Wolfe
By the time I made it to Francesca, it was almost midnight.
But she was awake, sitting on the couch, when I walked in the door. I’d texted her before I left Palermo to tell her I was alright.
She got to her feet to greet me by the door. “Everyone okay?”
“Yeah.” I circled her lower back with my arm and gave her a quick kiss.
“He wasn’t there. Knew we were coming.” I helped myself to the kitchen because I was starving.
There was a plate sitting on the top shelf of the fridge covered in plastic film.
I assumed that was for me, so I grabbed it and put it in the microwave.
Francesca had followed me into the kitchen, wearing one of my t-shirts and long socks. “How did he know?”
“Because we have a fucking snitch.” I leaned against the counter across from her and crossed my arms over my chest.
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine.
“And I have no idea who the fuck it is.”
“You’re certain?”
“There’s always room for doubt, but this is the second time something like this has happened.
My contact confirmed Warren was in residence when he gave me the information.
This was after the wedding. That means he vacated the property after I was informed of his whereabouts.
Could be a coincidence, but I highly doubt it.
I think someone tipped him off after I told the don we were coming for him. ”
“Who did you tell exactly?”
“All the guys,” I said. “And then Don could have told his other guys. It’s hard to narrow it down.”
“Then who has the most to gain from betraying my father?”
“That answer isn’t obvious either,” I said. “Pay anyone a couple million, and they’ll do whatever you ask.”
“Not my father’s men. None of them would betray him like this.”
“Well, someone has. And I’m the most obvious suspect.” The microwave beeped when the food was ready, but I let it sit there.
Francesca didn’t react to the timer either. “My father doesn’t think that…does he?”
“No.”
“It’s not me, you, or Leo. That’s all I know.”
“That leaves about twenty suspects. Maybe even more.”
“Maybe Elio?” she asked. “He’s a little rough around the edges, but I can’t see him doing that.”
“I don’t care for him either, but I agree.”
“Andre…Salvatore…Hugo…”
“Not Salvatore. He doesn’t have it in him.”
“I’m not sure how you’re going to figure this out, Wolfe.” She shook her head slightly. “Not unless you tail each one of them.”
I straightened and grabbed the food out of the microwave and a fork from the drawer and carried the plate to the dining table.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.
But Don Mancini is too good a man to have a snitch like this.
” I took a seat and leaned over the piece of lasagna she’d made.
I sliced my fork through the layers of sauce, meat, and cheese and felt my stomach growl at the first bite.
She sat across from me. “It’s nice that you care about him so much.”
“It’s not affection, but respect. Most of the other guys in the game have no respect for anybody.
They solve violence with violence. Will shoot a kid in the head if he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Don’t have class or manners. I’m crazy and I have no boundaries when it comes to the business, but there are lines I won’t cross. They have no such lines.”
“Your mother was in your life for such a short amount of time,” she said quietly as she looked at me. “But you can see the impression she made on you.”
The second she was mentioned, I felt a pause in my appetite. I felt a rush of guilt and sadness and loss, and then it was gone. Bottled back inside and locked behind the steel door to the vault hidden so well inside me I didn’t even know where it was. “I’ll figure out who it is. I always do.”
I was dead asleep one instant, and like a snap of a finger, I was awake.
My eyes remained closed and my body still, but something had caught my awareness, and I couldn’t distinguish what it was.
Francesca was asleep partially on top of me, her face on my shoulder with her leg tucked between mine.
We shifted around the bed while we slept, but we always ended up tangled together in one way or another.
Then I heard it, the sound of a moving vehicle outside.
My eyes flashed open, and I got out of bed quickly, not caring about the harsh way I’d moved her out of the way. I tapped the screen of my phone and saw it was shortly after three in the morning.
That was not a good sign.
I moved around the bed to the window as I heard Francesca stir at my abrupt departure. I pulled back the curtain and looked at the dirt road…and I saw a line of blacked-out SUVs approaching the house.
Our house.
“Francesca, get up.” I left the window and grabbed the clothes I’d left on the floor. I tugged everything on quickly and then stepped into my boots.
She sat up in bed. “What—”
“Get dressed. Now!”
I’d never yelled at her before, so she tumbled out of bed in her rush to get up.
