29. Mia
29
MIA
W alls shake as gunfire echoes through the room. It starts without warning, and I’ve never been more grateful for fate’s timing as I am now.
Frank and I are locked in a battle of wills as we tousle on the ground and he tries to get the upper hand. He tries, but he fails, and I have four bite marks to prove it, because each cut into his flesh bought me precious seconds of respite from him. They delayed the inevitable, even as he tried to take me by force.
When the first shots ring out, Frank tenses and turns his ear, listening to the chaos outside the door. I think he understands what’s happening, because he lets go of me and it looks like his mind is racing at three hundred miles a minute.
Amidst the chaos, I seize my moment. I twist away from my distracted captor, a sharp jab to his throat silencing his protestations. My breaths come fast, but my movements are deliberate—each step a silent vow of escape.
My heart pounds in my ears as I stagger to my feet, every muscle in my body aching from being thrown against the ground. I’m not two steps away from him before his hand reaches out and wraps around my ankle. I stumble forward, somewhere between him and the door that beckons me. I scramble away, but his hand is like a shackle against my foot. I kick out at him, trying to push him away, but he regains his balance as he throws himself over me and tightens a hand around my neck mercilessly. His grasp is bruising, leaving marks that will surely darken by morning, not that it will matter because I’ll probably be dead by then. The only thought that fills my head is that I may never see my sisters again. I may never see Brando again.
There must be someone watching out for me, though, because the sound of gunshots nears, like madness descending upon us, and Frank lifts his head and listens, even as he squeezes the life out of me. But it’s only when he hears shouts, someone calling his name, that he lets go of my neck and stands, staggering out of the room. I splutter as I catch my breath, gasping for air, before I turn on my side and push myself up until I’m standing.
A wave of nausea washes over me as I limp down the hallway, leaning on the wall for support. My left leg throbs painfully where Frank grabbed me, but fear propels me forward. The elegant carpet muffles my footsteps, and I pray that it conceals my escape long enough for me to find safety.
Suddenly, another volley of shots pierces the air, closer this time. Panic surges through me, and I break into a clumsy run, dragging my foot as I go. I have no idea how many people Frank has pissed off, no idea who’s come to take their vengeance out on him, so I decide my safest bet is to find a quiet little out of the way corner where I can hide until the shooting dies down and I can slip through one of the exits. The end of the corridor looms ahead—a door left slightly ajar, leading to the dimly lit back rooms of the property where I don’t often venture.
As I push through the door, I stumble and fall heavily to the ground. The air is knocked out of me, and I gasp, struggling to breathe. Before I can attempt to rise, a shadow falls over me. My heart skips a beat, fearing Frank has caught up to me. But then a familiar voice cuts through the haze of my fear.
“Mia?” It's Scar Gatti, his face etched with concern as he kneels beside me.
Through labored breaths, I try to speak, “Frank...he tried—I had to?—”
A loud crash interrupts me, followed by more gunfire. Scar's body tenses, and he glances down at me with a fierce protectiveness. “We need to get you out of here,” he states firmly. His eyes flicker with an icy rage as he glances back towards the way I came. “You're safe now,” he assures me firmly, though his gaze remains wary, scanning for any sign of danger.
Nodding weakly, I allow him to guide me down the corridor. Each step is agony, but Scar's steady presence gives me strength. As we near an exit, I can hear the chaos outside escalating—a terrifying orchestra of violence that seems never-ending.
Suddenly, Scar has a gun in his hand as he pulls us into a shadowed alcove, pressing us against the cool brick as several men rush past our hiding spot. His grip on me tightens protectively, and for a moment, despite everything, I feel safe.
As soon as the danger passes, Scar whispers urgently, “Stay close to me.” He helps me navigate through a back door leading out of the house, where the night is shrouded in darkness and damp with recent rain.
The night air hits me like a wave, fresh yet filled with the acrid scent of gunpowder and fear. Scar doesn't pause; his determination clear as he half-carries me across the uneven ground towards safety under a flickering floodlight.
“You’ll be safe here,” Scar says, before he turns to look at the house. My eyes follow him as an orange ball of fire lights up the darkened sky. Part of the house is now on fire; the part in which I used to sleep. Without knowing exactly what happened, I can easily guess that Frank set fire to the house hoping I’d perish in it. I watch Scar anxiously as he speaks into what looks like an earpiece, telling the receiving side that I’m with him.
“You need to get out,” he hisses, and barely moments later, a dozen or so men emerge from various corners of the house.
“Where’s Brando?” I ask, my eyes scanning across the faces alight with the glow of the fire.
