Chapter Sixteen
Gaetano
Thoughts and images of Gaby haunted me on the drive to the warehouse.
I kept my composure, the cold mask of disdain I’d perfected over the years concealing the beast raging inside me.
I knew what was coming, but not what to expect.
I hadn’t been part of a full operation since I was eighteen, and understandably, Romeo didn’t want to bring me along, saying I’d be more of a liability than an asset.
He changed his mind when I took him to the target range to watch me shoot, although we both knew there was a difference between shooting a paper target and a man.
“Be aware,” he said as I outfitted myself for battle, “we may not find Gaby in time. Are you sure you can keep your head after you’ve seen what’s been done to her? I can’t risk you charging off like a raging rhino. I’ll put you down myself if you can’t follow orders.”
“I’ve seen more dead bodies than I can count, brother, and if she is injured, I’m her best bet at survival.”
“I’m not talking about injuries.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” I said icily. “Now if you’re done coddling me, let’s go kill the bastards who took my woman.”
With no other reason to keep me from the mission, they made space for me and Vincent in the lead car with Massimo and Dante. But when we approached, a soldier in Fausto’s crew met us.
“They just took off, boss,” he told Massimo.
“Where?” I barked.
His eyes widened when he saw me.
I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him partway through the window. “I said, where?”
“The airport! Fausto and a few men are taking the back roads to get there first and hold them off until you arrive.”
“Stay and alert us if anyone comes back,” Massimo answered. Into his phone, he barked, “Airport!”
There were a dozen ways to get there if you knew the city well, which we did. So I wasn’t surprised when at the fork, several cars went one way while others followed us. I called Simon while Massimo was driving.
“I need a map and the hangar number where the private jet is parked. Text it to my phone.”
Massimo observed me from the corner of his eye, but said nothing while I forwarded the texted information to the men with us.
“I don’t think you need me to tell you that I need to get there first,” I remarked, trying my hardest to show respect to Massimo’s seniority, although I couldn’t help the commanding inflection in my tone. “Do whatever it takes to get me to that hangar.”
Massimo, an expert driver, merely nodded. “You know Romeo won’t approve of you going in, guns blazing, right? We’ll have to wait for backup regardless.”
I ignored the question so I wouldn’t have to answer with a lie. Glancing at the sat nav in the console, I called Fausto. “We’re minutes away. What’s happening?”
“She’s still in the SUV, but they are getting ready to board. The leader, a huge motherfucker by the way, is talking to the pilot.”
“Listen to me, Fausto, do not let that jet hit the runway. Shoot out the tires, do what you have to, but that jet cannot be allowed to leave the ground. We’ll be there in two minutes, be ready.”
I gave Massimo a meaningful glare. “There, I’m not alone. When you pull up to the hangar, Vincent and I will go in from the side and take out the men near the back. Park right in front of the plane, Massimo. Crash into it if you have to, but don’t let it go.”
Seconds later, we were through the gates and racing for hangar nine.
Shots were already being exchanged when we arrived.
The plane was half out of the hangar with both wheels blown.
Vincent and I jumped out of the car and sneaked around the back looking for a way in.
My last image before disappearing was my brother parking in front of the plane with Dante tucked behind the bulletproof doors, shooting at the cockpit.
“Look, boss. This one is open.”
I nodded and he opened it while I held my gun aloft, ready to shoot whoever was on the other side. But no one was there. We snuck inside the back of the hangar and took cover behind a portable air conditioning system.
Up ahead and furthest from the main entrance was the SUV.
I recognized the plate; it was the same car that took her from the club.
I couldn’t see Gaby. Was she ducked down inside the car?
Hiding somewhere in the hangar? God, don’t let her be on the plane already.
Gunfire was all around as their men shot at our men and our men shot at them.
I’d worry about the war later. For now, I had only one job: to save my girl.
We dodged our way to the vehicle, staying low enough to not be noticed in the rearview mirror.
Sweat dropped from my hairline, but not from the heat.
Today was the most important day of my life; I could hear Papa’s words beating in my head like a second pulse: Don’t let them see your weakness, son, they’ll use it against you…
I looked at my fingers, poised for violence, but no tell in sight. I was ready to be the hero, to save her like I had Vincenzo so many times. I’d send Gaby out of here with Vincent, and with my weakness safe from harm, I’d kill every one of those motherfuckers.
