest possibility I’d have to live without them.

“Levi?” I sigh, relaxing in my seat.

“I’m good,” he answers, his breathing labored as he grunts like he’s lifting something. “We’re on our way.”

“How is she?” I close my eyes, waiting for more dreaded words, but they don’t come. The voices in the background rush around him, filling my ears. I can’t really make out what’s being said, but the lack of response from Levi has me panicking. “Levi!”

I throw the car door open. I’m about to step out when I see Enzo and Marco rounding the corner of the mansion. The latter holds Enzo by the waist, supporting him as they make their way to me. Pain flashes across his face, but he continues past me and into the car without a word.

“Where’s Sera?” I bark as I cling to the door. All my focus is on seeing my girl again; seeing our leader. I grip Marco by the shirt, shoving him against the side of the SUV. “Where is she?!”

Marco’s eyes dart over my shoulder as the sound of rushed footsteps grows louder. I spin around, and my question is immediately answered. Matteo and Levi stumble towards us. Levi is holding Sera to his chest, cradling her in his arms with a panicked look in his expression.

My pulse races, the heat draining from my face as I see the blood dripping down her arm. Her paler skin is glistening with sweat, tiny groans falling from her perfect lips. It’s almost haunting how limp she is in Levi’s arms, but the slightest sound from her is the only thing signifying that she’s still alive.

Matteo holds the passenger door open so Levi can place Sera inside. He’s careful with her, like she’s a delicate flower. Then he shoves me into the driver’s seat, his tone commanding and confident. “Get these two to the hospital. I’ll go find Nico.”

“Where’s Gio?” I question, raising a brow.

“He’s got Gabriella,” Marco confirms with a short exhale. “They’re taking the other vehicle.”

I don’t need any more information than that. With a quick nod, I close my door a little harder than necessary and peel off down the driveway. The nearest hospital is fifteen minutes away. Usually, we’d call the doctor to come to us, but by the look of things, Sera isn’t in a stable enough condition to wait for care.

With my foot to the gas pedal, I race us away from the manor as quickly as I can. Oakwood Memorial is the closest hospital. It’s not the biggest, but the staff there should be more than capable of removing a bullet. I still don’t understand how this happened. Sera is a damn good shot, so how the fuck did she shoot herself?

Clearly, nobody is explaining the situation. We’re all caught up in the aftermath, at a loss for words. Levi is staring down at Sera, muttering sweet words to her in his lap while Enzo presses his jacket onto the wound. She groans out loudly, her whimpers following.

“Is anyone going to tell me what the fuck happened back there?” I ask when the tension inside the vehicle becomes too thick for me to breathe.

“Francesco,” Levi growls, his voice filled with unabated anger. “He was behind all of this.”

My brows furrow as I swerve around a corner, mastering it with ease. “Her grandfather?”

“Yeah,” Levi answers, but he doesn’t divulge anything more than that.

“So she tried to shoot him and missed?” My head swirls with thoughts of what transpired. None of it makes any sense. I’ve seen her in action and she’s a damn good shot. I haven’t forgotten how she took that man out on the side of the road with a bullet to his head. Effortless.

Sera mumbles inaudibly, causing Levi to lean down. I strain my ears to listen, but I can barely hear anything beyond the pounding of my own heart. I try to concentrate on the road but when Levi chuckles lightly, I snap my focus to him in the rearview mirror.

“She says she’s not that fucking stupid.”

A small smile lifts my lips, but it doesn’t last very long. We’re all worried about Sera, her wheezing growing harsher by the second, punctuated by coughing and spluttering, groaning and whimpering. I only got a quick glimpse of the wound, but judging from the amount of blood and the gurgling sound coming from her chest, I’d say she’s pierced her lung at least.

“Why would her grandfather do this? It doesn’t make sense. She’s keeping their bloodline in power—”

“She’s not,” Enzo cuts in angrily, hands moving frantically to press his jacket to Sera’s chest. “Shit! There’s too much blood!”

“It’s gonna be okay, Bellissima,” Levi murmurs to Sera, stroking her face. “I’ve got you.”

Blood coats his hands, spreading red marks across her cheek, but he keeps whispering words of encouragement, loving promises that make my chest hurt. I lock eyes with him in the rearview mirror, and in an instant, my heart cracks. The loss I felt over my father threatens to return, only this time it’s the prospect of losing the only woman I’ve ever loved. And I never even got to tell her.

The look in Levi’s eyes tells me he’s just as scared. But I refuse to lose her—I refuse to lose another person I care about. So I floor the gas harder, breaking every speed limit. I use every shortcut there is until I’m halting abruptly in the drop off bay at the hospital entrance. Before the car even stops, Enzo jumps out, and in less than five seconds he’s running back towards us with five doctors and a gurney trailing behind him.

Sera’s immediately snatched out of Levi’s arms. He reaches out for her, but it’s too late. She’s wheeled away in seconds, leaving us all gasping for breath, lost in our worry and clinging to the hope that she’ll be okay.

“Tell me again,” I demand as I pace the waiting room.

We’ve been waiting for hours while Sera is in the operating room. Nobody has come by to explain or update us on progress. Apart from the short conversation Levi had with the doctor when we first got here, to ask him to keep things discreet, we’ve had no interaction with the staff.

My mind is clouded, fogged by confusion and a sense of hopelessness. I’m still struggling to comprehend what the hell happened and how the fuck we ended up here. We had a solid plan, a seamless plan. And in the blink of an eye, we lost contact with Nico, Enzo got taken out, and we almost lost Sera. More to it, we’re still clueless. Well… I’m more clueless than the rest, which is why I need to know the full story.

