Chapter 33
Matt
Some deals required finesse.
Others required a new-found detachment to survival, decorated with a neat bow of no more fucks to give. I was facing the latter.
“Follow me,” One of the Yaks said after hanging up the phone.
Of course those dumb fucks called their boss, who so eagerly ordered them to take me to him.
I sensed I was exactly where he wanted me to be. I could almost see the fucking gloating glee in his torn eyes, thinking that I’d fallen into his damn trap.
Maybe I had. But the small army attentively tailing me provided me with a sense of security that had caution flying out the window of my Hummer at the first turn after leaving Dea Tacita.
After the note I received yesterday, I had no doubt this was Hiro’s doing. I had taken it as another bluff that lasted a damn year, and that was my fault. I’d been cooking in his threats for far too long, and that had numbed me to their danger.
I was wide fucking awake now.
The only piece that didn’t fit here was what Francesca’s well-being meant to him. Was she a trading coin? Her safety for my head? A damn beautiful lure that would ensure I willingly walked right through his doors and sat my ass on a silver platter for him?
He got me there, for sure.
Somehow, deep inside my chest, a new suspicion that Jax could be involved spread through my veins like wildfire. It made sense. Too much fucking sense.
Jax had feelings for her, and he knew well enough that I would follow her to Hell and back. Taking her ensured that I would be delivered, signed, and fucking sealed to his father. His motivations were clear. He wanted my life. He wanted Francesca.
I still had my own gun pressed against my temple and the other pointing at the driver of the car they had so gracefully asked me to get into.
There was no way I was ditching the guns before we got there. And contrary to every other hostile situation, bargaining with my life was what kept me bulletproof.
The convoy this car was leading was only three cars long, with four Yakuza soldiers in each one. We would have no trouble taking all of them out at once. The only variable now was how many would be waiting for us to arrive and if we indeed had a rotten apple driving along with us.
Everyone sat in tension as we drove further upstate into the countryside. The air was as thick as the lead I was dying to fill these fuckers with. But I was steady. My veins had frozen over with the cold blood pumping through them. Any shred of anxiety was left back at Dea Tacita. I was laser-focused.
A man on a fucking life-changing mission to get the love of his life back.
I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew for an absolute fact that, at the first opportunity, Hiro wouldn’t hesitate to take me out and see me suffer. And still, it was all good, as long as Francesca was safe.
She’s no damsel in distress. She can hold her own, but I still felt responsible for putting her in the middle of this mess. At the end of the day, it was me who Hiro wanted. She was just a means to an end. Right?
For miles, there was nothing but trees and empty roads all the way until the same car we had been chasing back in New York crossed paths with us. The same black Mercedes AMG. It was flashy enough to remember.
Despite the speed both cars were traveling at, it was like the whole world slowed down for a couple of seconds, allowing me to finally look into Francesca’s kidnapper’s eyes.
One glance was all it took to figure out that the men inside that car were fucking Russians.
Bratva. The fucker wasn’t lying.
I memorized his face in a nanosecond and promised that one day I would wipe that fucking smirk off of it. This mess just got stinkier by the minute. A real clusterfuck of different criminal organizations stirred together. It was a recipe for disaster.
We turned onto an unpaved road that led to an imposing Manor at the end of the long driveway. I discreetly looked back, confirming if my backup was following, but couldn’t see a trace of them. That was probably for the best. They needed to leave enough distance between us that nobody would spot them.
As soon as the car stopped, I tried to gain some time, waiting for reinforcements. There were another four Yaks by the entrance of the house waiting for us, not leaving their designated spots while Hiro’s men spilled out of the cars, quickly overcrowding the space.
The guy in the passenger seat stood out and came to open my door.
“What a gentleman,” I mockingly cooed.
“Give me your guns. This is where you wanted to be, but you’re not moving another inch until you give us those guns.”
I handed him my guns before stepping out of the car, taking my sweet time to place my feet on the ground and shutting the door. I was openly vulnerable, with no guns, no concealed weapons, but not for long.