“Brando and Rafi are still in there,” one of the men says, as he reports to Scar.
“Damn it!”
Scar loads his gun and grabs a rifle from another one of the men who’s just joined our huddled group.
“You can’t go back in there,” someone says, as they look at Scar’s face. “The house could blow at any minute.”
Scar is a new father. He has a family, and yet he risks everything as he starts storming toward the house in search of his brothers. But it’s the strangest thing as I watch in awe; all the men follow. Despite his repeated demands for them to stay back, they follow on his heels, loyal to the death.
But he doesn’t make it very far before three figures emerge from the side of the house; a big bulky man flanked by two men on either side of him. Brando and Rafi. And I hear the curse that leaves Scar’s lips as he approaches his brothers…
“I’m going to fucking kill you two for disobeying my orders.”
My heart beats a little too fast, the adrenaline still coursing through my veins, but it’s slowly fading, leaving behind the heavy weight of exhaustion. I’m tired and defeated beyond all measure.
Yet I can’t seem to help myself. Despite the exhaustion that overwhelms me and threatens to strip every last lick of energy from me. Even as the eyes of every man fall upon us. In spite of the battle that’s just been fought. I run towards Brando, my injured leg dragging behind me. I almost knock him over with the strength I throw at him, but he folds me in his strong arms, despite the curse that falls from his lips. I draw back enough to look at his face and notice the wince on his face, before my eyes fall to his shoulder, where a blood stain blooms through his shirt.
“Oh, God,” I whimper, and my hand goes to his shoulder to stem the blood as he rolls his eyes and floats to the ground like a feather.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” the doctor says.
Brando sits in a corner of the dimly lit room, his beautiful face drawn and pale. His shirt is off, shoulder heavily bandaged, the blood still seeping through the cloth despite the wrapping. He’s holding back a grimace, but I can see the pain in his eyes. His eyes are unfocused, distant, as if the wound isn't the only thing hurting him. He’s so near, yet so very far away.
“No drugs,” Brando says, as the nurse approaches him, preparing a syringe.
“You’ll need something for the pain,” the nurse says, blushing as her face turns red.
Brando’s hard eyes are on me as he ignores her. Ignores the doctor. He doesn’t see anyone else in the room as an invisible thread links between only he and I.
“I have everything I need,” he mutters, his eyes never leaving mine. His words are weighted with meaning, weaving through me like an adrenaline rush I don’t see coming. “Everyone out!”
“Brando…”
Brando cuts Scar off with a look. His brother purses his lips before he nods toward the doctor, following everyone out until it’s just me and Brando in the room. The door shuts with a click and a heavy silence falls upon us.
“Come here.”
His voice is hoarse, a sacred plea drowning in a sea of desperation. I push off the wall and walk toward him, stopping only steps away from him. He looks up at me, his denim eyes navy as they swim with an unfathomable darkness. He reaches out and pulls me to him, until his arms wrap around my waist, his face planted against my stomach. He inhales, breathes out the burden he’s been carrying, pressing into me as if I am the anchor in his turbulent world. His body trembles, not just from pain, but from something deeper, something tethered to his soul.
“I thought I’d never see you again.” My voice is barely above a whisper, my fingers threading through his dark hair, trying to soothe the beast of burden he carries on his shoulders.
Brando lifts his head, his gaze locking with mine. “That was never an option,” he says. “I came for you to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“I’m glad you came. Not glad you got shot,” I look pointedly at his bandaged shoulder “but glad you saved me from that maniac.”
“That maniac’s days are numbered,” he hisses between gritted teeth. He closes his eyes, leaning into my touch. “I don't know if I can be what you need me to be,” he confesses, the words heavy with unspoken fears.
“Who says I need you to be anything, Brando?” I press a soft kiss to his forehead. “You couldn’t be more perfect just the way you are, even if you tried.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find your sisters.”
“Doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying,” I remind him. And that’s the most important thing; I know that Brando is with me and will do everything he can to locate my sisters. It was always Frank’s intention to make me suffer through their absence and ensure I’d never find them. He wanted to break me before he threw my bones at my sister’s feet to torture them with the knowledge that I was dead and broken. He’s crazy like that.
“Tell me you won’t do anything crazy like that again, Mia. I need to know that you won’t put me through that again. And if you do, you need to know that I will drag you back, even if you’re kicking and screaming.”
These men are warriors—strong, unyielding—but right now, they’re just men, vulnerable and broken. The thought twists something inside of me as I look from Brando to Rafi, then back again.
