Chapter 23 - Marco
The cemetery gates explode inward as I arrive with my brothers, our Escalades tearing through sacred ground like the horsemen of the apocalypse.
Rain pounds against the windshield, turning the world into a watercolor of violence.
Through the downpour, I see them: Irish soldiers positioned between headstones, using the dead as cover.
"Six on the left, four by the mausoleum," Luca calls out, already chambering a round. His voice carries that edge of excitement that means bodies are about to drop.
Ten hostiles visible, probably more in reserve. Liam's keeping his distance, smart. He knows I won't risk Valentina in crossfire. Every shot I take has to account for her position, turning me defensive when I should be on offense. He's already won this fight and he knows it.
We exit simultaneously, a choreographed dance of death we've performed too many times.
Alex takes the high ground, using a stone angel for cover.
Nico moves right, military precision in every step.
The first shots crack through the rain, muzzle flashes lighting up the cemetery like lightning.
The smell of wet earth and cordite fills my lungs.
An Irish soldier rises from behind a headstone, weapon trained on me.
Luca's bullet finds him first, spraying blood across marble that reads "Beloved Father.
" The irony isn't lost on me as the man falls, his own children about to lose theirs.
The blood is warm at first, steaming in the cold rain before diluting to pink rivers between graves.
"Marco, two o'clock!" Alex's warning comes just as another attacker rounds a mausoleum.
I pivot, my Glock speaking twice. Center mass.
The soldier drops, his blood mixing with rain and mud.
My next shot goes wide, first time I've missed in years.
Valentina's stillness is fucking with my head, making my hands unsteady.
Through it all, through the gunfire echoing off stone and the screams of dying men, I see her.
Valentina kneels at her mother's grave, her blue dress soaked through, dark hair plastered to her skin.
Even soaked and broken, she's mine. My marks still visible on her throat despite the rain, evidence of yesterday's claiming.
The thought makes me hard despite the carnage, despite everything.
This is what she's done to me: turned me into an animal who wants her even at her mother's grave.
She doesn't move. Doesn't flinch as bullets chip granite inches from her head. Just stares down at something in her lap, her breathing ragged but determined, her chest heaving.
Another Irish soldier charges from behind a tree. Nico catches him with a knife to the throat, arterial spray painting the rain red. The man gurgles, falls, adds his blood to the cemetery's collection.
The Irish soldiers hesitate now, weapons trained on us but not firing. Liam must have ordered them to let this play out, to let me see what I'm losing.
"Valentina!" I roar over the gunfire, but she doesn't react. Not even when one of my brothers drops another body three feet from where she kneels.
Movement near the cemetery's service road catches my eye. Liam O'Brien dragging Alice toward a black SUV, Christopher already behind the wheel, engine running. The girl stumbles in her soaked nightgown, but Liam's grip on her arm is iron.
I raise my weapon, but Liam sees me coming. In one smooth motion, he spins Alice in front of him, using her as a shield. My finger freezes on the trigger. One shot, and I might hit her.
"Coward!" I snarl, trying to find an angle that doesn't risk Alice's life.
Liam's smile is cold as he backs toward the vehicle, keeping the girl between us. "Just good tactics, Rosetti."
I fire anyway, aiming for his shoulder, but he anticipates it, ducking behind Alice completely.
The bullet sparks off a headstone instead.
Christopher guns the engine as Liam throws Alice into the backseat, diving in after her.
The SUV tears away before I can get another clear shot, tires spinning in the mud, disappearing into the rain.
"Should I pursue?" Nico asks, weapon still trained on their escape route.
"No." The word tastes like copper on my tongue from where I've bitten through it to keep from roaring. "Secure the area first."
I turn back to Valentina. She hasn't moved through any of it. Not when her sister screamed. Not when Liam escaped with her only remaining family. She just keeps staring at those plastic-covered papers in her lap, rain running off them in rivers.
Around us, the cemetery falls silent except for the rain drumming on stone. Six Irish soldiers lie dead or dying among the graves. My brothers stand ready, scanning for more threats, but the fight is over.
"The rest fled," Alex reports, blood on his collar that isn't his. "Want us to track them?"
"No," I say again, moving toward my wife. My frozen, broken wife who won't even look at me.
"Valentina." I approach slowly, glass crunching under my shoes from shattered flower vases. "We need to go."
She finally looks up, and the deadness in her eyes stops me cold. No fury. No fear. Nothing.
"Your father paid for my mother's murder."
The words hang between us like a blade. She holds up the papers: bank statements, transfer records, account numbers I recognize with a sick drop in my stomach. Rosetti family accounts. The kind we used for wet work a decade ago.
"Look." She points to a line item with a trembling finger. "Fifty thousand. The exact amount. The exact date. The day before her car crashed."
