25. Rocco
25
ROCCO
“ I wanted to see it for myself.—that you would do for the Guild.”
“You are a hundred times the man your father ever was.”
“You are going to do great things, Rocco.”
Carmine Bellini’s final words echo through me as I watch his daughter collapse in on herself.
The grief is insurmountable. Regret laces my every emotion, every fiber of my being, as Cas looks up at me.
She’s finally seeing me for what I truly am: a monster.
“Please,” she begs, but I already know it’s too late. The truth is out now, and there’s nothing I can do to take it back.
I should have done more to save Carmine. I should have torn the gun from his hand the second he drew it. I should have said something, anything, to stop him from pulling that trigger.
But I failed, and I will have to live with those consequences for the rest of my life. Even if that means losing Cas in the process, I know in my heart that I deserve it.
“Not your knight in shining armor anymore, is he?” Lazzaro drones on. He’s like a fly buzzing around this shit show with unbridled joy. “I told you I was saving you.”
“You killed him,” she whispers.
Her words fall upon me like their own kind of death sentence. It takes everything within me to stop my legs from buckling in shame.
The only thing I can manage to gasp is, “I’m sorry.”
“Too little, too late, amigo,” Lazzaro observes. Vaguely, I’m aware that more people have entered the room. “Shall I kill him for you, Cas?”
She just continues to stare at me, those perfect lips agape in despair.
For one terrible moment, I think she might nod to offer her affirmation to Lazzaro’s question — the final nail in the coffin of whatever relationship we once had.
I wouldn’t be able to blame her, either. I couldn’t resent her for it. It was my fault her father was dead, and she was well within her rights to demand my death in payment.
Instead, something perhaps more terrifying happens.
An eerie calmness seems to wash over her. Her tears stop flowing, her mouth becomes a hard, unreadable line, and her eyes…there’s nothing behind them anymore.
When she looks at me, there’s nothing of the person I once knew when she speaks again. Her voice is like pure ice being injected into my veins.
“He’s dead to me.”
Lazzaro starts laughing again, and when I turn back to him, I realize why.
Five men have arrived, dressed head to toe in Cartel black. None of them seem particularly inclined to let us leave without a fight.
I can take them. I know I can, but…I will have to unleash a side of me intended only for my enemies. It’s the kind of violence necessary for our survival, for Cas’ survival, but it will only reinforce the fact that I’m a monster.
A glance back at her unfeeling face is my only hesitation.
I was supposed to be her protector.
But I can’t run from the truth forever. The job has to come first; when all is said and done, I’m no better than Lazzaro.
I hear Lazzaro’s frustration before I see it. His clumsy feet pelt against the ground as he runs toward me, tired of waiting to enact his revenge.
But I savor my final look at Cas, taking in her perfect face, those soft features I had peppered with kisses only a few short hours ago. She’s the woman I had begun to imagine my life with, the woman I’d only just realized I loved.
My hand snaps up to grab Lazzaro’s neck, a mere arm’s length away.
But still, I hold Cas’ gaze.
“I’m sorry.”
For your father.
For who I am.
For what you’re about to see.
My other hand reaches for Teo’s pistol, and I turn away.
I regret leaving him behind to search for leads on Cas’ location. He’d intercepted a police report on a busted-out taillight and suspected kidnapping, and I hadn’t not thought twice.
At least I had the wherewithal to take his gun, so I wasn’t completely unarmed.
Lazzaro claws at my arm as I walk us forward, using his body to shield me from the Cartel, who are now drawing their own guns.
BANG.
The goon on my right goes down, the shot piercing through the middle of his temple.
I cross my arms to aim at the goon on my left.
BANG.
The second man goes down before the remaining three can begin their own firearm assault. I dart to the side to ensure Cas isn’t in their line of fire as gunshots begin to rain around me.
“Don’t fucking shoot me!” Lazzaro screeches at them as I keep us weaving through the onslaught toward my next victim.
When they don’t listen, he switches to a new tactic. He bites down on my arm hard enough to draw blood.
I curse, throwing him into one of the other attackers, toppling them both over while I round on another.
The man before me has no time to point his gun before I disarm him. My elbow snaps his forearm as my free hand snatches the knife from my belt. The pistol drops to the floor, and I kick it away.
BANG, BANG.
The third assailant opens fire, and I barely have enough time to maneuver my disarmed friend into the spray of bullets before they pound into his back. Blood dribbles from his mouth, his eyes wide with shock.
I wait to reload until I have dropped my cover and thrown my knife at the third assailant.
He reaches up to bash it away, but he’s too late. The blade buries itself in his neck, and he falls to his knees, spluttering out the blood now gurgling in his throat.
I turn back just in time to find Lazzaro and his final goon getting to their feet. Lazzaro is seemingly unarmed, but the goon is scrambling for his gun again.
I draw mine once more, but the hollow click that sounds as I pull the trigger has me throwing it to one side.
Claudio rushes me as I approach in an attempt to tackle me. But a knee to the chest and a blow to the head have him dropping to the floor a second later.
But a second is all the goon needs.
BANG.
Cas screams.
That same bruising pain winds me as the bullet lodges itself in my vest once more. I can almost hear my ribs cracking on impact as I stagger back a few paces.
