Chapter 25
RAQUEL
“Babe? Are you okay?” Dante questions, but his voice might as well be miles away.
I can’t pull my attention off the man. I’m frozen in shock.
My mind spins with questions.
Why is he here? Is it for me?
And before I can find my voice to warn them, he spins toward us with a gun in his grip, his aim on Chiara.
And then he shoots.
Pop.
The bullet roars to life before everyone realizes what’s happening, and it punctures Chiara from the side of her stomach.
Her eyes grow wide as she glances down to where the bullet hit.
“Chiara!” Dom screams, running to her.
She starts to fall backward into the pool while blood trickles down her hip, her fingers coated in red. She hits the water, and a deafening splash paints the air.
The man who shot her, the one pretending to be a chef, is a man I now realize is Carlito’s cousin. Before he has a chance to strike another person, the weapon still raised, Enzo draws his gun and fires a deadly bullet between his eyes. Joelle cries as he pulls her into hiding behind a tree.
I hear my own screams as I run toward the pool to jump in with Chiara.
She can’t be dead.
And the baby! No!
The sobs crash over me. Heavy. Shattered.
They did this to her. Our family. They hurt her.
“Chiara!” I wail.
A hand slams around my stomach from behind, dragging me as I shriek in protest, and places me behind a bush as more men run out from the other side of the yard. My family’s men.
The camera. It must’ve been them.
The shouting. The gunfire. The chaos.
It all ensues quickly around us.
“Stay here, God damn it,” Dante warns.
But my eyes are on my cousin, who I can see from where I am.
Dom’s men shoot back, forming a protective line, while water drips from his clothes as he checks her pulse, then lifts her up in his arms, shielding her with his body while running into the house.
“Do you want to be next?!” Dante snaps.
She has to be okay. Please. She has to survive.
I tremble with a heavy ache in the middle of my chest, my entire body riddled with shock as my eyes finally look to Dante.
“I know you’re worried,” he says. “But don’t you move for anything! I’m not losing you, okay? I love you. Do you fucking hear me?”
He grips my jaw with the rough pads of his fingers and pulls his mouth to mine, grazing his lips over my damp ones and leaving me with a kiss before he rights himself.
“I’ll be back.” His jaw pulses before he pulls a gun from his ankle and reaches out his hand. “Take this.”
I nod frantically as tears stream down my cheeks. I can’t seem to make my mouth move as my trembling hand extends toward the weapon and I grip it in my unsteady palm.
“You’re everything to me. Remember that.”
Then he’s gone. I lose him to the fight, unable to see him now from the angle I’m at.
A silent scream slices through the fog in my brain, clouding over the sound of bullets whizzing past me. My stomach curls with fear. There’s so much of it.
Fear for Chiara. For Dante. For all of us.
I rock back and forth, hugging my knees with the gun hanging from my hand, waiting for this horror to be all over so I can get to Chiara. So I can see that the people we both love are all okay.
I want them all to be all right. We can’t lose anyone.
When will enough be enough? When will my family stop hurting people?
Agonizingly slow minutes trickle by, and the gunfire doesn’t seem to have slowed. If anything, it’s grown.
Someone falls to my left with a loud thump, and I jolt my head with startled panic before finding a man in a black t-shirt with blood dripping out of his mouth, his unblinking gaze staring at me lifelessly.
Is this what my life with Dante will always be like? Never-ending wars?
We can’t sustain a relationship this way, or have a future. Look what happened to Chiara. She might lose not only her baby, but her damn life. And for what?
My uncle Faro deserved what she did. He deserved it years ago. As for my father? He made his bed. He knew what his brother did to Dante’s family and didn’t care.
The bullets are less frequent now, but the fighting isn’t over yet. I wonder if Joelle is okay where she is with Enzo gone. She has a son to live for. That poor woman.
“Give us Chiara and Raquel. That’s all we want,” says a voice I know quite well.
It belongs to my uncle Benvolio, the new don.
He’s here? The bastard came for us personally?
