Chapter 10 #3
“So you want us all to be friends?” Vincenzo asks, disbelief etched on his face.
“Friendship for our mutual benefit,” Lucy says. “A clean slate for the five of us without the mistakes our fathers made hanging over us. Openness and trust. Maybe we can start there.”
The men exchange glances. They seem doubtful, but at least they don’t get up and walk out.
“What does trust look like to you?” Rafiel asks us.
“Trust means open communication about the shit that’s going down in each of our territories,” I reply. “We help each other. No secrets.”
Rafiel’s expression darkens as if that’s already a deal-breaker. I wonder what secrets he’s protecting.
“Trust means no backstabbing,” Lucy adds.
“But I like stabbing,” Vincenzo deadpans.
She ignores his joke—at least I hope he meant it as a joke—and continues, “No seizing money, power, or territory from each other. We settle our disagreements with words, not bullets.”
Cristiano doesn’t move, but a muscle in his jaw subtly tightens.
Rafiel and Vincenzo are trying to rebuild their devastated families and shattered trust. It’s going to be hard, but I think I understand them.
Cristiano is the wildcard. I know little about the Montoni don and his ambitions, but if he’s anything like his scheming, murderous father, we’re all going to have a big fucking problem.
There’s a tense silence as we all look warily at each other.
Lucy sits up and puts her hands on the table, looking at each of the men in turn. “That’s something to work toward. How about we start with something simpler? What’s something the Barones can do for you? A show of good faith from me and my brother.”
Rafiel opens his mouth, hesitates, and then closes it again.
Interesting. He wants something from us, but he won’t ask. Because he doesn’t trust us? Or because he’s reluctant to expose a weakness?
Neither Vincenzo nor Cristiano say anything either.
“It’s something to think about,” I tell them. “We all have problems with the Sokolis and Dervishis that we’re dealing with. If you ever need the Barones’ help, I want you to ask for it. Meanwhile, let’s drink to peace and prosperity for our families.” I hold up my glass in a toast.
There’s a short silence, and then Vincenzo raises his beer bottle and says bitterly, “To our families. What’s left of them.”
Cristiano doesn’t miss the dig at his father’s misdeeds, but he raises his glass. “To our families.”
Rafiel shakes his head as if he thinks this whole meeting has been pointless, but he lifts his glass. “Sure. Whatever. Our families.”
Finally, Lucy’s glass joins ours. As reluctant as the toast is, at least we’re exchanging words and not more violence. It’s a small step toward a stronger Malus for all of us. A stronger position for me and Lucy within our family.
I start to breathe more easily. My heart even lifts a little.
A deafening crack shatters the air.
The glass I’m holding explodes into shards. A red-hot line of fire streaks across my forearm.
There are several more cracks, and some of the restaurant windows splinter and shower pieces of glass all over us. I grab Lucy and pull her beneath the table.
We’re being fired upon from the outside.
“I knew it, it’s an ambush,” Vincenzo roars, somewhere above my head. “I’ll fucking kill you, Barone.”
There’s the sound of him and the others returning fire. In my arms, Lucy is chalk white, but she’s not panicking.
“Stay down,” I tell her, and reach inside my jacket for my gun.
I can hear Antonio and Giovanni shouting outside, then more swearing in Italian in voices I don’t recognize that must belong to Vincenzo’s, Rafiel’s, and Cristiano’s men.
I sit up slightly to get a look at what’s happening, and something red and flaming hurtles through a smashed window.
It’s a glass bottle filled with clear liquid with a burning rag stuffed in the end.
Molotovs are not the weapon of choice for any of the Malus families. We’re under siege by Sokolis.
The bottle smashes, setting the white linen and chairs alight. Several more Molotovs are thrown inside from different locations. The fuel from the smashed bottles spills everywhere and instantly ignites.
Cold sweat breaks over me. Screaming fills my head. The Sokolis keep using fire against me like they know my personal fucking trauma.
As smoke fills the restaurant, the flames roar, driven higher and higher by all the fresh oxygen coming in through the smashed windows.
Heat scorches my face. We have moments until we’re suffocated or burned alive.