That same soldier made the dire mistake of putting his dirty hands on me, trying to pull me away from the car that shielded me from all the other fucking Yaks in the front courtyard.
I grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm with my other hand, and in a fraction of a second, he was kneeling in front of me, wheezing in pain.
“No fucking touching. You might have the guns, but don’t think for a minute that I’m at a disadvantage. That would be your life’s biggest mistake.”
I let him go, only now noticing that I had fifteen guns pointed at me. Still, I was confident that not a single one of them would pull that trigger. I was here, wasn’t I? Hiro wanted me all for himself.
Directing me into the house, they rushed to leave the open space, but I had a different idea. I needed them all out in the open, vulnerable to the party I was intending to throw.
“Aren’t you going to search me for more weapons?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Do I really have to do every. fucking. thing for you?” I almost sang in annoyance, smiling as they were all too eager to buy the bullshit that I was selling.
It was more than clear these men were undertrained and completely underprepared for the war to come, and I was satisfied to know that, for the first time, my job would be a little less hard. After we wiped off so many of them, Hiro must have been desperate, recruiting all the bottom list soldiers he could. So long as they could hold a weapon.
Who hasn’t been there and done that? I had a fucking DEA agent riding over in one of the cars I was trying to buy some time for.
They held me against the car, facing the dirt road, while one of them frisked me down, taking out the blades, guns, and brass knuckles I had hidden on me, making them waste the little precious time they still had.
I saw the cloud of dust that formed in the distance, and I knew my men were close. They turned me around, and the moment I’d been waiting for arrived. The projection of two red dots on the forehead of two of these fuckers told them my army was here and ready for the fight.
I couldn’t hold back the crooked grin that spread across my lips even if I tried. Crossing my arms in front of me, dipping my hands under my jacket, I fake drew two guns and pointed my indexes at their heads, earning a light chuckle from the crowd in front of me.
“BANG!” I flicked my thumbs, and they were both dead.
The sudden silence was quickly replaced by the sound of dozens of guns being drawn again as they took their defensive stance, waiting for what was about to hit them.
From Mafia, to mercenary scorpions, to a fucking DEA agent who I still wasn’t sure played on our team. These inexperienced Yakuza men were in for the fight of their lives.
With the commotion, I took the chance to roll under the large SUV, taking cover on the other side as my backup finally turned onto the driveway.
Silencers on, shooting Yaks down like fucking wild ducks. I crawled over to one of them, grabbed his discarded gun from the floor, and ran to the entrance of the house.
Once inside that damn house, and given that all hell had broken loose, my invisible shield of protection was gone. So, on my way in, I grabbed one of them and dragged him with me.
“Where are they?” I barked in a hushed tone.
He pointed to a pair of double doors at the end of the foyer to the right. I dragged him all the way over to the other end of the mansion. No use in wasting a perfectly useful Yakuza tool.
“Here?” I asked again, waiting for his confirmation just before I had him flying, bulldozing the doors, busting them open upon impact.
And there she was.
The light of my fucking life being stained with the dirt under Hiro’s fucking fingers.
“Get your fucking hands off my wife!”
Before I could even blink, Hiro was holding a gun straight up, burying it under Francesca’s jaw.
“Matteo!” He chimed, as if he was happy to see me. “I’m glad you could join the party. I don’t believe you’ve met your father-in-law?” Hiro asked, pointing his chin to the other side of the room, having me slowly walk inside to see what the fuck he was talking about.
As soon as I stepped in, I recognized her father. The spitting image of her twin brothers, his sharp black eyes looking back at me, the same shape and intensity I knew all too well.
Her father! Her own fucking father! I thought the man would be six feet deep by now, and to be honest, we would be better off if he actually was. It was bad enough he had betrayed the Cosa Nostra by siding with the Yakuza against us, but bringing his daughter, my wife , into this fucking mess was just unforgivable.
