2. I’m Hit
I’M HIT
GAbrIEL
I failed. Fuckin’ failed.
The last several days in Italy had been a blur. Now, he had the blood of a dead Russian on his hands. The irony? He wasn’t the one who had killed him.
According to Z, Misha Laskin had been one of the good guys.
Even though Gabriel didn’t discuss top-secret missions over the phone, Z needed to hear it sooner than later. And directly from him. He pulled his phone from his pocket and turned it on. Seconds later, it blew up with several texts and a dozen missed calls.
Ignoring those, he dialed Z’s number, pressed the phone to his ear.
“Where the hell have you been?” Z barked.
“Take it down or you’ll be talking to no one,” Gabriel growled.
“I sent a car for you, but the driver said you were a no-show.”
“I had my own vehicle, and I needed to drop Angelo.”
“You can’t be carting Dr. Laskin all over the DMV,” Z said.
Gabriel said nothing.
“Oh, no,” Z murmured.
No point drawing this out.
“Laskin got gunned down at the airport,” Gabriel said. “Angelo went after the hitman, but it was chaos. Laskin didn’t make it.”
“Fuck. Fuck,” Z bit out.
Then… silence. Thundering silence that whisked him back to his fucked-up childhood. Rather than yell at him or even scold him, his father would go stealth quiet. A disapproving stare, a shaming shake of his head. If his dad did speak, it wasn’t above a whisper.
“Gabriel, you disappoint me, son,” his father would say.
Z didn’t need to say anything. Gabriel’s late father’s constant condemnation haunted his days… and his nights.
Unlike Teddy, his youngest brother, Gabriel wasn’t in a never-ending competition with his siblings. He was forever doing battle with the ghost of his father. A formidable man who slaughtered without remorse, who ruled with an iron fist, but who said very little.
Except when he was fighting with their mom. Then, he couldn’t shut the hell up.
“Gabriel,” Z said, snapping him back to the moment. “Did Laskin tell you anything?”
“He couldn’t wait to get to the US.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” Gabriel bit out. “A man died in my arms. Would you be?”
“No,” Z replied. “I wouldn’t.”
Gabriel remained silent.
“This is bad,” Z said.
Master of the fucking obvious.
“You think?” Gabriel hung up and swallowed down the bitter taste of failure.
His phone buzzed again. His brother, Teddy, had been calling and texting. Gabriel read the thread from his brother.
G, you coming to the holiday celebration?
It’s gonna be a great par-tay!
Gabriel, where are you? Your phone is off. Everyone’s asking about you.
We’re all at the restaurant. I’m popping the BIG Q to Sydney. Hurry or you’ll miss it.
His brother Greystone had also texted him.
Are you in the country? Elsa is asking about you every ten minutes. You okay?????
And a text from his brother Luciano.
I’m back and looking forward to catching up. Production numbers are through the roof at Santini International HQ. Nice work G!
Tonight, the Santinis were celebrating the holidays with each other and their close-knit group of friends and coworkers at Santini Ristorante.
Gabriel wanted to stew in his own anger, drink himself into a blackout. He wanted to avenge a man he’d just met. He didn’t want to celebrate a damn thing—not even the engagement of Teddy and Sydney—but he did need to see his family. If anyone would understand his pain, it would be them.
He fished out Dr. Laskin’s pocket watch, flipped it open, and examined it.
Aside from the photo of the dead man’s family, three small diamonds had been added below the roman numerals one, three, and seven.
In his kitchen, Gabriel held his hand over the trash bin, but he couldn’t let the timepiece go.
Keep it, for the old man’s sake.
With a heavy heart, he climbed the stairs, walked into his bedroom, and opened his dresser drawer. Gabriel owned several high-end luxury watches he housed in a case. After placing Laskin’s into one of the empty compartments, he closed the case.
In his bathroom, he turned on the shower faucet before eyeing himself in the mirror. Laskin’s dried blood remained on his hands, his face, his overcoat. A painful reminder that he’d failed.
A good man had died and Gabriel couldn’t save him.
He stripped down, stepped into the hot spray.
The water pooled red at his feet before swirling down the drain.
The blood washed off, but he couldn’t rinse away the anger.
He wore it like a turtle wears its shell.
It was the only emotion he could relate to, the one emotion that felt familiar, the one that guided most of his choices.
I am fucked up.
He dried his hair, dressed in a black shirt, black pants, black shoe boots. Before leaving, he added bullets to his CANiK mag, slid the gun into the shoulder holster, and shrugged into his jacket.
Thirty minutes later, he pulled into Santini Ristorante, located in the heart of Old Town, Alexandria. The parking lot was full, so he drove around back, parking his limited-edition black Ferrari SF90 Spider in the only available spot.
As he made his way toward the front of the building, movement caught his eye.
