Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Caterina
For one second, nobody moves.
Then Elena claps her hands once. “I said inside.”
And just like that, the foyer stirs.
People start moving because Elena told them to, which is not surprising and still somehow always impressive. Vito’s hand goes to Teresa’s back, not stopping her, just guiding her out of Adrian’s path before she can argue again.
Teresa lets herself be moved two steps, but her eyes stay fixed on Adrian as if she’s calculating how much blood he can lose before she has to physically tackle him.
I am doing the same thing.
Adrian turns toward the door again, one hand still pressed to his side, his face set into the kind of composed mask that makes me want to shake him. Or hit him. Or maybe shove him into a chair and sit on him until he stops pretending a bullet hole is a minor scheduling complication.
He is too pale.
Not enough for anyone else to panic, apparently, because everyone in this house has lost their mind and decided that gunshot wounds are just another thing to handle between phone calls and logistics.
But I see it.
I see the tightness around his mouth. The slight drag in the way he moves when he turns. The way his hand presses harder over the bandage when he thinks no one is looking.
I am looking.
I cannot seem to stop looking.
Papà’s arm is still around me, heavy and firm across my shoulders. It should comfort me. It does, in some distant part of me that is still a child and always will be, the part that believes if my father is holding me, then nothing can get through him to hurt me.
But that part is smaller tonight.
Because something did get through.
Something got through our casino, through our security, through all the routines and layers and assumptions that were supposed to make us untouchable.
Something got close enough that Adrian bled for it.
For me.
I pull away from Papà’s hold before I can think better of it.
His hand tightens for half a second.
“Caterina,” he says quietly.
I look up at him.
There is a lifetime in his face right now. Fury. Fear. Relief. Calculation. The Don and my father inhabiting the same body, both of them fighting for dominance.
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
His mouth flattens because he knows I am not.
I am alive.
That is not the same thing.
“Inside,” he says quietly.
I go, because I am too tired to fight him in the foyer and because I suddenly do not trust my own knees as much as I would like to.
The living room is bright and warm and too full. Lamps on, low voices.
The smell of coffee in the air. A blanket thrown over the arm of a chair. Two baby carriers near the far wall. Someone must have brought the babies down before we got here.
Nothing feels normal.
Everything looks normal anyway.
That is the worst kind of night.
I sink onto the edge of the sofa because if I don’t sit, I am either going to pace or shake, and I refuse to do either in front of this many people. Even family.
Teresa stays standing.
She is still looking toward the foyer, jaw tight, arms crossed so hard over herself it looks painful. I know that look. It means she is trying not to storm back out there and personally wrestle Adrian into a chair and cut his shirt off with kitchen scissors.
Elena, by contrast, has already moved into action. Towels. Hot water. Clean shirt. First aid kit. I can hear drawers opening in the next room, cabinet doors shutting, her voice giving brisk instructions to someone I can’t see.
Papà does not sit.
He stands near the fireplace, one hand braced on the mantel, eyes on me in a way that would have made me defensive this morning.
Right now, it just makes my throat ache.
“You don’t have any shoes,” he says.
The words are so strange in the silence after everything else that for a second, I don’t understand them.
Then I look down at my own feet.
Bare.
Dirty on the bottom from the casino floor, from the stairwell, from the hall.
A stupid, stupid detail to notice now.
I laugh once under my breath, and it comes out wrong.
“Yes.”
His face changes. Not much. But enough that I know he hears what is underneath it.
Across the room, Olivia lowers herself carefully into an armchair with one hand at her back.
“I’d like to formally register that this has been the worst evening I’ve had in months,” she says.
It is such an Olivia thing to say that some awful half-hysterical part of me wants to laugh.
Instead, I press the heel of my hand to my forehead and close my eyes.
The image comes back immediately.
The fight.
The shove.
Adrian’s hand on my arm.
The gun in his hand.
The sound of shots in the stairwell, concrete exploding near my head.
The look on Roberto’s face when he opened the door with his weapon already drawn and told me to get down.
Then the blood.
God.
The blood.
My eyes open again so quickly it almost hurts.
