Chapter 23 Bruno
brUNO
Everything’s hot.
Too hot.
Saoirse stands in front of me with the saddest smile on her face.
I try to reach for her but something is weighing my hands down and I can’t quite lift them fast enough.
Words catch in my throat and burn with how desperately I want to say something, anything to get her to speak to me but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
Her eyes close and tears roll down her cheeks.
Dark regret consumes me until nothing exists except a warmth that repeatedly tightens around my left hand.
It’s the only thing I have to focus on so that’s where my attention goes until a strange, repetitive beeping catches my attention.
It grows louder and louder with each passing second, sometimes switching up in its rhythm but mostly settling back at the same pace.
Until I open my eyes.
Bright light stabs at my eyeballs and I close them again with a groan, which causes the warmth around my hand to tighten painfully.
“Bruno?” Mary’s worried voice drifts through the fog hovering in my mind. “Bruno!”
Mary. She’s here. Where is here?
Where am I?
The second time I open my eyes, I’m greeted with eggshell white walls, slatted blinds hanging in front of a square window, Mary’s worried, tear-filled face hovering beside me, and just behind her head, several machines detailing information I barely recognize.
“M–Mary?”
“Oh, thank God!” She screws up her eyes causing the tears to fall. “I was so scared you’d never wake up!”
“Where…” What happened? The last thing I remember, I was with Saoirse. “What happened?”
“Oh, God,” Mary sobs. “I can’t believe you’re awake. I thought they finally got you. After everything, why won’t they leave us alone?”
My vision clears with each blink and I grip Mary’s hand back as tightly as I can. “What?”
“That bitch, Saoirse,” Mary spits out through her soft sobs. “She tried to kill you!”
There’s no way that’s true, is it? My brow tightens as I search back, trying to recall exactly what happened the last time I was awake, but it’s cloudy. “Mary, I don’t think—”
“Don’t you try to defend her!” Mary snaps, clutching my hand between both of hers. “I only just got you back and she nearly took you from me again!”
“Tell me… tell me what happened.”
She sniffles and plucks several tissues from the tissue box resting on the bedside table and bundles them to her face. “She shot you and left you for dead in the street, that’s what happened!”
It comes back to me faintly.
Saoirse ordering me to stay away. The crushing realization that this was the last time I’d get to speak to her. The need to make her listen to me and the desperation not to lose her. But she kept telling me to leave and I… I… fuck.
I was such a dick.
I remember the gun in her hand but the events afterward are blocked by darkness and heat.
Did she really try to kill me?
“Shit,” I croak. “I don’t understand…”
“All you need to understand,” comes my father’s deep voice from the doorway, “is that you have done a great thing in taking two bullets for me and this family.”
Two bullets?
“Dad?” Looking past Mary, Domenico stands in the shadows, but when our eyes meet, he walks forward.
“I’m proud of you, Son.”
It’s most likely the drugs but those words instantly create a fuzzy heat behind my eyes that feels like I’m drowning. My heart flutters and a strange, satisfying warmth sweeps through my chest.
“Dad,” I croak.
“Two bullets. That’s a hell of a thing to take for this family,” he says tightly. “And you survived. If that isn’t a show of strength, then I don’t know what is.”
“I told you,” Mary weeps. “I told you he’d be okay. He’s strong, Dad. See? Now stop being such an asshole to him, please! I don’t care why, if it’s because you’re men or what, but Dad, please, I want us to be a family again. Don’t cut him out again, please!”
Her words echo the hope in my own heart and to my surprise, Domenico appears to agree.
“It… has been a wake up call, to say the least. It’s one thing for the Irish to spread rumors about us when we’re already picking up the pieces after several bad years, but to go after my son?
To shoot you and leave you for dead like a dog in the street?
” Anger licks at his words and he grips the back of Mary’s chair. “I will not stand for this.”
Mary swivels and places her hand on his arm, trying to calm him. “Let’s not talk about them then. Let me go tell the doctor he’s awake. It’s been four days and I was so worried!” She stands and leans over me, wetly kissing my forehead. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Bruno.”
“Thanks, sis.”
After she leaves, Domenico moves to the foot of my bed and grips the railing there. “This,” he says, shaking his head. “This means war.”
“Dad—”
“No, son. They tried to take you from me. I know I have not been the warmest since you returned. In truth, after your mother died I closed myself off with grief and when you came back, it was a reminder of how I had failed you as a father. I thought I had enough time to fix that but learning that she left you for dead in the street? My only son?”
I’ve never heard him speak so strongly about me before and the fuzziness behind my eyes threatens to turn into real tears. “I’m okay,” I say hoarsely, glancing down at the swathes of bandages covering my chest. “I’m alive.”
“Yes,” he says, sniffing deeply to control himself. “You are. And when you are up and about, fully recovered… I think it is time I brought you in on a few things.”
“What things?”
“Important things, son. You’ll see. But later, I promise. For now, you have to focus on getting better. Just… trust me. Everything I do, everything I’ve ever done is for this family. And you’ll see that. Soon.”
I feel like I’m floating and a smile slips onto my face that I can’t hide.
This is it. This is finally it.
My father is reaching out to me and I am so ready.
Recovery is swift since none of the bullets pierced anything important.
