Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Luca
“V ito!” I held the front door to The Dollhouse open with one hand and kept Dominic upright with the other. He leaned on me, his good arm slung across my shoulders. I ushered him inside. The door slammed shut behind us, and I threw the deadbolt. “Vito!”
One of the double doors that led to the back swung open and Vito appeared. He looked us up and down and frowned. “Let’s get him in the back.”
He held the door open, and we limped through. “How you doin’, Dom?” he asked.
“I’ve got a bullet in my shoulder,” he growled. “Fucking great.”
Vito moved past us down the hall. “The lighting’s better in the dressing room. I’ll need him up on the counter by the mirrors if I’m going to cut that bullet out.”
Dom groaned. “Can we not talk about cutting shit out of me?”
“Sorry, kid.” We hobbled through the second set of doors. “But we gotta get that thing out, so your shoulder heals right.” Vito walked into the dressing room. “Get him over there by the mirrors. Up on the counter.”
I maneuvered Dom sideways through the narrower opening, suddenly glad I gave the girls shit about keeping the dressing room clean. The floor was clear of obstacles all the way to the mirrors.
“Oh, God.” Siobhán’s voice startled me.
My head snapped to where she stood in the corner of the dressing room. Her face went white, staring at Dom’s stomach, the little color usually highlighting her pale cheeks gone. She lifted her thin fingers to her mouth, and her hand started to shake.
“Fuck,” I cursed and moved faster.
I arranged Dom with his back toward the mirrors and removed his arm from my shoulder. He shimmied himself up onto the counter. Vito started assessing the damage.
“No. No, no.” Siobhán’s small voice wavered, pulling me to the other side of the room.
I went to her and placed my hands on her shoulders, but her wide eyes remained fixed on Dom.
“He’s been shot,” she whispered, lips trembling. “He’s been shot. In the stomach. He needs to go to the hospital. His stomach…” Her lips kept moving, repeating the words without sound.
I followed her blank stare over my shoulder. Vito was cutting the bloody mess of Dom’s shirt away. I blocked her view, but her eyes remained fixed on Dom’s position as if she could see right through me.
“Siobhán. Look at me.” I took her face between my hands, but her gaze remained downcast and unfocused. “Look at me, Siobhán,” I said louder. “Come on, baby. Look at me. Look right here.”
Her eyes crept toward my face. Her pupils were dilated, her breath short and shallow. Sweat beaded her forehead. A full-blown trauma response. If I didn’t get through to her, she was going to black out, and we didn’t need another patient.
“Stay with me, okay? Dom’s going to be fine. Vito’s helping him.”
Her eyes locked with mine, and instead of looking through me, recognition snapped into place. She laid her palms on my chest.
“There’s so much blood. That’s what they keep saying. There’s too much blood.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears poured down her cheeks. “She’s losing too much blood. She’s not going to make it.” Her body convulsed.
“Dio.” I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed. Her arms folded between us, and she rested her forehead on my chest.
“It’s okay.” I ran my hand up and down her back. Her body trembled beneath my touch. “You made it, remember? You’re here. Right now. You’re with me. And those assholes are gone. Finished. They can’t hurt you. I made sure myself. You’re safe with me.”
She released a sob and clung to me. I glanced over my shoulder.
There was a lot of blood, and the rain made it look worse. As drenched as we were, the blood had spread across his shirt. But the dark splotch over his stomach was unmistakable; a bullet entered there.
Siobhán started to cry, soft, quiet sobs.
I rested my chin on her head. “I know, baby. I know.” I cradled her head in one hand and ran the other up and down her back. “Dom’s going to be fine. I promise. Vito’s going to get him all stitched up. He’ll be okay.” I kissed her hair and let her cry.
“When’s the last time you fed?” Vito asked behind us.
“I dunno… Last week?” Dom’s speech slurred.
“Stay with me, kid. Luca!”
I looked over my shoulder. Dom’s shirt was gone. The wound in his stomach was almost closed, but blood poured down his arm from his shoulder.
“We got a bleeder,” Vito said. “Musta hit an artery, and it’s still in there. At least the one in his stomach went straight through.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dom grumbled. “Felt fucking great.”
“You’ll be fine, but you’ll heal a helluva lot faster if you fed.” Vito glanced at me. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. I pulled back and held Siobhán by her shoulders. “Where’s Mia?” I asked, gentling my voice.
