Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Present Day
“Where are they? Raya! Sani!” Elenora hurtled through the Buccini mansion like a woman on a mission. Giovanni emerged from the double doors that led into the sitting room, his expression dark and his body taut with tension.
“Elle. They’re okay. They’re being treated by the doctors upstairs. They’re with Mamma and Marco. Come in here,” he ordered, nodding at Alessio and me as we followed.
“Doctors? Are they hurt? You said they were okay!” Elle screeched. “What the hell happened, Gio?”
I took a seat on the sofa next to Olivia, who had her eight-year-old daughter beside her and her three-year-old son on her lap.
She greeted me with a kiss on the cheek while Alessio tried to get Elle to stop pacing and calm down enough to listen to what Gio had to say.
I pulled out my tablet, ready to record every detail, because that’s what I was there for.
Everyone else was too emotional, too close to this to think clearly, so I had to be the calm, logical one in these heightened situations. That was my role.
“Where did it happen, Gio? How? Were they outside the estate? Why the hell would you let them go outside?” Elle yelled, jabbing a finger at her older brother’s face.
In all the years I worked for this family, only three people in the world could scream in that man’s face without facing his wrath: his mother, his sister, and his wife.
Gio nodded at Olivia, and she immediately stood, guiding their children out of the room because it was clear this wasn’t a discussion for their ears. Once they had gone, Gio placed his hands on his hips and looked at Elle.
“You know what day it is today, Elle?”
Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded, and all the fight seemed to leave her. She collapsed onto the sofa with Alessio’s arms wrapped around her waist.
“The anniversary of Papi’s death. They went to his grave?”
“I forbade it. For the first time ever, I told them we wouldn’t be going this year because it wasn’t safe to be out in the city right now. But—”
“Sani happened,” she breathed, shaking her head. We all knew how stubborn and impulsive that boy could be, and how devoted he was to his family, both the dead and the living.
Gio nodded, tight-lipped. “The boy doesn’t fucking listen.
We argued this morning when I told them we weren’t going.
He was raging, saying we were letting the enemy win by staying cooped up behind our walls in our own cities.
He wasn’t going to let them stop him from putting flowers on his father’s grave.
The kid has too much passion in his veins. ”
“Sounds like two others we know,” I muttered under my breath, and both Elle and Gio glared at me within seconds.
If you had to sum up the Buccinis in one word, it would be passionate. It always made me laugh that they could never see how similar they all were. Santino was a mash-up of both Gio and Elle. Headstrong, stubborn, impulsive, reckless, but also insanely loyal, protective, and so damn passionate.
“Sani’s right, though,” Alessio said, shrugging. “This is our country. We shouldn’t have to keep our children protected behind walls because of foreign threats. We fought too hard to build the empire we have, where our families feel safe, to go backwards now. This ends. Tomorrow.”
Alessio locked eyes with me, and I nodded. That was the go-ahead I needed. Tomorrow, I’d be on a plane to America.
“How?” Gio asked, perched on the arm of a sofa. “What’s your plan?”
“I’ll fill you in later. Once we know what happened to Sani and Raya.”
Gio rubbed his forehead. “Sani sneaked into my office and sent a direct message from my laptop to their main bodyguard, saying I had given permission for them to visit our papi’s grave today.
I was in a meeting in Venice, so I wasn’t here to see them leave.
And of course, wherever Sani goes, Raya goes too.
They took a car and drove straight to our family’s mausoleum.
Two unlicensed cars pulled into the cemetery and ambushed them. It was an attempted abduction.”
“Oh my God,” Elle exclaimed, lowering her head into her hands. “How did they get out of there?”
Gio huffed. “That’s the part we aren’t quite clear on yet.
But none of the three soldiers who escorted Sani and Raya made it out alive.
Sani hit the distress alert on his watch, and Maximus went out with three cars of men, expecting a battle.
He found Sani walking down the road, covered in blood, carrying Raya in his arms. Raya has a broken arm.
Sani has a deep slash to the back of his head and a knife wound to his thigh. ”
My eyebrows shot up my forehead. “And he still managed to carry Raya despite those injuries?”
A proud smile lit up Gio’s face. “Of course. The boy’s a tank and a Buccini. He’d protect his sister with everything he had.”
“Gio, do you think he killed someone? He’s only seventeen!” Elle cried, hating the very idea of her brother being put in a situation where he had no choice but to take a life. Elle knew that feeling all too well.