I can’t take another shot. This knowledge launches me forward faster than I’ve ever moved before.
The goon steps backward as his gun clicks to indicate that it's empty. His shaking fingers attempt to reload before I launch myself at him. But it’s no use.
I’m on him in an instant, arms wrapping themselves around his neck as I squeeze, ignoring the way his body thrashes against mine. I take in a breath and then twist.
SNAP.
His body slumps in my arms.
My chest heaves as I try to rally my strength to take down my final opponent.
Click.
Cold metal presses into my temple.
“Easy there, big boy,” Lazzaro sneers as he jams the barrel of his gun into my head.
I stay entirely still. I’m half kneeling as I cradle the final goon in my arms.
“Drop him.”
The body hits the floor with an unceremonious thump, and I raise my hands in a display of surrender, eyes staring resolutely on the floor.
“You have no idea how good this feels.” Lazzaro laughs cruelly in my ear. “After you stole Cas from me and flaunted how you were fucking her in front of everyone.”
I cringe at his words. I had done nothing to dispel the rumors, all of them aiding my subterfuge to get to the very man now pointing a gun at my head.
But there was no way of explaining this to Cas. Not when she’d never believe another word out of my mouth.
“The Cartel was supposed to kill you, but I prefer this one hell of a lot more.” He raises his voice for Cas to hear, “Fate works in mysterious ways.”
“Let me do it.”
My eyes snap up to find Cas approaching. That haunted expression on her face barely acknowledges my existence.
Never before had I noticed how she resembled her father. But when she looks at Lazzaro, I’m struck by how similar she looks to Carmine.
She looks the way he did when the calm claimed him in his final moment.
My heart races in my chest. No. She wouldn’t.
“Cas. Please,” I beg, but not for my own life.
“He killed my father,” she continues, ignoring me. “He lied to me. He kept me from ever meeting him. He stole me from you, and he…he made me fall in love with him.”
My breath catches. No. Not like this.
“His life is mine to take.”
Lazzaro regards her apprehensive. “You don’t have it in you.”
“Neither do you.”
We both regard her in confusion.
“It’s why you hired the Cartel, right?” she continues. “So you wouldn’t have the blood of the don on your hands. So you could blame his death on someone else.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lazzaro laughs, but we can all see the truth in his eyes.
Cas nods to his gun. “You kill him, and half the Guild will be on your tail for the rest of your life. Let me do it.”
Lazzaro wipes his face with his free hand.
“You can blame it on me, a scorned lover getting revenge for her dead father. Giving me the credit will go down a hell of a lot better for whoever you’re working for.”
“You wouldn’t do it,” Lazzaro says, more to convince himself than anyone else.
“I would do it for you, baby,” Cas whispers softly. “An apology. For everything that’s happened between us, for getting lured in by a monster. I should have known you were only trying to do what was best for our future together.”
It’s almost comical how quickly Lazzaro’s resolve seems to crumble.
“You want me too, right?” Her voice is as smooth as honey. “You let me do this, and I will do anything you want, go anywhere you want to go. I just want to honor my father.”
It’s almost as if time itself slows down as Lazzaro gestures her closer.
The barrel never leaves my forehead as she takes it from him.
“Cas,” I tremble again. “Don’t do this.”
She allows herself one steadying breath.
Never before have I been so terrified, terrified that one of us is about to die and that she will have to bear that burden for the rest of her life.
I’d rather kill myself than put that on her shoulders.
I glance around. My knife sticks out of the neck of a goon nearby. Cas’ reflexes aren’t as good as mine if I can just reach over and grab it…
“You are the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
BANG.
The sound rings in my ears as I watch Lazzaro stagger back in shock, blood oozing from his chest over his heart.
He gapes a couple of times as if trying to comprehend what’s happening. But as his lifeblood spills onto the floor, his body soon follows.
Claudio Lazzaro falls on his back, his vacant eyes staring open-mouthed at the ceiling as blood pools around him.
Cas killed him.
Cas shot him through the heart and killed him.
I’m panting hard when the ringing in my ears fades enough for me to hear again.
“Cas,” I whisper in disbelief.
There’s a clatter, the sound of her throwing the gun away.
I stand, whirling around to look at her. Her tiny frame holds the weight of what she’s just done, but her face remains unmoved.
“We’re even.”
Stunned, I watch as she reaches down the neckline of her dress and pulls out a stack of bills. She steps forward, pressing them into my chest. “This should cover the rest of the debt.”
I ignore the money and grab her hand instead. Hundred-dollar bills flutter to the ground, turning red as they land at our feet. “Please, let me explain. Let me take you back to the brownstone. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“You’re dead to me,” she repeats. Her words somehow cut even deeper than before.
I cling to her hand as I fall to my knees, not caring that I’m kneeling in a dead man’s blood. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
She pulls her arm from my grasp, and I fall onto my hands before her. It feels like my heart has been carved from my chest.
“Don’t try to find me.”
“Please,” I beg. The word spills out over and over again. The tightness in my chest suffocates me as I hyperventilate.
I can’t lose her. I can’t. How can I live with myself? How can I breath without her? I’d do anything. Anything. Please. Don’t go. Please.
But when I finally gather my courage to look up at her again, Cassandra Bellini is nowhere to be found.