21. Mia
21
MIA
M y ears are ringing as I slowly come to my senses.
Vaguely, I’m aware I’m on the floor, back pressing into something hard and uncomfortable as I gasp for breath through the thick dust. The deafening sound of the explosion still echoes in my skull.
My hands instinctively fly to my stomach, protectively cupping it as I blink my eyes open.
Nothing makes sense. One moment, I was facing my family and my friends. Every person who ever meant something to me. The next, I’m staring up at the ceiling.
Whatever is left of it.
I stagger to my feet shakily, struggling to find my balance on the crumbling rubble.
The room around me is now a chaotic mess of fallen furniture, shattered glass, and splintered wood. The walls are cracked, the windows blown out. The decorations I’d insisted on now lie limply on the floor.
Where is Leon?
I can barely see through the haze, but the screams and cries of panic pierce through my confusion. I blink, trying to clear my vision, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Leon!” My voice breaks, the word choking me, but it doesn’t matter. There’s no response.
I push forward, carefully avoiding broken glass and debris, my hand still holding tight to my belly. The twins are moving, restless under my hands, and I can’t help but wonder if they feel the same terror I do.
The tears come without warning, sliding down my face as I stumble over the wreckage. I can’t think straight, the fear clouding my mind, but I force myself to focus. I have to find my family.
And then I see her.
Cassandra’s lifeless form is buried under a pile of rubble near the far side of the room. My stomach lurches.
No.
I rush to her, my legs unsteady beneath me, and kneel beside the mess of debris.
Cassandra’s pale face is smeared with dirt and blood, her body crushed beneath a heavy piece of the wall. Her arm is twisted awkwardly, and I can’t see her breathing.
“Cas? Cas! Talk to me. Come on, Cas. Please,” I whisper, my hands trembling as I try to lift the rubble.
I shouldn’t be strong enough to move the concrete alone, but the sheer desperation of my adrenaline fuels me. Before I can really register what I’m doing, I’m pulling the last piece of debris away.
“Cas? Cassandra, don’t you dare. Come on,” I whimper as I search for a pulse.
There. Finally. Relief floods through me as I feel life flickering through her veins. She’s breathing, she’s alive.
A sob escapes my chest.
“Cassandra,” I whisper again, louder this time, my hands gently cradling her head.
Her eyelids flicker, and after a moment, she groans, her hand weakly grasping mine.
“Mia…” she murmurs, her voice hoarse. “What…what happened?”
I shake my head, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “A bomb or something. But you’re alive. Thank God you’re alive.”
Cassandra’s hand weakly grips mine. “Where…where’s Rocco? Where’s Leon?”
My heart skips a beat, panic rising in my chest once more. I swallow hard, trying to steady my breath. “I don’t know. We need to find them.”
I look around the room, trying to pierce through the dusty smog that has engulfed the space. There are voices and signs of life, but they’re indistinguishable through the ringing in my ears.
“Can you stand?” I ask Cassandra, helping her to sit up as I try to keep the panic from overtaking me.
She nods, though she looks dazed, her face pale and bruised. “I think so.”
“Stay close,” I tell her, my voice shaking. “We’ll find them. We’ll find everyone.”
We move together, carefully stepping through the rubble, clinging to each other like a lifeline. My heart pounds in my chest, my eyes scanning the wreckage for any sign of Leon.
“Leon!” I call again, but my voice feels small in the wreckage, swallowed by the smoke and dust.
Cassandra’s hand tightens around mine as if to comfort me. I don’t think anything of it until I realize she’s stopped moving entirely.
“Cas, come on. We need to?—”
My voice trails off the second I realize what she’s staring at. My eyes open wide and flood with unshed tears.
“No.”
There, buried under the rubble only a few feet away, is an arm. It’s the only appendage not crushed by the giant slab of the ceiling.
And I know who it is immediately.
I’ve known that hand my whole life. The hand that held mine as a child, the hand that steadied my gun at the shooting range. The hand that wrapped around my arm the day I was to be married.
“No.”
Everything crumbles apart.
I’d rather take a knife to the gut. I’d rather the ceiling had crushed me instead.
I immediately mentally apologize to my children. Everything is different now, but that doesn’t stop my heart from breaking into thousands of pieces.
“Daddy, no.”
It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t forgiven him yet. We were supposed to have years to rebuild, years to figure out how to trust each other again.