She stared at her fingers tangled in my shirt.
“Siobhán.” I tipped her chin up. Her eyes were glassy and haunted. “Hey, baby, come on now. I know you’re stronger than that. Where’s Mia?”
“Mia…” She swallowed. “She went to her car to—to get something. Rocco went with her. She didn’t want to go alone. They should be back.” Her eyes searched mine. “There’s so much blood…” Her bottom lip trembled. “His stomach…”
I pulled her back into my arms. “I know, baby,” I whispered into her hair and kissed the top of her head. “I know.”
The door opened, and Mia walked in followed by Rocco.
“Dominic!” Mia shouted. Her eyes darted to me and Siobhán, then back to Dominic and Vito.
“Dom needs a Source, Mia,” I said.
“Yes, of course,” she said flatly and dropped her umbrella and her bag. She took off her jacket and tossed it on the couch.
“I’m going to need someone to hold him down while I remove the bullet,” Vito said.
Siobhán whimpered, and her shaking turned violent.
“Rocco,” I said and nodded toward Vito. “Help him. I gotta get her out of here.”
“You sure do,” Vito said with an edge he didn’t want me to miss. “One hand on his shoulder, one across his legs, capisce?”
Rocco followed Vito’s directions, and Dom rested his head against the mirror and closed his eyes.
“I’m not gonna ask why she’s here,” Vito said. “Don’t wanna know. But get her out of here.”
“They got Mikey,” I said.
“Goddammit.”
“He knows what to do.” There was a protocol when a blood demon got pinched—call the DeVita Foundation.
“Did he get shot?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Good. We can’t do anything about it tonight. Call me in the morning.”
“Va bene,” I said and led Siobhán to the door. “Domani allora.”
“You might wanna leave the room for this, tesoro,” Vito grumbled to Mia, and the door clicked shut.
I hurried Siobhán out the back and locked up behind me. Rain came down in sheets, loud against the metal overhang. Siobhán shivered. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, tucking her into me and away from the cold.
Leo drove on, taking the fake U-Haul to the drop-off location, and Dom’s car was still at the gas station in Needham, which meant I had no wheels. I dialed one of my crew. He answered after a couple of rings. “Barbie’s. In the back. Ora. Sbrigati.” I shoved the phone back in my pocket and wrapped my other arm around Siobhán.
“You okay?” I asked.
She tilted her head up. “The fresh air helps.” Her lips twitched, attempting a smile, but she couldn’t quite make one happen. “All the blood on”—she swallowed and blinked hard—“all the blood on his stomach…”
“I know, baby. But Dominic wasn’t shot in the stomach,” I lied. “It just looked that way from all the rain and the blood from his shoulder. He’s going to be fine.”
Surviving a bullet to the shoulder, I could explain. A gunshot through the stomach?
“Thank God.” She rested the side of her face against my chest and burrowed into it like she wanted to crawl inside.
“What’s a Source?” she asked.
Fuck.
There were so many reasons I didn’t want to answer that question. I hugged her closer. “Don’t worry about it,” I said and hoped like hell she’d forget that word and everything else she saw and heard that night.
* * *
A truck rumbled down the street outside. The single lightbulb hanging from the warehouse ceiling swayed. A Bowie knife glinted beneath its movement.
Vinnie hovered over me, face devoid of emotion. He gripped my hair, jerked my head back, and lowered the blade to my right eye.
“Nooo!” I screamed and turned my head from side to side.
White hot pain exploded into existence, a flash of lightning that seared my eye and transported me from Vinnie’s dingy warehouse to the upstairs of Vesuvio.
Marco stood before me, masked in darkness. The red glow of his eyes met mine from beneath the shadows of his down-turned face.
“You’re no longer a DeVita,” he growled.
“No, Zio, per favore. Non capisci.” I shook my head. I needed to explain. Then he’d understand.
“Now get out of my sight,” he said with finality.
His image faded, replaced by a black casket in an empty field.
It was so big. Why was it so big?
I tugged at my collar. Too constricting. Why did Zio make me wear a tie?
I pulled and pulled, but the collar squeezed tighter and tighter. It cut off my air. Darkness clouded my vision. The casket started to fade.
I yanked on my collar. Hard. “No! Take me back! Papà!”