Four Bratva—thugs with the Russian mafia—came at him, the fist of one rocketing toward his face. Gabriel jumped back, yanked his CANiK from its holster and started firing.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
One dropped, a second aimed his pistol and fired.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
Gabriel was struck in the shoulder and in the leg.
“Motherfucker!” he screamed as the three men scattered into the parking lot.
Gabriel lay on the ground, blood oozing from his wounds, his body writhing in pain.
Get up.
He didn’t move.
You’re a dead man if you don’t go. Now!
The Bratva were hollering in Russian. Car doors slammed shut, an engine roared to life.
They’re gonna run me over.
Pushing through the pain, Gabriel stood.
The discomfort in his shoulder was bearable, the searing pain in his leg had him seeing stars.
Dragging his leg, he limped-ran to the front door.
The car whizzed by. Gabriel opened fire—BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG—the bullets piercing the side windows as it sped out of the parking lot.
Gabriel yanked open the front door, the wind gust snapping it out of his hand and sending it banging against the building. He dragged himself inside. Every table, every booth was filled. Partygoers turned.
All eyes on him… the chatter ceased.
Scanning the room, Gabriel found his family seated at the head table. He locked eyes with Greystone, then Sydney Austin, before he homed in on Teddy.
“I got a problem,” he said, before collapsing on the cold, hard restaurant floor.
Fighting to stay conscious, he watched as his three brothers—and his cousin Carrera Santini—jumped into action.
“Are you hit?” Greystone asked.
“Shoulder, leg.” Little yellow stars crowded his vision until everything faded to black…
GAbrIEL OPENED HIS EYES.
He was lying on his back in the cargo area of an SUV, his cousin Carrera by his side applying pressure to his thigh. Concern filled his eyes as he worked to make sure Gabriel didn’t bleed out.
“There’s a body in the parking lot,” Gabriel said.
“Not anymore,” Carrera replied.
“Where are you taking me?” Gabriel asked.
“To a late-night movie,” Greystone called out from the driver’s seat.
Teddy laughed. “For surgery.”
Teddy—seated in the middle, facing backwards—was leaning into the cargo area, his hand pressed against Gabriel’s shoulder wound.
“I’mma bleed out, aren’t I?” Gabriel asked.
“We got you.” Though Carrera flashed a smile, his brows were slashed down, the knot between his eyes deeper than normal.
“Faster,” Luciano barked from the front.
“I can’t go through the guy in front of me, and we’re turning here,” Greystone said.
The vehicle turned abruptly to the right and Gabriel started sliding into Carrera, but Carrera didn’t budge.
“Hospital?” Gabriel asked.
“The surgeon just got to the Black Site,” Greystone announced. “The nurse is on his way.”
“What Black Site?” Gabriel asked.
“Stop talking,” Luciano said. “We got you. You’re gonna be okay.”
The road turned gravelly, the bumpy ride sent thundering jolts of pain through him. “This is payback for all the fights I picked with you guys, isn’t it?”
Carrera and Teddy laughed.
“That sounds ‘bout right,” Greystone replied.
“Just relax, G,” Teddy said. “We got you.”
“Hold on, brother,” Greystone said and hit the gas. “Almost there.”
The gravel ended, the amusement park ride from hell came to an end. “That was fun,” Gabriel bit out.
“You got ambushed pretty good,” Teddy said.
Gabriel stared up at his brother whose face was upside down. A childhood memory came racing back. “Remember when we’d lie on our twin beds and let our heads dangle upside down over the side?”
Teddy smiled. “We’d laugh our asses off.”
“It was crazy seeing you talking upside down.”
The SUV stopped. Gabriel glanced out the tinted window. Greystone drove into an airplane-sized hangar. He stopped, killed the engine. The front doors of the vehicle opened, shut, the back hatch opened. Neither Carrera nor Teddy stopped pressing on his wounds.
“Now what?” Gabriel asked.
“We’re dropping you off, going back to the party,” Luciano replied.
Gabriel laughed, then winced from the pain. “Idiot.”
“You’re the one who got shot,” Greystone said. “That makes you the idiot.”
As Greystone got him out of the back, Carrera released his hold, same with Teddy. The second he was out, all four men surrounded him.
“Hey, doc,” Greystone said.
Gabriel craned to see a woman.
“Dr. Joyce Ferguson,” she said. “I go by Dr. Joyce.”
“Gabriel Santini.”
“You’re covered in blood,” she said. “What happened?”
“I got jumped,” Gabriel replied.
Teddy and Greystone carried him deeper into the oversized garage filled with black SUVs, while Luciano and Carrera continued applying pressure to his wounds.
“Femoral artery?” Gabriel asked.
“No idea, but you’re not bleeding out on my watch,” Carrera said.