My doctor warned me to be careful with strenuous activity but assured me that if I followed my treatment plan then I would make a full recovery.
A week later, I was back in the driver’s seat, delivering whatever my father needed to wherever he wanted it.
While my previous routes involved collecting from airports, my new ones involve traveling from a clutter of inner city warehouses and carting containers all the way down to the docks and vice versa.
Domenico tells me it’s the last of the guns from the Irish and drug shipments we’re sending overseas into an untapped European market.
It makes sense since Matteo is currently busy in Italy so I do what he asks while wondering if this is the work he’s going to bring me in on.
Working keeps me busy and recovery is fast and easy, but Saoirse is never far from my thoughts.
I catch wind of minor conflicts breaking out on the borders of Italian and Irish territory, and I hear tales of people getting the powerful end of her fist when they cross the line but no one else ends up with a bullet in them.
Just me. It makes it seem like a targeted attack, and while my memory of that night remains fuzzy, my gut tells me otherwise.
She was angry. Hurting. If she shot me intentionally, then I know she didn’t want to kill me. I was being a complete and utter dick to her, too caught up in my own desperate need to apologize without considering what she wanted from that situation. From me.
It’s water under the bridge now, as much as I hate that conclusion.
Saoirse and I are over.
My feelings for her, while remaining as strong as they ever were, turn into a source of pain as I know I will never see her again.
I ruined what we had. The only decent thing in my fucked up life.
The silver lining is dinner at night with Mary and my father, and sleeping under the Manor roof like I belong there.
It’s what I wanted. It’s what I was owed and yet when I’m alone at night with only my conscience for company, I feel nothing but guilt.
“Bruno?” Mary’s voice drags me out of my thoughts just in time for me to brake at a red light.
“I’m here, sorry. Distracted.”
“While driving?” She screeches and I hear fabric shuffling on the other end of the phone call. “Be careful!”
“I am. I was distracted by driving.” A harmless white lie. “So I’m fine. What were you saying?”
“I was asking if you’d heard from Dad because he hasn’t come home.”
I check the clock. Three in the morning. “You sure?”
“Mmhmm. I waited up but nothing.”
“You tried calling?”
“Yup. Nothing.”
“Maybe he’s busy.”
“He’s always busy,” she grumbles while I resume driving. “I thought you two working together would mean the workload would soften and I’d get to see you both more.”
“Maybe soon. Honestly I don’t think he fully trusts me yet so I’m just trying to keep my nose clean and show him I’m reliable.”
“I overheard what he said to you in the hospital.” Her voice grows quiet. “About Mom.”
“Hm.”
“Do you hate him for that?”
The question catches me off guard as I pull into the docks parking lot. “Why would I hate him?”
“I dunno,” she sighs. “You spent so long trying to get his attention but don’t you hate him for withholding it in the first place? I know I would.”
Do I… hate him? She raises an interesting point. I’ve spent a long time trying to get on his good side but why did I have to do all the work?
“Bruno?” Clarke, the night guard, waves me through. “Bay sixteen for you!”
“Gotcha. Thanks.” Driving onward, I mull over Mary’s question while she hums softly. “I guess I never really thought about it.”
“Really? Even with all that time in prison.”
“Yeah. I was pretty preoccupied there.”
“Yeah.” She yawns loudly and groans. “Well, I just wanted to ask about Dad. I’m tired. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Mary.”
“Love ya!” She hangs up before I can say it back and the cabin falls into darkness as I pull up alongside bay sixteen.
It takes twenty minutes to transfer all the paperwork and sign off on the containers I’ve delivered.
The guys on the night shift seem half asleep, but I’m not in the mood to come down on them.
My wounds are still tender, and it’s a slow night.
So what if they take their time? After signing everywhere I need to sign to make this shit look official, I walk slowly back through bay sixteen while dialing Clarke’s number.
He needs to call me a cab since I don’t have a ride back to the city.
Just as I’m about to hit the dial, a soft, muffled thump catches my attention. Stopping dead in the bay, I squint and scan through the darkness at the piled high shipping containers all ready to be dragged onto the next ship and sent overseas.
Nothing catches my eye amongst the shadows but just as I’m about to move on, it happens again. A soft thump, repeated this time in an incoherent pattern and then something that resembles the wounded squeal of an animal.
Did a dog get into the yard? Wouldn’t be the first time. Abandoning the call, I turn my phone flashlight on and head toward the containers I just dropped off. The noise gets louder but it’s not until I’m passing by the door of one that it hits me.
The noise isn’t coming from an animal stuck in one of the gaps. It’s coming from inside.
My father was clear with his instructions. Drive, deliver, and leave. That’s it.
Nothing more.
But if an animal has somehow snuck inside one of these then I can’t leave it.
The poor thing would waste away in the middle of the ocean.
Grabbing onto the metal lock at the bottom of the door, I slide it upward and use my limited strength due to my healing wounds to haul open the door a few inches.
I half expect a dog to come bolting out as soon as the door opens but nothing does.
The thumping continues now, much louder than before.
Shining my phone inside, I peer around the door expecting to see crates upon crates of weapons, but the crates are only stacked on one side of the container.
On the other, barely visible at the back of the container, is a woman with blood running down her face from a wound she’s created on her forehead from repeated smacking against the container wall.
A woman with rose tattoos down one arm.