29. Rocco
29
ROCCO
“ C ounter offer: you hand over the Guild, or I kill Miss Bellini and your unborn child.”
I can’t believe I let myself get distracted.
That I let my guard down in front of my father for even a moment.
But Cas’ confession, for the second time, had completely broken me. Her words doomed us both to a lifetime of torment.
All I ever wanted was for her to be safe. To be at peace, to sing and laugh and fucking live.
Now Giuliano Moretti’s knife is at her throat, and it’s my fault.
“Let her go.”
White hot fury consumes me at the sight before me. Cas is clutching desperately at my father’s arm, as if hoping by some miracle she will be able to push him away.
But I know my father, know that knife.
I know that whatever soft old man act he was pulling has now disappeared into thin air.
This is the true face of the disgraced Mafia don.
“You know the lengths I have gone to,” Giuliano growls. “If you think for one second I’m letting this opportunity slip away, you’re gravely mistaken.”
I slowly get to my feet, keeping my hands up and palms open. But my eyes are on Cas, scanning every inch of her face which is streaked with tears.
“This is between you and me,” I say slowly. “Let her go.”
“Renounce your claim to the Guild.”
Giuliano’s grip on Cas tightens, and she winces as the blade presses closer to her skin. A thin line of red appears, a whisper of blood against her neck.
My heart slams against my ribs, each beat a countdown to disaster. I can’t let this happen. I won’t.
I need more time to think.
“You think they would welcome you back when they realize you’re the one who’s been selling us out to the Cartel this whole time?”
“I’ve been cultivating a relationship with Amos Rubio far longer than you’ve been don, boy,” Giuliano sneers. “He’s been more than eager to help me out ever since you came to power and cracked down on the activity in Electrix.”
“You let the Cartel operate on Guild territory?”
Giuliano laughs. “I would let anyone operate on Guild territory for the right price. There’s no prize for taking the moral high ground, Rocco.”
“Is that why you put people like Claudio Lazzaro on your payroll?”
I see Cas tense up at the name in my periphery, but I don’t look away from my father.
“Lazzaro was a useful asset.”
“Lazzaro was an abusive drug addict.”
“Which made him easy to control.” Giuliano shakes his head. “You know nothing of leadership if it took you this long to figure that out. Control is everything.”
Without warning, Giuliano grabs Cas and pulls her off the couch. She yelps as the knife momentarily presses into her skin once more before she can scramble to right herself, her back now against Giuliano’s chest.
“Every man has his weakness, Rocco,” Giuliano drawls on. “Lazzaro’s was drugs. But it seems you and Carmine have something in common.”
Cas thrashes against his firm hold.
“It was a stroke of genius, I think, forcing him to smuggle his daughter back into Brooklyn so that she was within arm’s reach. It kept him very motivated indeed. So much so that he killed himself instead of sharing my secrets.”
He turns his vile face to Cas’ ear. “All so I wouldn’t have an excuse to seek you out and kill you myself. But it seems fate was just saving you for this exact moment.”
I take a step forward, hands twitching with the desire to wring his neck.
Giuliano’s eyes narrow, his grip on Cas tightening. “Don’t,” he warns, pressing the knife harder against her throat.
But Cas isn’t just some damsel waiting to be rescued.
She locks eyes with me, and in that split second, I see her determination—she’s not giving up, not willing to let her father’s death be in vain. Her eyes dart over to my father’s makeshift greenhouse, to the rake hanging from the wall.
I take another step, forcing Giuliano back. “Careful now. I would so hate for this to get messy.”
Without warning, Cas drives her elbow into Giuliano’s ribs, catching him off guard. It’s enough to make him falter, just a heartbeat of hesitation, but it’s all I need.
I grab the rake, swinging it in a wide arc. The metal teeth catch Giuliano’s arm, tearing his grip away from Cas and knocking the knife out of his hand.
Cas stumbles forward, free but disoriented, and I rush to her, shoving her behind me. I barely have enough time to take comfort in her reassuring warmth, her familiar scent, when Giuliano lets out a scream in frustration.
“NO!”
He’s on me in an instant, fists flying. He’s fast for an old man, his strikes precise, honed by decades of street brawls and backroom deals. I barely dodge his first punch, but his second catches me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me.
I stagger back, the rake slipping from my grasp. A pair of hands grip my shoulders, holding me steady.
“Rocco!”
Giuliano seizes the opportunity, grabbing a nearby pair of shears, their blades gleaming under the penthouse lights.
“You’ve always been weak,” Giuliano sneers, advancing. “Too soft to lead. Too soft to be my son.”
I tear myself away from Cas’ comforting embrace. “And you’re too desperate to see this is over.”
I dart left, and he lunges, the shears aimed at my chest, but I sidestep, grabbing a potted plant from a nearby table and smashing it over his head.
Giuliano staggers, dazed, shards of ceramic and soil cascading down his suit. I kick the shears from his hand, and they go sliding across the cement.
With a frustrated grunt, he launches himself at me.
We’re locked in a brutal dance now—blow after blow, some missing and some landing as we grapple for control. The pain is only secondary to my instinct to fight, to protect. To win.