He held a gun drawn in my direction, an unreadable face that seemed ridiculously detached from reality, given that Hiro was holding his daughter at gunpoint. My gun swerved from one to the other while I did my best to keep my eye on both of them at the same time.
“Let her go, Hiro! This is between the two of us. You’ve got me right where you wanted. Just set her free.” I tried to bargain.
“I will. I am a man of my word, and the same way I promised I would bring your pitiful family down, I promised my new Italian business associate that I would not harm his daughter.” He replied while Francesca squirmed under his grasp, making him bury the barrel deeper into her flesh. “It’s a simple trade. A life for a life. What’s it going to be?”
“Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question, or are you really that fucking stupid?” I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of my mouth. “I didn’t come to play poker, I’m here to recover what you took from me. I don’t care if the price is my life, but I’d still settle quicker for yours.”
“Come on, where are your manners? This is your final judgment day. I’m not sure that’s the attitude you should bring to meet your maker. Besides, your grandfather would be so disappointed in you. I’m a believer, you know, Matteo? There’s an afterlife for sure, and I can see the almighty Don Battaglia shaking his head in disapproval of his choice of heir. His death is on you, you know that, right?”
“You motherfucker!” I took a step further, raging puffs heaving out my nostrils. “YOU fucking killed him. This little guilt trip you’re setting up isn’t sticking.”
“You’re right, and it was a pleasure.” A slick grin covered his face, and I wanted nothing else but to beat the living hell out of him until he had no teeth left to show.
“Killing you will be my pleasure,” I replied, my voice stepping down into the deepest pits of hell. “Even if I have to die trying.”
“Now that sounds like a fair trade.”
“Put down the gun, Son.” Francesca’s father decided to chime in with his fucking two cents. “Hiro, release my daughter and let her come to me. Please. Matteo will not shoot you if you do.”
“Let her go first, and I will lay down the weapon,” I agreed. “I’ll kill you with my fucking hands instead.”
Hiro eased his grasp on Francesca as well as the tension on the gun, letting her stand straighter. As a sign of goodwill, I held up my free hand in surrender before pointing my gun up to the ceiling.
I still clung to it, wary of everyone’s movements in this room. There was nothing else preventing Hiro from carving a bullet into my skull like he so desperately craved to. But that lifeboat was soon going to sink.
Francesca slowly started backing up towards her father, and now it was my turn to set down my weapon as agreed. I kneeled, placing my gun on the wooden floor, my eyes swerving from Hiro to Francesca the whole time, making sure she was safe.
The tension was thick. One single wrong move and everything would go to shit.
At that precise moment, time stood still.
All I could hear was my blood pumping in my ears, but my heart was still. Stopped mid-beat, waiting for Francesca to be completely out of harm’s way.
Slowly, I stood back up, not allowing the apparent defeat to show on my posture. After all, I had won this round – Francesca was out of Hiro’s dirty grasp. Now all I needed was to figure out a way to take that damn gun out of his hand and kill him with it.
I looked straight down the barrel of that damn gun. It mocked me with its shiny sparkle, such beauty concealing the bite of death. My eyes then focused on Hiro’s. There was a glint of victory in his sardonic stare.
Not a single blink came between us as he stood there taking in the moments before he won this long-standing battle. He was gonna shoot me, and I was okay with that.
Francesca was being pulled out of the room by her father as she struggled to set herself free of his hold.
“NOOOOOOOO!” Francesca screamed in unison with the bang of a gunshot.
Instead of the bite of a bullet, I felt my body being tackled to the ground, catching me off guard.
Another gun went off, this time from where Francesca and her father were standing, hitting Hiro on his shoulder.
This was the perfect moment to get my gun back and kill him once and for all. But my body was frozen to my spot as soon as I saw Francesca lying lifeless on top of me.
“Jesus fucking Christ, no!”
Before I could sink deeper into misery, another gun went off, and my eyes followed the trajectory of that damn bullet. Hiro shot Francesca’s father right in the middle of his forehead.
It was all so damn fast it was hard to keep up with the action.
I looked back down at Francesca, frantically looking for the wound.