“He’s seventeen, but he’s no longer a child, Elle. You know what Sani’s like. He’s been craving action since he could hold a gun.”
I didn’t doubt it. Sani was a mafioso from the day he was born. It ran in his blood.
Elle shook her head. “But… Raya. They must have been terrified.”
“And these were definitely Americans?” I asked.
“Si. I just got off the phone with my cleanup team. Six American soldiers. Four dead. Two badly injured. They’re in my cells.” His black eyes gleamed with sadistic malevolence, promising unbearable pain.
“Don’t kill them,” I ordered. “We need hostages.”
“But we can torture them, right?”
Our heads whipped around as Marco, Cecilia, Raya, and Sani entered the room.
The question came from the teenager, who had a large bandage covering his thigh beneath baggy gym shorts and an angry black eye beginning to show.
Apart from his injuries, he looked as if he were buzzing out of his skin, ready for another fight.
Clearly, the adrenaline was still coursing through him.
Raya was tucked into Cecilia’s side, her arm in a sling, shaken but otherwise fine.
“Raya! Sani!” Elle leapt up, racing towards them and pulling them both into a tight hug. Sani allowed it for about three seconds before he peeled himself out of her arms and walked towards us men.
“I will torture them, si,” Giovanni said with a sharp warning at his younger brother. “You. Will not.”
Sani’s brown eyes flickered with that Buccini fire. I smirked behind my tablet, waiting for the drama to unfold. It was always like living in a soap opera with this lot.
“That’s not fair! They are mine to torture!”
“You’re seventeen, Sani!” Elle argued, keeping Raya pressed against her as she walked back to the sofas. “You shouldn’t be torturing anyone.”
“I’ll be eighteen in a few weeks. Think of it as an early birthday present. And no offence, Sis, but I just shot a man in the eye and bashed another’s brains out with a headstone. Torturing the bastards who got away from me should be a reward.”
“Sani!” Cecilia scolded him when Raya closed her eyes and turned her face into Elle’s chest.
“Elle, take Raya up to her room, please. She doesn’t need to relive this,” Gio commanded, shaking his head at Sani.
They were about to leave, but Raya lunged at Sani, wrapping her only good arm around his waist and burying her face in his chest. He hugged her, tilting his head to the top of her hair, and whispered something to her that none of us could hear.
She nodded, sniffling, then let go and walked away with Elle.
I had to admire the bond they shared. I wished Nerina could have that one day, a sibling she could be that close with.
They were more than brother and sister. They were best friends.
Sani flopped into an armchair with a mischievous grin, then winced as he tried to lift his legs onto the footstool. “Fratello, can I have a whiskey? Take the edge off the pain?”
Alessio and I had to hold back a laugh that nearly burst out at this kid’s balls. Giovanni grabbed Sani’s thigh, pressing his fingers against the wound, which made Sani cry out in anguish.
“What? This pain?” Gio snarled, then let go.
“Ow, cazzo! What did you do that for?” Sani shouted, looking to his mamma for backup. But he wouldn’t find it.
“Sani! What were you thinking? You foolish, stupid boy!” she shouted instead. He rolled his eyes.
“I wasn’t going to dishonour Papi’s memory by not visiting him today. We always go; we’ve never missed it. What would he think of me if he knew I hadn’t visited just to hide behind the walls and guards from the Americans? I’m Vincenzo Buccini’s son, and I’ll never hide in fear from anyone.”
“That is not the point, Sani. I gave you an order. I forbade you from going for your own safety. You put not only your own life in danger but Soraya’s too!” Gio yelled.
“I saved her! I would never let anyone hurt her! You know that.”
“How do you explain her broken arm?” Gio shouted, his voice so deafening that my teeth chattered.
Sani sank lower into his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “Or the fact that you just traumatised her because she saw her brother, the person she loves most in this entire world, brutally beat a man to death?”
“So... what? You wanted me to let them take us? I thought you’d be proud of me,” he sulked.
Gio pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Once again, I was trying not to laugh because it really wasn’t funny. But I was kind of on the kid’s side here.
“I am proud of you,” Gio huffed. “So fucking proud.” He ruffled Sani’s black curls, and a small smirk tugged at the boy’s lips.
“But I am also beyond furious with you. I’m allowed to be both.
You’re too impulsive and reckless, Sani.
You don’t think things through. But… you saved your sister and yourself today. You did well.”