Marcello #2
It's the unbearable weight of love—new and raw and wild—pressing in on me from all sides, like the world is trying to cave in around my ribs and suffocate the part of me that only ever belonged to her.
I love her. It's been there all this time, and I pray with all my heart to a God I've never believed in not to take her from me.
How can I lose her now, when it's finally becoming clear to me that I'm capable of love?
How many times has she said I love you? How many times have I felt guilty for not being able to reciprocate the words?
Have almost resented her for saying it, because I thought myself incapable of it?
Well, the joke is on me now, because I keep saying it to her, over and over, and she can't hear me. "I love you, tesoro. Ti amo."
Luciano calls me just as the doctors and nurses whisk Violet away from me.
The urge to go after her, to be with her, is nearly as strong as the one to smash my phone against the wall.
With a herculean will, I stop myself from doing either and pick up the call instead.
I need something to distract myself. I'm not sure where my self-control comes from, but years of being a boss must have left their mark on me, and my first question is regarding the other casualties.
"The girls are all okay. Shook up, but physically unharmed," Luciano informs me.
Thank fuck for small favors. Their well-being was and is my responsibility.
I took it on the moment I offered to take them home so Toni and Scarlet could enjoy their honeymoon.
I'm not going to lie and say I cared one way or another about the women, but if anything had happened to them, especially Gigi, it would have put a heavy strain on Toni's and my relationship.
"Three of our guards are dead. Two are wounded; Doc is taking care of them." Luciano continues listing the facts. Which I prefer, I don't need anything sugarcoated. I need the facts to figure out how to go from there.
"I'm not going to be able to inform the families myself this time," I tell him. There's no way I'm leaving this fucking hospital until Violet is in the clear, and probably not even then, not until she gets to go home with me.
"I'll do it. Pippa is with the women right now, setting up security details for them, but more than likely, they were only collateral damage."
I agree.
"How is Violet?" He tries to hide it, but the strain in his voice is evident. He cares for her. Hell, who wouldn't? She is the most likable person I've ever met.
"The doctors just took her back. She was shot in the head, and she…
seized twice…" I trail off. Both of us know what that means, and it doesn't look good.
"I didn't see a bullet entry, but there was so much fucking blood…
" Again, I trail off, clinging to the idea that headwounds tend to bleed a lot.
All I could do was press my shirt against it to staunch the flow. But her seizures worry me.
"Did we get any of them?" I need a distraction.
"We got two alive, the rest are all dead. Want me to interrogate them?"
I want to be the one doing the interrogation.
I want to make them bleed. I want to feed them their balls and make them eat them for what they did.
That would mean waiting on the interrogation, though, because I'm not leaving this hospital.
Waiting isn't an option either, because Toni will want answers. Soon.
An idea forms in my head, "Bring them here, to the morgue."
The silence on the other side is telling and holds too long, but my idea is perfect. I just need to get the personnel out of the morgue for a few hours. The environment alone should make those two bastards piss their pants and talk.
"Put them both in one of those body bins and let them wait for me," I add. This might be even more effective than my sharks.
"You're the boss," Luciano says, warming up to my idea.
I make sure the doctors will know how to get hold of me and head down to the basement where the morgue is located.
"I need this place for a few hours. Alone," I say after I shoulder my way past the security guards.
"I'm so sorry," an older woman in a white coat approaches me, "for your loss, but you can't be—"
"Doctor Grand," I interrupt her, reading the name on her badge. "I will pay anybody working here one million dollars to go take an early, very long lunch."
She stares at me, dumbfounded, blinks a few times, "Mr…" she looks at me questioningly.
"It's better you don't know my name, Doctor. Give me your banking information, and I'll deposit the money, or… " I shift my jacket over where my Glock is holstered, letting the threat hang in the air.
She swallows, visibly shaken, and appears about to call security.
A young man, also wearing a white coat, holds out his phone to me. "Here."
His banking app is up. I pull my phone out and within seconds, he stares at the new amount in his account, going from a hundred and six dollars to one million and a hundred and six. "I'm outta here," he announces.