“Wake up, Baby. Wake up, please!” I plead, pulling back the rogue strands of hair that clung to her placid face and cupping her cheek. Her eyes remained closed, her lashes fluttering ever so slightly as if caught in a distant dream.
This couldn’t be happening. That fucking bullet was mine, not hers. Not hers.
“Now, isn’t this the perfect ending?” Hiro gloated from the heights, but I couldn’t even spare him the honor of a glance. “And what a picture-perfect image.”
I hugged Francesca’s body closer to mine, hoping that by some miracle, my life would be transferred into her. The tears that ran down my face were free-falling, coming straight from the bottom of my chest.
Cradling her in my arms, I squeezed her against me. Her body frighteningly still, her breath shallow and faint. The world around us was a blur of chaos and noise, but all I could focus on was the weight of her limp form against my chest. Blood pooled around us, dark and warm, soaking into my clothes.
“Wake up, Francesca. Please.”
The pain in my chest was unbearable, a crushing force that made it hard to breathe. I could hear the shouts of the ongoing war outside, but it felt distant, irrelevant. None of it mattered if she didn’t wake up, if she didn’t open those eyes and look at me one more time. I’d take the bullets, the pain, the death. I’d take it all if it meant she would live.
“Look at me, Matteo. I want you to look me in the eyes before I kill you. Just like your grandfather did.”
The burning need to react fired up inside me, but pulling Francesca back from the darkness was much more important than whatever would follow. So, I ignored him and kept whispering into her ear.
“Come on, Baby, I know you can hear me. Come back to me, please.” I begged, my voice raw with desperation. “There’s so much to live for, so damn much.”
The pain in my chest turned into a raw, gnawing agony as if my heart was being torn apart piece by piece. I couldn’t lose her. The possibility hit me like a hammer, breaking something deep inside me that could never be fixed.
I pressed a trembling kiss to her forehead, my tears falling onto her skin.
“I love you,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat. “I love you so much.”
Hiro was standing tall right before us, but I didn’t care. Let him come. Let him do his fucking worst. Nothing he could do would hurt more than this. I would die here, with her, in this moment. And maybe, in some way, that would make up for the fact that I couldn’t save her.
“I SAID LOOK AT ME!” Hiro shouted, and I could almost feel the pressure of his finger on that trigger.
“Do your worst.” I muttered, not giving him the satisfaction of a single glance. I was about to die, but Hiro Naoki could go fuck himself together with whatever he wanted.
I shut my eyes, clutching Francesca tighter to my chest before hearing the gun go off as expected.
Life had been good to me. I had an amazing family, the life I’d dreamt of, and in the end, I even got to experience the kind of love I thought I never would. Dying now was a pity, but if Francesca never opened her eyes again, it was nothing but mercy.
I expected pain. Burning. Unbearable stinging.
Instead… Nothing.
Before I could turn my head around, Hiro’s body slumped onto his knees, his hand clasped over his neck. A cascade of blood flowed from beneath him as his eyes glossed over in awe, looking at me.
No. Looking beyond me.
Suddenly, Max stepped into view, towering over Hiro, discharging his entire clip into his body without so much as a second thought. Round after round, Hiro’s body jerked as each bullet pierced him while I reveled in the sight before me.
“Matt?” Francesca’s broken voice pulled me out of my stare while Max kneeled in front of us, trying to assess the damage.
My heart pounded in my chest, threatening to burst as I looked down at her, her eyes fluttering open just enough to meet mine.
“Why... why did you do that?” My voice cracked, the words choked with a pain I had never known before. “You’re not supposed to be the hero, Francesca. I am. That’s my role.”
“We’re both villains, Matt,” She said under a grimace meant to be a smile, referring to who we were and the life we lead. “And we’re both heroes in each other’s story. It’s just that our capes are made of love and sacrifice.”
“Not this sacrifice.” I shook my head, tears blurring my vision as Francesca’s eyes fluttered closed again under her last whisper.
“Whichever one is needed.”