“Has anyone called the doctor?” I ask.
Teresa answers without looking at me. “Elena did.”
Papà’s gaze shifts to her, then back to me. “He’s on his way.”
Not enough.
But good for now.
I look toward the foyer again.
No Adrian.
No Elena either.
Just voices too low to make out.
My fingers knot in the throw pillow beside me before I realize what I’m doing.
Papà sees that too.
Of course he does.
“He will be treated,” he says.
I look at him. “He was shot saving me.”
The room goes quieter.
Even Olivia stops moving.
Not because they didn’t know it already. Because saying it out loud makes it something harder to step around.
Papà’s expression does not soften, but something in his eyes does.
“Yes,” he says.
That should make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
It makes me angrier. More frightened. More aware.
Because if Adrian had been slower by one second, if Roberto had not opened that stairwell door when he did, if the shot had gone a few inches differently—
No.
I cut that thought off before it can take root.
Teresa finally turns away from the foyer and looks at me fully.
“What happened?” she asks.
Her voice is steady, but I know her too well now not to hear the strain under it.
I wet my lips and realize my mouth is dry again.
“It was the fight,” I say. “At first, I thought it was just… a fight. Two men at a blackjack table.”
Papà doesn’t move. Neither does anyone else.
I keep going because if I stop, I may not start again.
“One of them shoved the other. The other swung back. Security should’ve handled it.”
My voice catches on that, and I hate it.
“I started toward it. Adrian yelled. Then he was there and dragging me across the floor.”
I don’t say I thought he might be crazy.
I don’t think I can survive admitting that in front of all of them.
“Then they followed us,” I say instead. “Into the service hall. Three of them. All armed.”
Olivia’s face has gone white all over again.
Papà’s hand tightens once against the mantel.
“They shot at us in the hall. Adrian got me to the stairs. Then they followed us there, too.”
No one interrupts.
No one says anything useless like thank God you’re safe, because in this family, that would not even begin to cover it.
“What happened to them?” Bianca asks. “The men.”
I look at her. It’s the first time I really notice everybody else in the room. I know everyone is here, but I've been in my own world.
"Dead.” I don’t go into any more detail. "But not before shooting Adrian, apparently.”
Bianca’s hand flies to her mouth.
Teresa closes her eyes for one brief second, and when she opens them again, there is no panic left in them.
Only anger. Cold and clear as ice.
Then, from the doorway, another voice cuts through the silence.
“Before the stairwell.”
Adrian.
He’s standing in the entryway, leaning against the doorframe because he’s too stubborn to admit he needs a chair.
Elena is right behind him with a stack of clean towels and a bottle of antiseptic.
“The second volley in the hallway,” Adrian says, looking at me as he speaks. “One of the rounds hit."
Silence.
Absolute, awful silence.
The kind that comes when someone says something that changes everything you thought you understood.
He kept going.
He ran up a flight of stairs. He returned fire. He made sure I was safe.
All after taking a bullet.
And no one knew.
He didn’t even say a word.
He just kept going.
To get me to safety.
I think that’s the moment I truly, viscerally, understood the difference between what Papà’s men are and what Adrian is.
The difference between someone recruited to the life and someone specially trained in the military.
Papà’s men are loyal. They would die for the family.
Adrian would get shot but wouldn't even think of dying until the mission was accomplished.
My stomach lurches so hard I have to press my hand to it. I stare at him, my throat so tight I can’t breathe. There is blood on the bandage taped to his side. Pale. Determined. Still standing like a fool.
Papà turns from the mantel and looks at him. A long, heavy look that feels like it carries the weight of everything that happened tonight.
Elena steps past him, her expression grim but practical.
“You,” she says to Adrian. “Couch. Now.”
Teresa makes a sound of agreement that I don’t even need to translate.
Adrian looks like he might argue for a half-second. Then he seems to think better of it and moves slowly toward the couch I'm sitting on. Every line of his body is tight with pain he is refusing to acknowledge.
I jump up as he approaches, and he sits slowly, carefully.
"Everyone out," Elena says.
The room clears out fast, baby carriers and all.