I tilt my head, looking at the good doctor. Seems like it's only her and her assistant here. With a nod, she pulls out her phone, and I repeat the transaction, noting that her account looked a bit healthier even before the million went through.
"I'd appreciate it if you kept anybody else who might show up here away," I add.
She nods. "It's all yours until eight this evening, that's when the shift changes."
"That should do."
I watch her walk out and text Luciano that the coast is clear on my end.
While I wait for my second to show up with our guests, I take the opportunity to look around the morgue.
Four metallic tables stand in the center, one of which is occupied by a naked, middle-aged man with a tag tied to his toe.
His grayish coloring tells me that he's dead.
The other tables are empty. The walls and floor, even the ceiling, are tiled in subdued gray.
One wall reminds me of a doctor's office, lined with cupboards and drawers and a long counter, filled with instruments, cotton balls in glass containers, gauze, and so on.
Several industrial-looking sinks occupy a smaller wall, and the last is filled with the ominous-looking refrigerated body chambers you see in all the TV shows.
The floor is slanted and interspersed with six drains to facilitate easier cleanup. This place is fucking perfect and gets even better when I take a look at all the instruments, scalpels, saws, scissors, and two of my favorites: rib cutters and bone chisels. Fucking perfect.
The door opens. Luciano and four of my guards push two gurneys in; the bodies on them are covered with sheets from head to toe, and neither shows any movement.
Not until Luciano lifts the sheet off the first. The man is tied to the gurney with a gag shoved down his throat.
His head moves from side to side in wild terror.
Terror that grows when he realizes where he is. His eyes nearly bulge out of his head.
Marco begins to open the body chambers. "This one is empty."
Dario and Kurt push the gurney with the muzzled man toward it. He thrashes as much as his bindings allow, but the process of transferring him from the gurney to the refrigerated unit is pretty simple. Marco closes the door.
"Not sure how long the air inside will last," Kurt advises.
He's right. The last thing I will allow for those bastards is the easy way out by suffocating.
"Open the door every ten minutes to let some air in," I order. "I'll be back in thirty. Keep 'em alive."
"You've got it, boss." Luciano busies himself helping get the second man into a unit, while I step into the hall. The security guards from earlier have left. Doctor Grand must have called them off. Smart woman.
I take the elevator up and march by the waiting line of people by the registration desk, uncaring of the young man holding his obviously broken arm, and demand, "Violet Orsi."
I signed her in under my name; that will carry more weight with the doctors and nurses treating her.
"Uhm, one second, sir," the young woman behind the ridiculous Plexiglas wall looks flustered. Annoyed, I watch her fingers fly over the keyboard.
"She's in surgery, sir." She announces in a wavering voice. "Would you like me to—"
I turn away, uninterested in the rest of her answer. She knows shit.
"Violetta Carbone!" A loud voice rings out over the buzz in the emergency waiting area. "Where the fuck is my daught—You!" He sees me and strides straight forward.
I take a second to size the man up. In his early fifties, he looks like he's in his prime. Honed muscles, a little gray around the sides of his head, scars and wrinkles war for territory on his weathered face. Il Macellaio—The Butcher—aka Enzo Carbone, Violet's father.
My eyes narrow, search for his men, who sure as fuck have to be here as well, but I don't see anybody.
"Not here," I snarl at Enzo the moment he gets in my face. If he were anybody else, I would have shot him on the spot, uncaring of my audience. I'm not in the mood for family drama.
I march through the secured door that leads into the real emergency area, and there, I open glass sliding doors until I find one empty. I'm furious, but not enough to pull a writhing, obviously pregnant woman and her distraught husband out of one, or a mother and her screaming child from another.
"She's in surgery," I tell Enzo the moment we're alone in a room and I've closed the door behind us.
"What the fuck happened? How could you allow my daughter to get hurt?" He accuses, stepping right into my face.
I push him back. "I didn't allow anything. You and I both know how our world works. Otherwise, you wouldn't have lost her in the first place."
His pissed off expression turns even more volatile at the accusation, but he visibly takes a deep breath. "How bad is it?"
"I have no fucking idea yet," I tell him.
"Who did it?"