I reach for the papers but she pulls them back, clutching them against her soaked dress. Rain has made the ink run, but the numbers are still clear. Still damning.
"I didn't…"
"Don't." Her voice cracks. "Don't lie to me. Not about this. Not standing on her grave."
The truth sits heavy in my chest. Did I know? Not the specifics. But I knew my father had handled a "situation" with the Bernardis that year. Knew someone had been talking to the feds. Knew it had been resolved permanently. I just never connected it to Valentina's mother. Never wanted to.
"Your family did this," she continues, each word precise despite her shaking. "Paid for the murder of my mother. And you knew. Maybe not the details, but you knew something. That's why you kept mentioning her. Warning me about Bernardi women getting people killed."
I can't deny it. Won't insult her with lies while she kneels in the mud where her mother rests. The payment is right there in black and white. My father's signature authorizing the transfer. Blood money that led to her becoming an orphan.
"All this time," she whispers, "I've been fucking my mother's killer."
She stands slowly, mechanically, water streaming off the blue dress that clings to her like running ink. My body leans toward her automatically, and I see her sway slightly before catching herself. Even now, even with everything broken between us, that magnetic pull remains.
From her coat pocket, she pulls out more papers. Legal documents. The letterhead of a law firm visible through the rain.
"Liam had these prepared while they had me," she says, her voice hollow. "Divorce papers."
"You're not thinking clearly…"
"Sign them."
"Valentina…"
"SIGN. THEM." Her voice breaks completely, raw grief tearing through that dead calm. "I'm standing on my mother's grave, covered in blood, because of your family. Because of what you are. What you've made me."
She shoves the papers at my chest, and I catch them automatically. The pages are already wet, rain blurring some of the text, but I can see what they are. Dissolution of marriage. Citing irreconcilable differences. Already notarized, just needing my signature.
"This is trauma talking," I try, even as something fundamental breaks in my chest. "They have Alice. You're not…"
"This is clarity." She wraps her arms around herself, shaking from cold or shock or both. "For the first time since you took me from that altar, I see everything clearly. I can't be with her killers, Marco. I can't look at you without seeing her death."
"You're still wearing my marks. Still smell like me. That won't wash off with rain."
"No," she says quietly. "But I can try."
The rain continues its steady assault, turning the divorce papers transparent in my hands. The ink will smear. The signature might not even be legal. But looking at her, my wife, my obsession, standing broken on her mother's grave, I know I've lost her.
My hand moves to my weapon first, instinct to eliminate the threat rather than accept it. But looking at her, broken on her mother's grave because of what my family did… The pen weighs more than my gun ever has.
The pen hovers over the signature line, and I see her yesterday: legs wrapped around my waist, promising she'd never leave, that we were partners. Twenty-four hours. That promise lasted twenty-four fucking hours.
Each letter of my signature tears something inside me, but I force my hand steady.
She deserves this choice, even if it destroys us both.
Something ruptures in my chest, actual, physical pain like a rib cracking inward.
I've been shot four times in my life, and this hurts worse.
My vision grays at the edges, and for the first time since I was a kid, I have to lock my knees to stay standing.
"You're free," I say, handing them back.
She takes them, clutching them like salvation, water dripping from the ruined pages.
"I always was." Her voice is quiet now, certain. "I just forgot."
She turns toward the cemetery exit, each step deliberate, careful, like she's learning to walk again. At the gate, she stops but doesn't look back.
"They want me to marry Liam." The words float back through the rain. "To honor the original agreement. Your theft dishonored them. My father's contracts still need fulfilling."
My hand moves to my weapon. "If you do that…"
"What?" Now she does turn, and there's something like pity in her eyes. "You'll kill him? Start a war? You already did that, Marco. People are already dying. Dante already paid the price for our games."
She's right. Every move I make spreads more blood across Chicago's streets. Every dead Irish soldier has brothers, fathers, sons who'll want vengeance. The cycle I've perpetuated since I became Don at twenty-five.
"I won't let them have you," I say, but the words sound hollow even to me.
"You already did." She turns back toward the exit. "The moment your father paid for that murder, you lost any claim to me. We were over before we began."
She walks through the cemetery gates and disappears into the rain.
I don't follow. Can't follow. My cock is still hard, fucking traitor, even as my chest caves in.
This is what she's reduced me to: a man who gets hard watching his world end, who wants to fuck away the pain of losing the only thing that mattered.
My brothers stand among the bodies, waiting for orders.
"Boss?" Luca asks, his voice unusually serious. "Want us to bring her back?"
I look down at my hands, rain washing away the blood but not the memory of signing those papers.
"She was never really mine." I turn away from the gate, from the path she took. "Just something I stole."