I don't leave, and neither does Teresa.
Papà lingers by the door for a second longer than the others, his gaze passing from me to Adrian, then back again.
“The doctor is ten minutes out,” he says.
Then he is gone, pulling the heavy doors shut behind him.
Elena puts the supplies on the coffee table with a soft thud.
“All right,” she says, her tone brisk but not unkind. “Off with the shirt.”
Adrian doesn’t hesitate. He reaches down and starts to unbutton it with one hand, the other still braced over the wound. The buttons are small and stiff, and with only one hand, it’s awkward.
Teresa and I exchange a look, and without a word, I sit next to him.
"It's fine, I—" he starts.
I bat his hands away gently and start on the buttons myself. My fingers are shaking, but I force them to be steady.
His skin is warm under my touch. Too warm.
He lets me work without protest.
I slip the shirt carefully over his shoulders, trying not to jostle him more than I have to. Teresa helps peel the fabric away from the sticky, blood-soaked bandage.
And then I see not just the bandage, but the wound beneath.
Back in the conference room, I had to be quick putting on the bandage, and there was a lot of blood I wasn't able to clean off him. So I'm seeing the wound clearly for the first time.
And I think I'm going to be sick.
The entry is small, almost neat. But the skin around it is already starting to bruise, an angry purple against the pallor of his skin.
Elena hands me a pair of scissors. “Cut the dressing away. Slowly.”
I do. The gauze pulls at the wound, and Adrian’s jaw tightens, but he doesn't make a sound.
The exit wound is less neat. A ragged tear in the muscle of his back. Swollen and weeping blood.
“Oh my God,” Teresa breathes.
Elena doesn't waste any time. She takes a clean cloth, soaks it in antiseptic, and starts cleaning the wound.
Adrian sucks in a sharp breath. His body goes rigid. His hand, which was resting on his knee, balls into a fist.
“Sorry,” Elena murmurs. "We just wanna keep this clean until the doctor gets here."
"Dr. Alfonsi?" I ask, referring to the doctor my father has known for over fifty years.
"I trust him," she says, cleaning around the exit wound. "Especially after our issues with Dr. Bianchi."
My jaw tightens at the thought of the OB-GYN who sold out Antonio and Elsa to a crime syndicate from Chicago when they went in for a checkup during her pregnancy.
Yes, better to have a trusted family doctor, even a retired one.
“He needs a hospital,” Teresa says, her voice strained. She is standing on the other side of him, her arms crossed so tightly her knuckles are white.
“He needs a sterile environment and a surgeon,” I agree. “Not a bottle of antiseptic and a living room couch.”
“'He' can speak for himself,” Adrian says, his voice tight. The strain is a thread of steel woven through the pain. “And he says a hospital is a security nightmare right now.”
“I don’t care!” Teresa explodes. “You were shot, Adrian! Not scraped, not bruised. Shot!”
“And I’m still here.”
“Because you’re stubborn!” she yells.
“And because I’m trained,” he shoots back, his voice low and hard. “I’ve had worse.”
“Worse than this?” I ask in disbelief.
He doesn't answer. He just looks at me.
There is a story in that look. More than one. Things I can’t even imagine.
The scars I can see more clearly now that I'm focusing on his body tell their own stories.
A long, thin white line runs along his ribs on the opposite side. A round, puckered scar on his shoulder. A web of faded silver near the small of his back.
“See?” he says, as if he can read the thoughts on my face. “I’m a slow learner.”
Teresa makes a sound that is half sob, half fury, and stalks away to the far end of the room, her back to us.
Elena doesn't even look up from her work.
“He’ll be fine,” she says, but her tone is not as certain as I’d like. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but the bullet didn’t hit anything vital. Dr. Alfonsi will confirm that, and we’ll keep everyone here tonight under one roof, where we'll all be safe."
"Or one giant convenient target," I mutter.
"I've already called in more men," he says, then he winces as Elena presses down a little too hard. "And your father has put out a call as well." He looks at me. "There is no safer place for you right now than here."
He’s right, and that’s the most infuriating part of it all.