Chapter 38 Falco
FALCO
Forty-eight hours of doctor’s treatments, painkillers, and sleep later, I walk toward Guido’s office with my heart hammering in my chest.
No one told me anything.
From the moment I was dragged back here, I was confined to the medical wing with a doctor who wouldn’t tell me anything and a guard who threatened to shoot me if I even looked at him wrong.
The only information I was granted was reassurance that Bullet was alive.
He was shot in the shoulder, a through-and-through that hit only muscle on the way through.
He’s alive.
The relief, along with a handful of pills, lets me sleep for eighteen hours straight.
Finally able to breathe on my own and walk without leaning too much, the doctor lets me out of the medical wing, but only because I’ve been called to Guido’s office.
Voices drift from inside as I approach. The closer I get, the clearer they become.
“Dad, please!” Aerin whines. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you!”
“Do you have any idea of the position I’m in?” Guido snaps back. “Do you? Can you stop being selfish for a second and just think of the bigger picture?”
“Selfish? I’m not being selfish!”
“Yes, you are!” His voice rises and becomes crystal clear as the guard opens the door, giving me a full view of the booming argument.
Guido stands in front of his desk, tissues clutched in one hand to press to his mouth each time he coughs.
His face is purple with rage and sweat beads his forehead.
Aerin is across the room near the coffee table, her hands on her hips and her face twisted with fury that makes her eyes bright and her cheeks flush.
She’s beautiful.
That anger fades the moment she glances at the door and does a double take when she sees me.
“You’re only thinking of yourself, Aerin, and it’s about time you took some real responsibility!”
Her eyes snap back to her father. “Are you kidding me? Are you blind to everything I’ve done?
Everything I’ve been doing? It’s because of me that I survived the cabin, do you understand that?
I saved Falco’s life. Yeah, it was terrifying, but I was the one there doing those things.
I did it. I was also the one who put together the plan to cancel the wedding. ”
“Plan?” Guido scoffs so hard that he ends up coughing. “You didn’t have a plan, you had a hope and a theory. You just didn’t want to get married, and you would be by now if not for your brother.”
“No! I would have refused and I would have worked something out. And it was me who brought Giacomo down. You would still be blind and thinking he’s trying to be a good son when he was plotting both our demise! You were so blinded by your rage at Falco that—”
“Can you blame me?” Guido roars. “That bastard got you pregnant!”
As he dissolves into another harsh coughing fit that draws a guard from the wall to help him, any words I clutched to announce myself fade from my mind.
Aerin looks at me in a panic, her eyes wide and her lips parted while all the color drains from her cheeks. I look down at her stomach as that yelled word echoes around my mind.
Pregnant? Aerin’s pregnant?
No…she can’t be.
I wasn’t responsible when it came to contraception, but I hadn’t thought about it properly. So caught up on everything else, from my overwhelming love for her to trying to keep her safe, that something as simple as a condom just never entered my mind.
“Pregnant?” I repeat quietly, slowly walking toward Aerin.
She places one hand on her abdomen and swallows so hard that I hear the slight gluck. “Yes. I… Oh god, I didn’t want you to find out this way. I was going to tell you when you were well. I’m so sorry.”
Pregnant.
There’s a baby inside her.
My baby.
Our baby.
My mind remains blank and locked on that one word as I approach until I’m a foot away. Then, very slowly, I place my hand over hers. “You shouldn’t have come for me and risked this.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she replies softly. “I had to come and get you.”
“Pregnant,” I repeat again. “I…I can’t believe it.” Warmth suddenly buds in my chest and spreads through me like I’ve just stepped outside in the heat of the midday sun. A smile pulls at my lips, one I don’t even try to fight, and my heart begins to race. “Oh Aerin.”
“I know you love me,” she says and her voice becomes a whisper. “I was so furious with you that I missed it, but that day in the gym when you yelled at me and pushed me away, you said you loved me.”
“I did?” Immediately, the memory surges and my lips part. I did and I didn’t even realize it.
“You did,” she murmurs. “I love you too. Just so you know.” A playful edge enters her smile as she gazes up at me, then she shifts her hand until we’re palm to palm. As our fingers thread together, her eyes begin to sparkle with unshed tears. “Are you mad?”
I shake my head. “Why would I be mad?”
“A baby is…huge.”
“A baby is tiny,” I murmur. “Compared to everything else, this? This is a dream.”
“What do you know about love?” Guido snaps suddenly, drawing both of us out of this sudden bubble. “You’re twenty-one, Aerin. You’re too young for love!”
“Mom married you at nineteen,” she snaps back.
“That’s different.”
“How is that different? You were going to marry me off to the Irish. Why is wanting to be with someone I love any different from being with someone I’m sold to, huh? Is it because it doesn’t benefit you?”
Guido glances at his guard who suddenly removes his gun from his hip and places it in Guido’s hand. Then his dark, furious gaze locks onto me. “You.”
“Sir.”
“Don’t sir me,” he spits, striding forward with the weapon raised. “You stood in this fucking office and you swore a vow to me, didn’t you?”
Despite the strength of Aerin gripping my hand, I have to pull away from her and step forward. “I did.”
“You swore to protect my daughter. You swore your loyalty to me, and instead I find out that you have broken your vow and defiled my daughter!”
“Dad!” Aerin yells. “It’s not like that!”
“You betrayed me,” Guido snarls. “You should be killed just for that, but that’s not all you’ve done, have you? You broke your oath. Touched my daughter. Fucked her for months. And you sought help outside this family, one of which is allied with another family. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
I can’t take my eye off the gun as I nod slowly. “I knew you would, eventually.”
“And still you turned up here and looked me in the eye like you were on my side!”