I nodded to the car. “Take out the driver and the front passenger. I’ve got the back seat.”
We crouched down and made our way to the blacked-out vehicle, my heart pounding on my ribs as I approached the car.
I lay low and reached up, flinging open the door, as Vincent did the same with the driver’s door.
I shot the goon stupid enough to stick his head out, grabbed his sagging corpse, and yanked it out of the way.
Gaby screamed, drawing the attention of the Russians. Shit! But she was alive. Terrified, disheveled, and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, but alive.
With no time to lose, I jumped to my feet and yanked Gabriella out of the car, shooting the guard on the other side in the face.
“Run!” Vincent was beside me as we raced towards the back.
I kept my body in front of Gaby’s as we made our way towards the back wall and to safety.
But I wasn’t fast enough to escape a stray bullet.
I felt it tear through my chest as I fell forward to the ground.
Gaby screamed, dropping to her knees beside me.
“Tano! Tano! Oh my God! Vincent, help!”
Vincent hauled me over his shoulder and grabbed Gaby’s arm, hustling her in front of him as he ran out with a rain of bullets at our backs. Miraculously, we made it out.
“Boss, we got the girl, but Tano took a bullet and is bleeding pretty bad…Yes, sir.”
That was the last thing I heard before the darkness claimed me.
“I wuv you, Tani.”
Yeah, if you loved me so much, you’d stay out of trouble.
Simba squealed as he tore out of my grasp and ran for the thicket of trees that surrounded our home. His peals of giggles made me smile. But the more I ran, the further and further his laughter became.
“Simba! Vincenzo! Stop running this minute!”
Silence.
“Where are you?” I called.
The woods expanded, becoming a long tunnel that I raced down searching for my youngest brother.
“Help me, Tano!”
That was Gaby’s voice. I turned down another long tunnel, but couldn’t find either of them. Then another voice keened and another, more and more until there were so many voices, I couldn’t think.
“Stop!” I yelled, coming to a standstill.
The voices stopped, replaced with patients of all ages, some who I knew had died. As I walked through them, they stared blankly at me, but something sinister hung in the air, a threat like at any moment, they would turn on me.
When I came to the end of the tunnel and looked back, everyone was gone.
When I turned back around, there were two men standing in front of me, the two Russians from the vehicle, the ones I’d killed, shot dead by my hand.
They looked at me, their expressions blank, blood still pouring from the holes in their heads.
“You killed me,” one uttered.
The other nodded. “You did, you killed us. What about your Hippocratic Oath?”
They were right. I had broken my oath to protect life at all costs to save one life. But that one life was worth the world to me.
“I did,” I admitted. “But you took my heart, and no one gets away with taking away what belongs to me.”
They disappeared, and as I turned to go back the way I’d come, there was no longer a tunnel. I was back in the forest and caught a flash of Simba racing ahead of me.
“I’ve got you now, Vinny.”
I chased after my brother until I was able to scoop him up, but when I looked down at the bundle in my arms, it was Gaby. She placed a hand lightly on my jaw.
“Come back to me,” she said, so sweetly.
I bent hungrily to kiss her, only to have her melt away in my arms, but her voice remained.
“Come back, Tano.”
I followed the sound out of the forest into the sunlight.
“Come back.”
“Come back to me, my love. Please, don’t leave me.”
“I’m coming,” I muttered, and the unfamiliar rasp of my own voice woke me. My eyelids rolled back until I saw above me the most beautiful face I’d ever seen, Gabriella’s, and beside her was Vinny.
His face broke into his widest smile. “It’s about damn time, brother.
You had us all scared.” He straightened up with his phone in hand.
“He’s awake,” I heard him say as he wandered away from my bed.
Only then did I realize I was in the infirmary at the family compound.
I’d been here countless times, but always as a doctor.
This was my first visit as a patient, and I had to admit, the view from the bed was quite different.
Even through the haze of medication, instinct had me cataloguing the IV in my arm, the tight pull of bandages across my chest, and the steady rhythm of the monitor beside me.
Vinny continued talking on the phone, but his voice faded into the background. What did I care when my entire world stood at the side of my bed?
“I’m so sorry, Tano. So very sorry!” she cried. Tears tracked down her cheeks and dripped onto my chest. Like a baptism, her tears cleansed me of the fevered nightmare.