Beside me, Lucy whimpers in fear, and the sound rouses me out of my panic.
For years, Lucy has soothed my nightmares and brought me back from the brink.
She saved my life when the Sokolis blew up the warehouse.
Now it’s my turn to save her. I brought her into this danger, and I’m the one who has to get her out.
The smoke has rimmed her eyes with red, and we’re both coughing. I seize her hand and pull her toward the back of the restaurant. “This way, quickly.”
She nods and squeezes my hand, her other arm shielding her face.
Both of us keeping low through the sparks and smoke, I lead her through the kitchen and toward the back door.
My gun is in my hand, pointed straight ahead, when the exit is yanked open.
I see a man with a spider tattoo and a gun.
Before he can aim at us, I shoot him in the head, and he goes down. Lucy and I step over his corpse.
Out in the parking lot, the Sokolis are already turning tail and running. But the damage is done.
“Antonio!” I shout, scanning the chaos. Where is he?
Giovanni appears through the smoke, blood streaming down the side of his face from a cut. “Damiano! Antonio’s hit.”
My blood turns to ice. I race toward where Giovanni is pointing, Lucy right behind me. Antonio is slumped against his car, clutching his chest. Blood blooms across his white shirt, spreading fast.
“No, no, no.” I drop to my knees beside him. “Antonio. Antonio, look at me.”
His eyes are glazing over, his breathing labored and wet. The wound is high on his chest. Lung, maybe heart.
Fuck.
“We’re going to help you,” I tell him, pulling his arm across my shoulder to support his weight. “Stay with me.”
Lucy is there, her gun in hand, eyes scanning for threats. “We need to get him to a hospital. Now.”
“They knew,” Antonio whispers, his voice barely audible. “They knew we’d…be here…”
Dread settles in my gut. He’s right. This wasn’t random. The Sokolis knew exactly where to find us.
Someone talked. Or someone was watching.
“Save your strength,” I tell him as Giovanni helps me get Antonio into the car.
Behind us, Cristiano and Vincenzo emerge from the burning restaurant, weapons still drawn. Rafiel is with them, his white shirt stained with soot and blood—not his own, from the looks of it.
“We got two of them,” Vincenzo reports grimly. “The others scattered.”
“They saw all of us,” Cristiano adds, his cold eyes meeting mine. “They know about this meeting now.”
“Which means war,” Rafiel says flatly.
But I can barely process their words. All I can see is Antonio’s blood soaking through his shirt as we get him into the car.
“Drive!” I shout at Giovanni, and we tear out of the parking lot.
Lucy is in the back seat with me and Antonio, immediately pressing her hands to his wound. Her dress is already soaked with blood, but her hands are steady.
“Stay with us, Antonio,” she says, her voice surprisingly calm. “You’re going to be okay.”
My phone rings. It’s Francesco. Fuck.
“Is my son with you?” he demands before I can even say hello.
“He’s hurt. We’re taking him to St. Mary’s now. Get there as fast as you can.”
“How bad?”
I look at Antonio’s pale face, the blood soaking through Lucy’s dress as she tries to stem the flow. “Bad. I’m sorry, Francesco. We were ambushed. Sokolis.”
“I’m on my way. Where were you ambushed? Who else was there?”
I explain about the closed restaurant and sitting down with Vincenzo, Cristiano, and Rafiel.
There’s a long pause. When Francesco speaks again, his voice is deadly calm. “Don Carlucci said nothing about this. He knew nothing about this, did he, Damiano? He will want to know why you were meeting with the other dons.”
His hard tone implies that he’d very much like an explanation as well.
“I know.”
“Then you better have a good explanation ready.” He hangs up.
Lucy looks at me, her face streaked with Antonio’s blood. “This is bad, isn’t it? Not just Antonio. Our father…”
“It will be okay,” I tell her, but I’m actually thinking, He’s going to lose his mind. I squeeze her shoulder. My other hand stays on Antonio, as if I can will him to live through touch alone.
As I look at her in the back of the speeding car, Antonio’s blood on both of us, his labored breathing filling the silence, I know with terrible certainty that tonight has changed everything.