I didn’t help her. I headed down the stairs and took them two at a time to reach the bottom.
I knew where Francesca kept her guns, so I opened the door to the cabinet in her living room that was filled with rifles and handguns and ammunition.
I grabbed a rifle and hooked it over my shoulder, put a handgun in the back of my jeans, stuffing magazines and rounds in my pockets.
Francesca raced down the stairs then stopped when she saw me in front of the guns. Her eyes went to the windows, the drapes closed but the sounds of vehicles becoming audible outside. “Shit.”
“Baby, come over here.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I knew she was in shock, so I grabbed the vest, moved to her, and started to strap it onto her.
“Listen to me.” I secured it in place before I shoved the key to my Range Rover into her pocket.
“You go out the back where my car is parked. Get in and take off. I’ll hold their attention until you can get away. ”
“What?”
“It’s bulletproof—”
“I’m not leaving you.” She looked at me with wide eyes, like I just told her the craziest thing she’d ever heard.
“Francesca—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
I didn’t have time to appreciate her loyalty.
I had to move. I hooked the strap of the rifle over her shoulder, along with a shotgun.
“Come here.” I directed her into the kitchen behind the counter.
It was the only place in the house where no one could sneak up on her from the rear. “Cover me from here.”
“Cover you?”
I went back to the cabinet, grabbed all the guns and ammunition I could carry, and then came back to the counter.
Gunfire rang out as they shot out the windows.
“Cristo…” She was pale as snow now, already drenched in sweat.
“Your family will come when they hear the gunshots,” I said. “I need you to cover me until they get here.”
“I—I don’t know—” She gripped the rifle in her shaking hands.
“Francesca, look at me.” I grabbed her by the neck and directed her stare to me. “It’s going to be fine.”
Her eyes quickly shifted back and forth between mine. “How—how can you be so calm about this?”
“Because I’ve done it a million times,” I said. “And you’re a tough fucking bitch, remember?”
She continued to breathe hard as her forehead gleamed with sweat, her hands still trembling.
“Tough. Fucking. Bitch. Come on, say it.”
“To-to-tough fucking…bitch.”
“Attagirl. Now let’s clear out these assholes.”
She nodded. “Okay…okay.”
I readied my gun then walked out from behind the counter, moving closer to the front of the house and taking my position behind a wall.
A hand reached through the broken window and unlocked the front door so they wouldn’t have to crawl through the window frame.
The door flew open, and the first guy walked inside, carrying his rifle with it pointed toward the floor.
They probably expected Francesca to be here alone and defenseless, so I would be a big fucking surprise.
I waited for him to come close so I could stab him with my knife, but Francesca popped up from the counter, fired her shotgun, and hit him square in the chest. He wore a vest, so he jerked back, but she had another round so she shot him in the face next.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Once one of them was dead, more rushed in.
I stayed out of Francesca’s line of fire and came at them from the side, firing my AK-47 and spraying down the first wave. The windows in the living room were suddenly blasted with gunfire, and I quickly dodged out of the way before I could get hit.
I didn’t see how many cars were outside, so I didn’t know how many we were up against. But there had to have been at least five SUVs, so somewhere between twenty and thirty guys. Seemed like overkill just to take one woman. Probably needed the backup for when Don Mancini came running.
My goal was to kill them all before her family could get here.
I took the opportunity to reload before I leaned against the wall and waited for the next wave.
Then someone tossed a grenade through the open window.
Either to kill us or draw us into the line of fire.
There was a standing lamp right next to me with ornate arms sticking out of it, so I grabbed that and used it to hit the grenade back out the window.
I swung the lamp like a golf club and hit the grenade right away, making it fly back the way it’d come.
It immediately exploded, so I’d struck it just in time.
“Cristo!” Frankie yelled.
Windows broke on the other side of the house. I listened to them shatter.
We were about to be surrounded on all sides. This was the kind of shit that I lived for, the dump of adrenaline that made me feel alive, the high I chased every single day in the hope of getting a single hit.
But I didn’t feel it.
All I felt was terror.
Terror that my girl wouldn’t make it out of here alive. I never cared about my own life—I was going to die at some point—but now even my own life had different value. I had to live long enough to know she would make it out of this.
Within the next second, more guys rushed into the house from the front.