Finally, I see an opening. I drive my shoulder into him, sending him crashing into the balcony doors. The glass spiderwebs with the impact but doesn’t break.
Giuliano is gasping now, his breath ragged. His suit is torn, blood dribbling from his nose and staining the expensive fabric.
But his eyes are still wild, still hungry. “You’re nothing without me,” he hisses.
I kick him squarely in the chest. It’s the final blow needed for the door to crack completely. Glass rains down as my father falls back onto the balcony. Red gashes appear on his arms and face.
“I am everything I am today in spite of you.”
Giuliano picks himself up, suddenly, laughing hard. “Yet you’re still going to kill me? After five years of refusing to even consider it, wanting so desperately to set a new precedent. You’re going to kill me in the same room as your unborn child?”
I stride forward, stepping through the open door. “You threatened my family.”
“And now, one day, your son will know exactly who he needs to kill when he wants your job.”
I throw myself at him, realizing too late that he was goading me. Enticing me closer, pushing me to attack.
Quicker than I thought possible, he kicks out and pushes hard.
My trajectory shifts, and I find myself launched from the balcony.
“Rocco!”
Cas is all I can hear as I stare down at the fifty-three-storey drop.
My hands scrabble for purchase on anything within reach as I fly over the railing. My palms hit the metal bar running across the top, and I cling to it for dear life.
Giuliano is peering down at me a heartbeat later. He’s already laughing heartily, cruelly, as he assesses my predicament.
“I was prepared to wait years for this,” he declares. “But I’m glad I’m still young enough to enjoy this properly.”
Without warning, he pounds down on my left hand hard enough to break my fingers. I let go of the bar instinctively, the muscles in my right arm straining to hold on.
“You humiliated me for five years, shoved me in this prison in the sky while you ruined everything I had spent a lifetime building.”
“CAS!” I scream out. I’m desperate to see her, to hear her voice one last time, but there’s no response.
I try to hoist myself back up to grip the bar again with my left hand, but my broken fingers won’t respond to my command.
“But today, fate has granted me a reward for my suffering.” My father presses down on my remaining right hand. “Your death will be sweet, but not as good as raising my new heir myself.”
No. No.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch them.”
Giuliano merely smirks. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Miss Bellini is very comfortable when you’re gone.”
Time slows as three things happen simultaneously.
My father increases the weight on my hand, and my fingers begin to slip.
I have the sudden, terrible realization that I never told Cas that I love her.
And a pair of shears pierce through Giuliano’s neck.
Blood spurts from his mouth like a fountain of pure death. My brain barely registers what it’s seeing as he sags forward and topples head-first over the railing.
But as his body knocks into mine, my grip on the bar fails me.
This is it.
I close my eyes, bracing myself for the sudden rush of wind that will inevitably lead to my crushing death on the sidewalk fifty-three stories below.
My last comforting thought is that at least now, Cas will be free.
“Oh no, you fucking don’t!”
Something firm snatches at my wrist, nearly pulling my arm out of the socket.
My eyes snap open with alarm, only to find Teo half hanging off the balcony, face covered in blood spray and clutching onto me with sheer determination. Cas, at his side, anchors him, all the while trying to reach down to me, too.
I rally myself, operating on pure adrenalin, as I reach up to grab Teo’s forearm with my broken hand, willing my appendages to lock into place.
Teo pulls with a yell of agony, and then suddenly, another pair of hands are snatching at my shirt and pulling me up, too.
Between them, I make it up inch by bloody inch until they can roll me over the railing and back onto the safety of the balcony, completely and utterly spent.
By the sound of panting, I know the others have collapsed nearby as well.
“Cas? I…”
A small, shaking body slams into mine. Arms wrap around my neck, and I immediately hold her to me, wanting every part of her pressed into me, needing every reassurance possible that she’s alive and here and safe.
This beautiful, brave woman who is carrying my baby. Our baby.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs in my ear, only making me hold on to her tighter. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re okay.” I bury my face in her neck.
“I should never have come here.”
I hold her for another minute before finally looking up to see Teo examining the blood on his hands.
“What happened?”
His eyes flash to mine. “I…might have followed you.”
Slowly, I pry Cas from my arms. But I can’t bring myself to let go of her hand as I approach my friend.
He watches me with growing alarm. “Don’t you dare give me shit for disobeying an order. Coming here on your own was the very definition of reckless, and I…”
I throw my arms around him.
“Oh.” Slowly, he relaxes into the embrace.
“You killed him.”
“I did.”
The feeling is a strange one. On the one hand, I’m glad it was him and not Cas. She already has enough blood on her hands, thanks to me.
But on the other, my father’s absence is both a weight lifted and a burden taken. Everything I ever worked for is now being thrown into question. Was there a world where the transfer of power wouldn’t end in violence?
I pull away from Teo and offer him a genuine and heartfelt smile. “Thank you.”
Teo smiles back before his eyes dart over to Cas at my side.
“I better start on damage control. I’ll give you two a moment to sort yourselves out.”
With that, he gets to his feet and brushes himself off.
I’ve never seen a man stand so tall.
With one last glance out at the city skyline, Teo departs.
“It’s one hell of a view from the top.”