Chapter 3
MARA
I’m in my room getting ready for dinner, staring at a girl I almost recognize: mascara, a neat middle part, a mouth that remembers how to smile on cue.
Once, family dinners were the best part of my day, but that was before Pa died. Now they feel like performance.
Dress the part. Sit straight. Don’t make Emiliano worry. Don’t give Lucio ammunition. Don’t let Matteo read between the lines. Don’t remind Romiro that I’m the softest target in a hard world.
I set the powder puff down and push back from the vanity. The pink, the white, the soft yellow…my room used to fit me. Lately, it feels like a lie someone forgot to repaint.
The last year stripped me raw. Nightmares. Waking up with the taste of fear in my mouth. Listening for footsteps that never come and guns that sometimes do.
I leave before I can talk myself out of it. The townhouse hums with the energy of this evening: the low clink of glass, the faint hiss of espresso, a radio murmuring in the kitchen. Halfway down the stairs, I pause at the doorway, drawn by voices.
Lucio is leaning on the door like he owns the frame, grinning at Ma. She stands at the stove, stirring something that smells like garlic and tomato and a sweetness I haven’t let myself feel in months.
“Lucio,” she says like trouble has finally come home.
“Ma.” He kisses both her cheeks before she can scold him for whatever he definitely did.
He looks good. He always does. The exhaustion around his eyes hides under swagger.
“You look tired,” she says anyway.
“I look good,” he counters, cocky.
She snorts, smoothing a hand over his cheek, but her eyes search, taking inventory. “Always so full of yourself. Sit. Eat.”
Quickly moving away from the door, I head to the living room.
Stepping inside, I spot Emiliano in his usual spot on the couch, long legs stretched out, voice low as he talks to Romiro.
Valentina sits tucked beside him with Bianca curled against her shoulder.
Bee’s tiny hand is fisted tight in the knit of Val’s sweater.
The sight loosens something in my chest and tightens something else.
“Hey,” I say.
Val’s face softens, a flash of relief like she’s been counting heads.
“Come here,” she whispers, careful not to jostle Bee.
I slide in next to her, my fingers brushing the top of Bianca’s downy hair. She makes a soft sound, a sigh more than anything, and nuzzles closer to Val.
Ma walks in a couple seconds later, leading Lucio into the room.
“You spoil her, you know,” Val says to Lucio when he swoops in to steal the baby like a thief.
He rocks her against his chest, chain catching Bee’s little hand.
“Yeah? And?” he says, his thumb stroking her tiny fingers.
Val rolls her eyes, a small smile playing on her lips. “You act as if she’s your kid.”
He grins down at Bee, stroking his thumb over her little hand before he says, “She’s the only one who doesn’t give me shit.”
“Yet,” Emiliano mutters, lifting his espresso.
Eli’s expression only ever softens for two people: his wife and his daughter. Everyone else could go to hell for all he cares.
For a few quiet minutes, we all pretend to be normal, as if my brothers don’t run a criminal enterprise. Ma enters with a tray, moving with that calm, efficient grace that used to make us all feel like nothing bad could happen while she was standing. She sets down the glasses.
“Wash your hands,” she says to Lucio without turning.
He smirks and doesn’t move. She reaches up and flicks his ear without looking.
I meet Ma’s eyes when she straightens. There’s something there—pride, worry, love—stitched together so tight I can’t pull one thread without unraveling the rest. I open my mouth to say something, anything that isn’t the ache in my chest, when—
Glass shatters.
It isn’t a dropped cup. It’s the front doors. The sound slices the room in half, and it’s as if time stops. Everything moves in slow motion like we’re in a movie.
Lucio is already moving. Emiliano too. Romiro’s out of his chair like it’s on fire. I don’t think. I reach for Bee on instinct, but Val pulls her in tighter, curling around her. Ma’s hand is already on my shoulder, pushing hard.
“Down,” she breathes.
Men flood the entry like shadows. Masks. Rifles. The world narrows to a barrel, and it becomes clear that a bloodbath is about to ensue.
The first shot sounds like the end of something, gun pointed toward Valentina. Emiliano lunges for Val and the baby, his chair crashing back, wood splintering. Bullets cut the air. The pungent scent of gunfire fills the room, death swirling around as if inevitable.
I don’t see Ma move—I feel it. She throws herself forward, covering Valentina and Bee with her body. She’s small and somehow huge all at once, a shield made of bone and will.
The first shot steals the breath out of the room. And we can’t do anything but watch as Ma jerks. Red blooms fast across her blouse, staining the silver chain at her throat. Another impact snaps her shoulder back.
“No—” Val’s voice breaks as she curls tighter around Bee, who starts to cry, a thin, shocked wail.