But it’s not just the sight of their pain that churns my stomach. It’s the knowledge of what could have happened, what nearly did happen. The chaos of the fight, the way they nearly didn’t make it out. If it hadn’t been for the big man, who had dragged them out by force with only minutes to spare before one side of Frank’s house collapsed in a mound of rubble.
My gaze drifts to another corner of the room, where the big man is standing, his silent, assessing gaze unreadable as it moves slowly around the room. Instead of looking like he just came out of a battle, he looks suitably prepared for a photo shoot. He’s the anomaly amongst the men. They’re all wearing dark fatigues, their clothes blending with the night, yet he’s wearing a grey suit that struggles for purchase as it stretches across the defined muscles of his back. I heard them call him the Enforcer, but I don’t know much else about him beside the fact that he saved these men tonight.
He looks like he’s the kind of man who’s seen death too many times to flinch. The kind of man who can make decisions in the heat of battle with a clarity that others would falter under. He looks like a leader. So, I wonder why he’s made a life of cleaning other people’s messes. But I don’t allow myself to linger on this curiosity too long as I thank him wordlessly with a tight smile for saving us tonight. I close my eyes, the images flashing through my mind like a reel I can’t escape.
The battle had been a nightmare, even though I hadn’t seen much of it. The aftermath alone was enough to make my stomach roil as I replayed the night over and over in my head. I sighed with relief when I saw Brando walking toward me, my relief quickly replaced with fear when I noticed his blood staining the ground beneath him. I’d never seen Brando so vulnerable. So broken. But this—this was different. His shoulder, shredded from the gunshot, had left him faint and stumbling, and I moved with urgency as I tried to catch his fall.
Now, as I sit in this quiet room, trying to steady my breath and keep my mind from reliving every moment of that nightmare, I watch him. Brando isn’t one to speak much, and that’s how I know he’s still processing what happened. He’s not the kind of man who lets himself feel anything in the aftermath of a war. Not in front of others.
But I see it in his eyes—the faintest flicker of something buried deep. Guilt. Maybe regret. He doesn’t show it, not outwardly, but I know better. We all do. And it all comes back to Frank fucking Falcone. The thorn in all our sides. He somehow managed to get away; that was why the brothers had stayed behind in the burning building, intent on finding him. The Enforcer had to drag them out after telling them he was long gone.
Brando shifts in his seat, wincing slightly as he adjusts himself. His eyes meet mine across the room, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. The bond between us is unspoken but undeniable.
Rafi, who’s been quiet the whole time, looks up at the Enforcer, his voice hoarse as he addresses the room.
“He can’t stay hidden for long,” he says.
The Enforcer’s eyes flick to him for just a second, his jaw tightening slightly. But he doesn’t answer as he turns and looks at me, as though seeking permission to speak in my presence. Brando’s jaw tightens before he responds to the Enforcer’s silent question.
“She stays.”
“This started with her,” the Enforcer reminds us.
Scar steps forward, his hands twitching at his sides. “Mia is protected by the Gattis,” he starts. “Any enemy of hers is an enemy of ours.” And I’ve never been more grateful to hear such words, to feel like I’m part of something, a family in the absence of my own flesh and blood.
“I swore I’d kill him and end this,” Brando says, his eyes fixed on something on the ground.
“You have no idea what Frank’s capable of,” I tell him. He lifts his eyes, and for the first time, I see a flicker of something new in their depths. Sorrow.
“This is probably going to make it harder to find your sisters.”
His words are laced with apology. An apology that is not required; if they hadn’t turned up when they had, I don’t know what would have happened. Well, I do, but I don’t even want to think about that.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Brando. Frank has always been one step ahead of us. His plan has been ten years in the making; he’s accounted for every scenario. Every possibility and every variable.”
I lean back against the wall, my mind drifting to the future. We survived. Barely. We made it out. But at what cost? Frank is missing, we’re no closer to finding my sisters, and Brando has sustained a serious injury. I can’t help but think we’re missing something.
“How did you find me, anyway?” I ask him, as I move to take a seat closer to him.
“Believe it or not, it was the Maltese who provided us with that information.”
“Well, that’s surprising,” I scoff.
“We managed to find common ground to work together.”
“So, what’s next?” I ask. I instinctively already know, without having to ask.
This battle may be over, but I know better than to think the war is finished. There’s always more blood to spill, more enemies to face. And the fact that Frank is still out there, along with my sisters, means we have our work cut out for us.
But right now, in this small, cold room, there’s a fragile peace. And it’s enough to hold on to—for now.