“Like Aerin said, I love her—”
“Love,” Guido spits. “Love is nothing but a curse. Is it really worth your life?” He raises the gun again, this time aiming straight between my eyes.
“It would be a discredit to say I would die for her because I would never willingly leave her,” I reply quietly. “Or my child. But I will fight for her and if that results in my death, then so be it.”
“No!” Aerin surges forward and grabs my arm. “Dad!”
Guido glares at me, then he slowly lowers the gun.
“At the warehouse, I saw what you did. You saved my daughter from my son.” His voice cracks slightly.
“All this time, Giacomo hated me. Can I blame him? I cut him off at such a young age, hoping it would teach him responsibility. Instead, it taught him to hate me. And his sister.” He shakes his head and a deep, weary sigh escapes him.
“Saving my daughter is the only reason you are still standing here, do you understand?”
I understand. Everything I’ve done, every rule I’ve broken, and every choice I’ve made has earned me the swift death I was nearly dealt in the warehouse. But I saved Aerin. My last act and it’s granted me one more chance at life.
“The price?” Guido meets my eyes. “Leave.”
“Excuse me?”
“Walk away.”
“No.” The answer bursts out of me like a gunshot. “Not on your life.”
“You have no choice,” Guido growls. “I will kill you if you stay, do you understand? If you refuse, then I will shoot you right here and that will be the end of everything.”
“No!” Aerin darts in front of me, reaching back to clutch my hand. “I won’t let you and I will never forgive you!”
“I don’t need your forgiveness, Aerin,” Guido yells.
“You have also betrayed me! My name has been utterly defiled, dragged through the mud and is gradually becoming worthless! Do you understand what that means for all my men? For every person that works here, and every countless family that’s under our protection?
Are you as arrogant as to stand there and tell me your love with this guard is worth the life and safety of thousands of others? Is it?”
Aerin gasps, struggling with her words, and I mirror her struggle.
On some level, yes. Our love is worth all of that because I care for no one but her. But I know Aerin. Knowing her choice sent countless other families into despair, void of protection or safety, would haunt her until the day it claimed her life.
“Then I’ll go too!” Aerin gasps suddenly and her grip tightens on me. “Let us leave together, Dad. Please! You don’t want him here and I don’t want to be here. Please!”
“Over my dead body,” comes a sharp, wavering voice from the doorway. Turning, Allegra stands there in a black gown with mascara running down her cheeks.
“Mom,” Aerin gasps.
“I will not lose another child,” she bites out.
“You won’t lose me. I can visit.”
“Don’t be so stupid.” Anger laces Allegra’s words as she walks into the office and another tear leaks down her cheek.
“You are Aerin Paramatti. No matter where you go, you will always be a Paramatti. Out there? In the world? You and that child of yours would be nothing more than a tool against your father and this family and all those people you are saving by leaving will end up back in the gutter.”
“No,” Aerin gasps. “We’ll be careful.”
“I’ll protect her,” I say firmly. “Both of them.”
“Will you?” Allegra shoots me a cold look. “Look at the state of you. How much life do you have left? You lost one friend. Another got shot. How long until someone gets this close again? Who will protect her and your baby?”
I want to tell her that I will do it. I will keep them safe until my last breath, but the more Allegra talks the more it dawns on me that the only way I can guarantee the safety of the woman I love, and my unborn child, is to leave her here.
“Mom.” Aerin approaches her mother. “I would be safe. I would be.”
“Would you?” she snaps bitterly. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me you are willing to risk the life of your baby by leaving the safety of this family?”
“Never mind the damage you would do,” Guido speaks up after another cough. “As soon as word spread that my daughter fled, those loyal to us would see weakness and go for the kill. And all those families—”
“I get it!” Aerin snaps and a sob escapes her. She spins to face me, her face wet with tears and utter panic in her eyes. It’s a horrible decision. We’ve survived everything only to face being torn apart at the last hurdle. She doesn’t know what to do, and the war will cut her up inside.
I love her too much to allow that.
“I will leave,” I say softly.
“No!” Aerin cries and lunges at me. “Not after everything. I just got you! We just survived everything, please don’t leave me…”
As she sobs over me, I gently clutch her shoulders and draw her in close. “Aerin. This is the only way I can guarantee you and our baby will be safe.” It’s strange to say that word, but it rolls off my tongue like honey. “Your family can protect you. You can rebuild. You must stay.”
“No.” Her face crumples. “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me!”
“You have to understand.” Emotion scratches at the back of my throat and my grip tightens. “You and this baby…you have to survive for me, okay? Live for me. Be safe.”
“No!”
I lean in close and slide one hand up to the side of her neck. Her big, wide eyes sparkle at me exactly like the sugar glider I compared her to, and I kiss her. The moment our lips meet, my heart breaks.
If I stay, I die.
If we leave together, I will lose them both. It’s not a worry, it’s an eventuality.
This is the only way.
Aerin clings to me desperately, kissing me hard until a guard clears his throat and I’m forced to break the kiss.
“I love you,” I say earnestly, the words catching in my throat. “I have loved you since before the cabin. And I will love you for the rest of my days.”
“I love you too,” Aerin sobs and she clutches her hands to her chest. “I love you!”
Allegra steps between us, wrapping her arms around her daughter as I’m led out of the office by a guard. Guido stops me just in the doorway, his glare hard but his words honest.
“You saved my daughter, and by leaving her here, you help save my reputation. But I cannot forgive the betrayal of your oath or the murder of my son. You understand this, don’t you?”
As much as I hate it, I nod. “I do.”
“Good. If you ever come near my daughter again, I will kill you where you stand, regardless of circumstance. Understand?”
I’m granted one last glimpse of Aerin and my heart grows hollow. “Yes. I understand.”