“It’s time to go, Luca.” Mamma Gina squeezed my hand as tightly as the collar around my neck.
“Nooo! Not yet!”
Vinnie’s face materialized through the darkness, and the cold steel of the Bowie knife returned in a burst of agony. Blood covered its sharp edge and streamed down my face, a surging river of red. He released my hair, and I collapsed. He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the blade clean.
I heaved and thrashed. Blood poured from my empty eye socket into a pool on the cold concrete.
Or was it a bed?
Blood covered a rumpled nightgown. My mother lay atop the sheets, hands folded across her unmoving chest, her beautiful face pale and lifeless.
A newborn wailed, cutting through the blood’s silent swell. My father stepped into view, shirtsleeves rolled up, his forearms and the baby he held stained red with my mother’s sacrifice.
“I named him Luca.” My father’s voice cracked, and the crimson pool consumed the bed. “I named him after you, my beautiful Lucia. Vivrà per te.”
Blood crept up her body and surrounded her face.
“No,” I said to my father. “No, I want to see her.”
He looked at me, eyes as red as the rising tide. “She died for you, Luca.”
Blood filled the room. It passed his waist.
“No!” I shouted.
He held the newborn baby out of its reach.
“She died because of you,” he said.
Until it enveloped him too.
“Luca.” My father’s voice faded, distant and muffled.
“Nooo!” I screamed.
“Luca.”
“Don’t go!”
“Luca!”
My eyes snapped open, and my arm shot out. I clamped my fingers around the intruder’s neck.
Thin fingers with pointed nails tapped the edges of my hand. “Luca.”
The same voice had called out in my nightmare.
“It’s me. It’s Siobhán.”
My eyes focused.
“Luca, you’re hurting me.”
“Siobhán?” I loosened my grip and searched the darkness.
Siobhán’s glassy eyes regarded me with concern. She placed a hand on my forearm and peeled my fingers off her neck. “You were shouting,” she croaked and massaged her throat. She pushed the sweaty strands of hair off my forehead. “But it was just a bad dream. You’re okay.”
My chest heaved. Sweat covered my forehead, neck, and chest, and my breath came in short, frantic bursts. I shoved a hand into my damp hair and grabbed Siobhán’s with the other, trying to ground myself and calm the adrenaline rushing through my veins and making my heart race.
“Breathe.” She squeezed my hand. “Just breathe.” Her brow furrowed, and she searched my face. “What did they do to you?”
I shivered and looked away.
“Hey,” she said and inched forward. She cupped my face and turned it back to hers. “It’s over. Whatever happened, it’s over.”
I anchored myself in her pale blue eyes, a light in my empty world, until my breathing slowed and exhaustion claimed me. The close call and the botched job and my haunted dreams were too much. I fought to keep my eyes open, not wanting to lose her, my anchor, to the darkness.
Siobhán let go of my hand and scooted off the bed. “Get some sleep?—”
I rolled onto my side and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back onto the bed. I covered us with the comforter, wrapped my arm around her waist, and snuggled her until her tiny body was tucked into the curve of mine.
She stiffened.
I breathed in her scent. She bought a bottle of that shampoo she used when we went to the grocery store, and she smelled familiar and sweet. Like peaches. I shoved my nose into her hair and nuzzled her neck.
“What did you mean earlier?” she asked.
“Hm?”
“At The Dollhouse. You said they can’t hurt me. That you made sure of it.”
“Just that—I tracked down the men responsible for hurting you. Made sure they were all taking a long nap.”
She lifted her head off the pillow.
“No more nightmares, Siobhán. You’re safe.”
She laid her head back down—“Thank you”—but her body remained rigid.
“I haven’t forgotten you’re a Shaughnessy,” I said into the darkness.
“I know.” She relaxed as if exchanging those words reclaimed our normal.
“I hate Shaughnessys,” I whispered.
She slid her hand down my arm until she found mine tucked beneath her. She interlaced our fingers and brought our arms to rest between the slight swell of her breasts. “I know,” she whispered back. Her soft lips pressed against my fingers, once, twice.
I nudged my leg between hers, bringing her closer. Her breathing slowed to match the gentle and regular rise of her chest beneath my arm. And with the air cleared and my body wrapped around Siobhán, I drifted into a deep and peaceful sleep.