47. Nico & Matilde
Nico & Matilde
Nico
Gripping my phone tightly, I keep trying to call her back.
No answer. The panic, the fear of failing my loved ones, the utter despair of losing her threatens to unravel my mind, but her final two words are stuck to my brain like glue – Find us.
Matilde called me because she believes I can save them. I can't let her down.
Fighting against the hollowness of defeat, I pour my mental energy into the coming attack.
The farm is close, and I’m armed with more than blades today.
I wish Dante was with me, but I pray Leone and the guards haven’t all been eliminated.
And I won’t discount Matilde. I know she’ll do whatever she must to protect our children.
“We won’t sneak up on them in a helicopter. Land in that field and prepare for gunfire,” I warn the pilot.
Two men hurry out of the barn when the helicopter is hovering a few feet off the ground. I jump out, braced for the impact, and open fire, taking down one before they get a shot off.
My first instinct is to hurry to the cascades where Matilde said to find them until the other man shouts, “We have your wife!”
I freeze. Even with his companion dead on the ground, the man looks smug as if he has me right where he wants me… right before his head practically explodes.
“The fool was right. They’ve got her, Nico,” Uncle Leone informs me, strolling out of the nearby woods like it's any other spring day while chambering another round in his hunting rifle.
“How many men? The children?”
“The kids are still safe in the woods with the other women. I counted a dozen enemies. Killed two of them in the woods, and Primo got a third before he was wounded. I’m not sure how many are inside the barn, but Ugo and the others are battling for control of the house.”
“Okay, get to the others. Fuck the house if my family isn't there. Organize a counterattack for the barn and secure my children.”
“Sure, we will but… Where are you going, Nikki?!” he asks, alarmed as I rush toward the barn.
“To save my wife!”
***
Matilde
Cosima turns when we enter the barn. “Well done, Blake. I’d hoped it was this one. Where are his children?” she asks me.
I glare at her, surveying the surroundings. There are five other men with Cosima, all armed. They must be the bikers Nico told me of after Vera shared more information with him. "Nico already came to take his children home," I lie.
"Oh really?" Cosima is smart enough not to believe me. I had to try. She isn’t holding a weapon, but her deranged smile is enough to make me shudder. This lady is barely holding her mind together.
“We didn’t find the brats,” the man, Blake, says. “They must be in the house.”
“I need them.”
“Why?” I ask. “What have they done to you?”
“It’s enough that they exist,” she replies, coldly.
“Your coup is over. Your husband-”
“Yes, Antonio’s lofty and stupid plan to take over the Chicago Trio failed. If he had asked me, he should’ve acted years ago when the brothers were still teenagers. His mistake."
“You want to make your own mafia family? Don Vicini and Alessio will never-”
"No, my plan is simpler than that. I want revenge for my son. I’ll kill Nico’s children… and his little whore bride while I'm at it. I know I've lost but so will all of you. My only consolation will be reliving today in some sunny and remote corner of the world before I'm finally tracked down.”
Oh Dio, revenge never ends, and this woman's ready to die for hers.
“You said we could keep the twin sister in addition to those drug routes in Ohio if we helped you,” Blake interjects. “I lost club brothers in Chicago hitting the limo for you.”
“You were paid.”
“Money doesn’t buy back blood. You said it would be an easy strike, and it wasn’t.
Now, my cousin’s dead in these woods, and we found a lot more resistance than we expected when we followed that bodyguard back from his pussy run to Chicago.
So where is our reward for all this trouble?
Don't tell me it's between your legs either, Cosima. I've had my fill of that.”
Blake’s gun is still aimed at me, but his anger seems equally directed at Cosima while I’m deciphering what he’s shared.
They followed a guard back from Chicago, the one Leone was pissed at for visiting his girlfriend.
I guess my slip over the phone with Frankie hasn’t cost us everything.
I hope Nico can get here in time to save the children and my sister.
The biker didn't check me for other weapons after I dropped the gun. I don't want to die a helpless captive. I play back over what I've been taught. Can I poke someone with enough holes to end their life? If only I wasn't so hopelessly outnumbered.
Before I can act, I hear the sound of helicopter rotors.
It sounds like salvation. Nico is here. Then, the fear takes over.
Nico is here, and I don’t want him to die.
I don’t want our children to be orphaned.
Cosima tells two of the other men to kill or capture whoever’s arrived.
Gunfire erupts outside the barn, and I can hardly breathe. Handguns… and a rifle.
“Kneel, bitch,” one of the bikers says to me as Cosima is gleefully envisioning her retribution.
And that's when my husband walks into the barn.
