Chapter 9 Gabi
GABI
The tablet slips from my grip as I pull free from Dominic’s gentle hold, clasping my hands to my face. Sobs rake through me, tearing me to pieces as my heart breaks.
Mother Lucia. Tortured and torched. There’s no Russian on my doorstep, but my dear Mother Lucia is dead.
An arm wraps around my shoulders, and I lean into Ariana.
“I’m so sorry, Gabi, so, so sorry.”
“We know she was like a mom to you,” Dominic says from my other side, and all I want to do is harden into stone and sink away to the bottom of a lake. “I wish—”
We all wish we could turn back time. So far as to the point where none of us were born, I would bet. So many eyes are on me, watching my heartache and despair, and I can’t stop myself from falling apart in front of my new-found family. The other ones I’ve known are all dead.
This is no coincidence. These attacks on convents in Italy started a little over two weeks ago, fueled by whatever the media gets instructed to sell to the people: mass immigration gone wrong, the refugee crisis, drugs.
As long as it has a label, the world knows where to slot it into the chaos of life.
But I know better. This is all my fault. Franco Fiore might have been neutralized, but the Russian is still looking for me and will burn the world down to find me.
Imaginings of Mother Lucia’s last hours spill into my mind, becoming all-consuming like fire. I’m going to be sick.
Bile battles up, and I swallow but don’t manage with the uncontrollable sobs that rip through me. I shoot up, pushing Ariana and Dominic aside, wildly searching.
“This way,” Tasha’s voice sounds as she rushes me, hands on my shoulders, toward the open-plan kitchen. “God. I didn’t know. If I had—”
I make it just in time to the smaller prep sink built into the kitchen island. I wretch into it, emptying my convulsing stomach in mere seconds. My chest heaves as I breathe, spit and tears mingling with snot as the faucet runs, washing my vomit away.
Paper towels appear in front of my blurry gaze, and I press them to my face.
I straighten to see all my brothers, my princes, hovering.
Dominic with his fists clenched, Matteo with his fingers pushed into his hair, Luca with his shoved into his pockets, jaw so clenched he’s probably cracking teeth.
Benedict has his hands held together in prayer, pressed to his lips.
They are so tall and strong with muscles straining their suit jackets’ fabric, I involuntarily take a step away from them.
Mafia. All of them. Not a stitch better than Randazzo or that Russian. What have they done? What will they do? Would they do the same as what he has done to Mother Lucia if they needed to?
I close my eyes for a second to block the visual as Tasha’s gentle grip circles around my shoulders, protective, comforting.
“You boys—” she says, and as I open my eyes, she’s sweeping a pointed finger over my brothers, “—all need to fuck off to Matty’s office right now and stay there until I give you the all-clear to come out.”
“Kitten—”
“Matteo! What the hell did you think showing Gabi this article when she’s barely walked through the door? She just got here only to learn the one person who she loved like family was brutally murdered by some fanatics!”
“It’s headline news in Italy, Tash,” Dominic says. “There’s no way of hiding it, and it’s better for Gabi to learn this now than think we tried to hide it from her to save her from bad news.”
The less you know the better.
Hiding things from me just as I will always hide things from them.
I sway on my feet, but Tasha steadies me.
“I need to lie down,” I murmur, not able to think straight with everybody hovering.
“Here.” Tasha has me by the hand, guiding me toward the stairs.
My brothers step aside, one by one, worry in their eyes, a comforting squeeze to my arm from Dominic, the others not at ease enough with me yet to get any closer.
Family. Long-lost family found again. Brothers who’ve shown over the past few weeks they’d do anything for me. They accepted me as theirs the moment they found me in Potenza—Dominic’s embrace that day encompassed how all of them feel about me. I’m theirs to protect no matter what it takes.
I glance at Ariana, worry etched on her face as Dominic steps up to her.
Their love is so new, so deep, it almost spears my heart, knowing I’ll never experience what they have.
His hand cups her waist, pulling her close to his broad chest, his body a shield he’d willingly use, getting shot to smithereens if it meant keeping her safe.
Then there’s Tasha, and Gigi…
Tortured. Torched.
God help me. Nobody is safe with me around. I can’t let that Russian track me down here and…and become a threat to them, kill them—
I swallow at the knot in my throat, not sure if it’s only my emotions pressing from the inside or those invisible fingers circling my throat, tightening.
“My satchel. My book,” I murmur, a new anxiety flooding me. This is all I have left of Mother Lucia. “Mom’s letters.” My Bible.
We walk past the sectional, but Luca is already there, picking my bag up from the floor where I dropped it. I hook it over my shoulder, and its meagre weight seems to have turned into stone in the time we’ve been in this apartment.
What happened to Mother Lucia is my fault.
For years, Randazzo allowed us to disappear, toying with us in a sadistic game of hide and seek.
He found us every time, except at our last haven of Potenza.
Maybe he never thought the first convent I’d gone to would be the last one I’d return to.
Maybe he had other things keeping him distracted.
Maybe he had changed his mind as to the contract and the marriage he signed me up for and allowed us to disappear.
Now, he’s dead, but that Russian is still looking for me, Randazzo’s only heir. We weren’t even from the same blood.
Mother Lucia had her suspicions, but now I know it for certain: I’m being hunted.
The less my brothers know, the better.
What they don’t know can’t kill them.
They can never learn about how Randazzo pledged me to a Russian deep into his sixties. A man who should have nothing to do with a thirteen-year-old. But I was promised to him in marriage when the time was right.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Little Red Riding Hood with a wolf on her scent.
My stomach clenches, and I dry-heave. I might have only just arrived in Boston, but who knows what Mother Lucia gave away in her final moments. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
All I know is he will come for me—even here. I just found my family, but I need to leave, to disappear. As soon as possible. They’ll never be safe with me here.
There’s a dragon out there, looking for lost treasure, breathing fire over everyone I love. I can’t be its beacon. I refuse.