My hand stiffens around the gun, wanting to kill them all.
“I want that whore, Joelle, too. Where is she, huh?” my uncle Agnelo chuckles, sending a chill running down my spine.
They’re both here. I can only hope this is where they die.
Enzo’s demonic laugh breaks from his chest. “I’m gonna rip your damn head off just like I did to your men, who are lying dead, where you’ll soon be. Both of you. I’m gonna enjoy gutting you like a pig.”
“You fuckin’ jackass motherfuckers,” Agnelo says. “Who do you think you are, huh? You’re all about to join your mommy and daddy. My nieces, Joelle…they’ll all be following you there too.”
Dante growls like an animal possessed before a single gunshot cuts through the conversation. I jerk back as my body shudders from gripping fear, not knowing whose weapon it came from. My heart is heavy in my rib cage, like I’m trapped under pounds of boulders, unable to move or breathe.
“Nice try,” Agnelo taunts.
Suddenly, madness ensues all over again. The sound of gunfire, the grunts, things cracking and breaking from the fighting.
The weapon in my hand rattles as I pull air into my lungs, steadying the fear and swallowing it away as the tears fall. Unending misery that I no longer want to feel.
Leave us alone! I shout within my head as my exhales huff out, fear replaced with rage.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I stand up, my body soaked in fury as I come out of hiding, no longer worried about dying. I just want to hurt my uncles. I want them dead, once and for all.
I draw my pistol up inch by inch as my feet move. I see Uncle Benvolio first, fighting with one of Dom’s men. Dante is on the far right, his weapon pointing at someone. He doesn’t see me yet. A heap of dead bodies lies on the ground.
No one notices me as I slowly creep toward my uncle.
No one sees my gun as it points at him.
No one pays attention.
Not until I pull the trigger.
Not until my uncle falls, the back of his head marred with a bullet hole I put there.
Everyone around me stops fighting, as though caught in a trance.
“Raquel?” Dante calls. “Give me the gun, baby.”
He walks toward me slowly as I stare at my dead uncle.
The one I killed.
I killed someone.
Oh my God.
I realize I’m the one in a trance now. The gun is still extended as I blink rapidly and my mind comes to focus. Finally turning toward Dante, I find the worry in his eyes as he gently grabs my wrist, lowering it to the ground before taking the gun from me.
“Come on. I’m taking you inside.” He places an arm under my thighs and lifts me up, cradling me close against his body.
I peer over my shoulder at the death I caused. My heartbeats quicken to a wayward pace.
“I…I’m sorry. I was so angry, and—”
“Hey. It’s okay, baby.” His arms tighten around me. “You did nothing wrong.”
Tears fall from my eyes as the hurt, the realization of what I did, crashes into me. I’m a doctor. I save people. I don’t kill them.
We make it inside Dom’s home, which is filled with more men. Too many to count.
“You’re going to stay here with them while I help clean up the yard, okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” My voice shudders right along with my hands as he lowers me to the ground.
“Take care of her,” he tells his men before his eyes are level to mine and a hand clasps around the side of my face. “Everything’s going to be okay. Chiara will be fine. This will be over soon. I swear.”
He leaves a quick kiss on my lips.
“You don’t know that,” I cry. “I need to see her. Did Dom take her to the hospital?”
“Yeah. I’ll take you as soon as I’m done here. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Please don’t get hurt,” I beg.
Both his arms are around me now, wrapping me snugly. “Shh. Don’t cry. I love you, Raquel.”
I pull back. “I love you too. So don’t leave me, okay?”
“Not if I can help it.” His palm fits over my cheek. “The devil himself would have to drag me away from you before I would ever go willingly.” He drops his lips to my forehead, pulling in a harsh breath. “But I have to finish this if we ever want a life together.”
“I know.” My brows furrow with both understanding and anguish.
None of us should ever know this much pain. We didn’t ask for it. My family shoved it down our throats, and until we rip it out, we’ll never know peace.
With a final look into my eyes, he mouths I love you before running off into the fight. Something he’s been doing his entire life.