Now, all I have is endless guilt that wails from my throat like a siren.
Cas falls to her knees beside me. I don’t know when I dropped to the floor, but her arms wrap around me now. Protective, reassuring. Holding me together with her bare hands as I wail and wail.
“Mia!”
The voice cuts through my grief like a knife.
“Mia, where are you?” The relief in Leon’s voice almost makes me start wailing again. I look up frantically, searching.
And then, there he is.
Leon strides toward us, his face bloodied, bruises already forming. But his eyes are crystal clear as he scans the room.
When he sees me, it’s as if the world falls away, leaving only us.
Before I can take a breath, he’s there, on his knees, pulling me into his arms. His hands cup my face, his touch so urgent, so frantic. He pulls back, eyes scanning me, looking for any sign of injury.
“You’re okay,” he breathes, his voice rough. “Are you hurt? The twins—are you?—”
“My dad,” my voice breaks. “Leon.”
I see the moment he realizes as the grief floods his expression. It’s too much. I bury my head into his chest.
He strokes my hair as I cling to him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t get to tell him. I–I still loved him.”
“He knew,” he says with such authority I almost choke. “It’s okay, Mia. He knew. He did.”
He gently lowers his hand to my stomach, his touch tender and sweet. The twins are still moving; the soft flutter of life beneath my skin grounds me back into the moment.
My grief needs to wait. Our home is destroyed. There could be more to this attack than just an explosion. We’re not out of the woods yet.
Luckily, Cas is slightly more put together than I am. “What happened, Leon? Where is everyone else?”
Leon places a firm kiss on my forehead before pulling away and turning to address my friend. “A bomb, I think. It must have been planted somewhere upstairs. It should have been impossible.”
“Rocco?” Cas’ voice breaks.
“He’s alive, Cassandra,” Leon says gently before getting to his feet, holding an arm out to each of us. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”
It takes us a moment to find our footing again, but then Cas is running, shouting for a husband like a woman possessed.
Leon’s arm wraps around my waist, helping me over every minor obstacle in my path. I lean desperately into his touch and take as much reassurance from it as I can as we clear the room and stumble out into the foyer.
The entire house looks like it’s been through an earthquake. Cracks have appeared up the walls, lighting fixtures have crashed into the floor. The glass of the Caravaggio has smashed into a thousand pieces and lies half torn beneath its previous spot on the wall.
But nothing is more harrowing than the expressions of the people who turn to look at us.
Rocco is already embracing his wife, while Teo and Isabella cling to each other desperately. Dante and Max are both on the floor—Max is suffering from a gruesome-looking head wound that Dante is attempting to bandage.
Each of them turns to look at Leon with a chilling sense of expectation. There’s anger in their faces, desperation. Pain.
I realize with a start that they’re looking to their leader.
And Leon Natali was forged for war.
“We retaliate,” Leon says, his voice now cold, as he steps forward. His hand lingers on my waist as if to reassure himself that I’m still there. “We go to war.”
It’s Isabella who speaks up first, eyes frantic with fear. “We don’t know anything yet. We don’t know who this was for sure.”
“They attacked my home. They attacked my pregnant wife. They attacked my family. There is no more room for waiting around and playing this safe. As of right now, The Prince’s Hand is at war with the Cartel,” Leon’s voice booms out with authority.
As his words sink in, he turns to Teo and Rocco. “Is the Guild with me?”
Teo shares a long look with Rocco. Their faces are grim with the same resolve that has defined them all these years.
“Of course,” Teo says, his voice laced with the same anger I can see burning in Leon’s eyes.
“I guess my sabbatical is officially over,” Rocco mutters over Cas’ head.
I sag against Leon’s arm and listen to him bark out instructions, the adrenaline finally starting to wear off and the exhaustion kicking with a vengeance. I don’t realize how close I am to toppling over before Leon suddenly catches me.
“I’m fine,” I say to the frown on his face.
Leon’s chocolate-colored eyes are everywhere, darting across my body as if he can somehow do a comprehensive medical analysis by sight alone.
I expect him to chastise me, to hit me with some insistence that I rest.
I don’t expect him to bark for Teo. “I need a favor, Vitale.”
The Guild’s don enters my periphery with a concerned look at me. “What do you need?”
“I seem to recall that you have a bunker. I need Mia to stay somewhere safe until the babies are born.”