Everything in me goes hot, then cold. I hit the floor, crawl toward Ma without standing up, like the bullets will forget me if I make myself small. My palms slip in something wet.
Gunfire cracks again and again. Lucio’s shooting—once, twice, three times—short, controlled. A man drops, mask slipping, his blood painting the wall. Another staggers. Romiro’s already on him. Emiliano turns, rage in his body like a second spine, and puts two into the closest mask. He doesn’t miss.
A muzzle swings toward us. Toward Val. Toward Bee.
The bullet whines by, so close I feel the air peel. It grazes Val’s arm, and she gasps, tightening her hold on the baby like she can will herself into armor.
Lucio puts one between the shooter’s eyes. He falls like he was being held up by pride alone.
Smoke and the copper stench of blood swallow the room as the last man gurgles and goes still. The silence that follows is thick, wrong.
“Ma.” My voice sounds like it belongs to a smaller, stupider version of me.
She’s on the floor, eyes open but not focused, breaths shallow and wet. Emiliano drops to his knees beside her, hands pressing hard over the wound in her chest. Blood slicks his fingers, then his wrists, then his forearms. He doesn’t flinch.
“Stay with me, Ma.” His voice is low, steady, like he’s talking down a bomb.
Her hand reaches for him, smears red across his skin, while her lips shape a word. “Val…”
“I’m here,” Val chokes, rocking Bee, who is crying harder now, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open.
My sister-in-law’s face is white, blood streaking her bare arm, but she won’t let anyone take the baby out of her hands.
I press my palms over Ma’s shoulder wound, because there’s nothing else I can do that doesn’t feel like screaming. Warmth rushes up between my fingers. My stomach flips, threatens to climb into my throat. I keep pressure anyway.
“Ma. Look at me.”
Her gaze drags to my face. For a second, I see it—pride, worry, love—all still there. Then her eyes flutter.
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t you dare—”
“Doctor,” Emiliano bites out, not looking up. “Now.”
“I’m on it,” Romiro says, phone already to his ear, Italian spilling fast and flat like a knife laid on a table.
He rattles the address, the threat, the promise. Then he hangs up and starts tearing the tablecloth, turning fabric into bandage with clean, precise hands.
Lucio drags one of the bodies into the light. He jerks the mask down, stares, and something in his face goes uglier than I’ve ever seen it.
“Outfit,” he says, voice like a door slamming. “Chicago.”
Emiliano’s mouth flattens into a line. He presses harder; Ma groans. The sound is small, and it breaks me anyway.
“Stay awake,” I whisper. “Please.”
She tries to smile at me. It comes out like a twitch. She tries to say something, but the hand she had on my cheek falls limp by her side.
Sirens thread into the edges of the moment. Outside noise returns in pieces. Someone down the block shouting. Tires on wet pavement. My heartbeat in my ears.
The paramedics take too long and no time at all. The door bursts open again, and it’s just uniforms and bright bags and hands. They move us as if we’re furniture. I want to hit them. I want to kiss their feet.
“Chest wound,” Emiliano grinds out. “Left shoulder. She’s losing too much—”
“We’ve got her,” one says, and I hate him for being calm. They cut fabric, slide oxygen over her mouth, start a line. “Ma’am, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand.”
Her fingers twitch. It’s enough to make me swallow and keep my hands where they’re told to be until they usher me back.
One paramedic reaches for me. “Miss, we need space—”
“I’m not moving,” I say, and it comes out like a growl.
I’m kneeling in blood. My tights are ruined. My hands are red to the wrists. I don’t care.
Val’s still on the floor, Bee clutched to her like she’s afraid someone will pry her away.
Emiliano’s head snaps toward her arm, and he goes colder than a January night. “She’s hit.”
“It’s a graze,” Val says, voice shaking. “I’m fine. Bianca, please—”
“We’re transporting both,” another paramedic says, taking in the blood, the guns, the room that looks like the end of a war. “Now.”
They try to argue logistics until Emiliano looks at them. That ends it.
“Take them,” he says, and it isn’t a request.
Lucio’s already got a hand on the gurney, jaw locked, glare daring anyone to tell him he’s not climbing into the ambulance.
Romiro presses a wad of sterile gauze into my hands. “Hold this on her shoulder. Hard.”
“I am,” I say, and my voice is suddenly very small.
We move in a blur. The stretcher lifts, Ma’s body seeming too light for what it holds. The oxygen mask fogs with each shallow breath. Someone says something about pressure, about stabilizing, about minutes.
“Lucio,” Val says, voice threadbare.
She’s crying and telling Bee it’s okay in the same breath. There’s blood down her arm and she doesn’t notice.
“I’ve got you,” he says.