“Francesco Bianchi was the one who put the hit on Sera,” Levi explains with a level of sadness I’ve never seen before. Surely, he can’t be blaming himself over this, not after what he said about her shooting herself. “She’s not…” his voice cracks under the weight of reliving tonight. “She’s not a Bianchi.”

“How is that possible?” I croak.

“Apparently her mother was seeing someone else, or something like that.”

“She wasn’t,” Enzo comments under his breath, making us both snap our heads to him in question.

“What do you know?” I glower.

“Just that Alfredo isn’t Sera’s father—”

I step towards him, towering over his hunched form. “You know more, so spill.”

“This is something I need to discuss with Sera, not you two,” Enzo grumbles. He runs a hand through his hair, exhaustion setting in. Between his black eye and busted nose, I can tell he’s in pain, though he’ll never admit that to any of us here.

I turn my attention back to Levi. “So she’s not a Bianchi. Her grandfather wanted to take her out because she isn’t his blood?” It sounds ridiculous, completely unnecessary. So what if she isn’t Bianchi blood, Sera has already proved what kind of leader she can be. She’s what La Cosa Nostra needs.

“He made her choose…” Enzo whispers, his gaze cast to the ground and voice haunted with the reminder of what transpired. “Me, or Gabriella.”

Fuck.My chest tightens, my palms growing sweaty. He doesn’t need to explain further than that, because I already know how that went down. Of course Sera would never be able to choose between her best friend and an innocent child. Hell, if I had to choose between Levi and Sera, I’d do what she did. It’s the only thing that actually makes sense in all of this nonsense.

“So she chose herself,” I say, only for Enzo to shake his head and smile. I frown at him. Why the fuck is he smiling?

“Sera’s a good shot,” he states. “She knew what she was doing.”

I glance at Levi, hoping to get a glimpse of clarity, but we’re both wearing the same dumbfounded expression.

“The asshole was standing right behind her.” Enzo points to his right shoulder to show us where she was hit. “The bullet hit him too. She fucking knew it would.”

Fuck.Talk about the ultimate sacrifice. If I didn’t know I loved her already, this is a sure fire way to get me to bow down to her. The fact she potentially sacrificed her own life to make sure someone else died is fucking admirable. I can’t even comprehend how she came up with that idea on the spot, because this was in no way planned.

“So Francesco is dead?” I ask hesitantly.

“And his men,” Levi confirms.

“Where’s Nico?” I ask. “Has anyone found him?”

“We left him with the Governor. I tried calling him, but he wouldn’t answer,” Levi pulls out his phone. “I could try again.”

“You think he—”

“No!” Enzo cuts in over me before I can even finish my sentence. “He wouldn’t do that.”

My hackles rise at Enzo’s defensiveness, as does my curiosity. He has no reason to protect Nico Rocco, not after everything. The asshole left us in the dust to run his own game. He could have helped us protect Bianchi months ago, but would rather seek his own revenge instead of protecting his leader. Then there’s the fact he abducted her right from under our noses the other night. He might say he was handing her an olive branch by capturing the Grecos, but my gut tells me there’s more to it than that. Add in the fact that Enzo used Rocco’s men that night at the Casino, when we were all but ready to surrender, and I’m left with a whole lot of something that doesn’t actually amount to anything.

I narrow my eyes on Enzo, because some things just aren’t adding up. “You seem to know an awful lot about someone who was once the enemy,” I remark.

Enzo’s brows furrow. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m just saying, you’re the only one here who constantly lets Sera down. You hide shit from her and—”

Enzo shoots out of his seat, slamming his chest against mine. “If you’ve got something to say, Fontana, say it.”

“Guys!” Levi intercepts, trying to push us apart.

“It’s funny how you faked your death, and then expect us all to forget it ever happened. You have all this information, all these goddamn secrets. Sera is on a fucking operating table and you’re still keeping shit from her! What the hell does she need to do for you to stop all the secrecy? You came back for a fucking reason, LaRosa, so fucking man up and tell us what you know!” Somehow, I’m even closer than I was before, anger seeping our every pore in my body.

“Guys!” Levi yells at us.

My breaths fall short and sharp as I stare at Enzo, the silence suffocating us. Whatever he’s keeping from Sera and us is enough to make him back away. I’m not done with him yet, but when the doctor steps into the waiting room, I decide to hold my tongue for a minute.

“She’s in recovery,” the doctor confirms. “The bullet went straight past her clavicle and caught her lung, but we were able to stitch it up. The bleed is under control and she’s resting now.”

“Can we see her?” I push forward, but the doctor stops me.

“She’ll be under observation for the night. We can let you know once she’s ready to see visitors.”

Levi moves beside me, slinging an arm over my shoulder to pull me into his body. The warmth he provides is like a balm soothing my broken heart, it speaks to the fragments of my dark soul, while I try to repair the fractured shards of my own grief.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Levi clarifies sternly. “So unless you want to be on that operating table yourself, you’re going to let us see her.”

With wide eyes, the doctor gulps. I’ve seen fear in men’s eyes so many times, but when it’s caused by the fear of someone else, it’s damn near poetic. Pride swells in my chest as I look at Levi, overwhelmed with so many emotions it takes me a second to pick them apart.

The doctor leaves with a nod, telling us that we can only enter the room one at a time. It’s not like we’re going to listen to him, but we agree politely until he disappears down a corridor.

Reluctantly, Levi and I let Enzo go first. It’s a good decision on his part, because I’m about ten seconds from ripping his balls off and feeding them to him. Anger has always been my weakness, and I’m not about to overcome it anytime soon. Especially after everything we’ve all been through. The last few months have been a test of strength; of character. I know I’ve changed from it, in all the best ways, but as I watch Enzo step into Sera’s room, I can’t help but feel like he’s never going to learn from this. Sera is always going to forgive him, no matter what he does.

How far is too far?