***
Nico
When I enter the barn, Cosima stands a few feet away from Matilde. There are three men here, too, all of them armed. My wife pleads with me to save our children the instant she sees me. “She’s after the babies!” I love how much she loves them, but there's no way I'm leaving her.
An outsider is circling her, aiming a gun at her head - Cosima’s biker lover, no doubt. “Guns down or watch me put two in her skull,” the man warns.
There are men I know who would open fire, not caring if a woman died, men who look at women like replaceable objects that exist for their enjoyment. I'll never be one of them. I could never risk her precious life. I drop the guns.
“Nico, no,” my sweet wife whimpers.
Cosima’s eyes shift back and forth between us. “Amazing. I think she actually cares about you, Nico,” Cosima says, sounding amused. “Margareta liked the idea of us taking over Chicago, but I guess you’ve got this silly girl infatuated with you… somehow.”
“My life for hers, Cosima. You wanted to kill a Capo. I’m here. Let her go.”
“Catch up, Nico. Taking you down was Antonio’s plan. I don’t want your life. Not until I take the lives of those you care about.”
Guns or no guns, I prepare to reach for my blade. I can’t watch that. I won’t. I’ll die first. Maybe, somehow, I can save her. My kids need their mom.
The bikers start arguing with Cosima about what they want, giving me an opportunity.
Before I spring though, Matilde moves first. Twisting and rolling, she manages to free the switchblade from where she must have had it hidden in her bra.
I’m already diving for the guns on the ground when she throws her knife at Cosima.
I shoot one of the men, and a sudden hail of bullets fills the barn.
Leone and our men have launched their counterattack.
Like a madman, I storm toward my wife, scared to death she'll catch strays. Just like Margareta. Could fate be that cruel?
***
Matilde
I can't say what I was thinking. Some madness took over. I couldn't die on my knees and let Cosima take everything from us without a fight. I draw my arm back and throw the knife as hard as I can, and bullets fill the air like a swarm of mosquitos buzzing.
Everything happens so fast, but my heart is in my mouth, watching Nico rush toward me. He's hit in the thigh but doesn't stop. The grim determination in his eyes tells me he won't until he reaches me.
Cosima is on the ground, but Blake isn't. He wildly shoots at anything and everything until he's out of bullets.
Throwing down his useless gun, he draws a large bowie knife out of his boot just as Nico reaches him.
He's skilled with that knife, but my husband is the best with the blade in all the Trio.
Nico holds up his hand, and the firing ceases. He smiles, the creepiest smile I've ever beheld, twirling his knife like it's part of his hand. "Want to dance with me, biker?"
It is a dance, not an elegant fencing match but a desperate dodge and too-quick-to-see strike.
Nico's so calm, so poised, despite the blood seeping through his pants.
Up, down, back and forth, they circle each other.
The ringing clash of steel is the only sound I can hear.
Cosima's lover swoops in, trying for a fatal stroke, and that's the last mistake he'll ever make.
Nico sidesteps him, flicking his wrist just so and cutting his opponent's throat to the bone.
The other two are dead. My knife is still buried in Cosima's stomach, and the gunshots she received in the ensuing fury have turned the dirt floor red around her. Against the odds, we have survived.
“Nico!” I cry, hurrying to him as he slowly sinks to the floor. I kneel beside him, placing a hand over the wound.
"I'll be okay." He squeezes me tightly, his eyes searching my face like he can hardly believe this moment is real. “You're alive."
I quickly nod. "I'm alive because of you. You could've died."
"I’d die for you a million times without fear. It’s the thought of living without you that kills me."
"Nico…" I whisper, overcome by his words.
"Leone? Our children, my sister-in-law?"
I stiffen, waiting for news until his uncle replies, "All safe. I'm sending the ATV out to fetch them back to the house. And Primo."
"How badly was he wounded?" Nico asks.
"Two in the abdomen, but the kid's tough, and thankfully Maddalena was there to keep pressure on his wounds so I could come looking for you."
My husband turns his attention back on me. "I thought you were hiding."
"I was, but Maddalena left our hiding spot, so I did, too. Better they find me than the babies." He scowls. "I did not plan to get captured. I killed a man in the woods… and Cosima."
"You did what was necessary. You fought fiercely. Don't feel guilt over people who would've hurt our children."
Ugo appears, saying the doctor is on the way. Using his belt, we make a tourniquet of sorts for Nico's leg. Once he moves away to deal with the dead men, Nico's staring at me in a strangely amused manner. "Che cosa?" I ask, worried about blood loss.
“Leaving the tent to find your sister… There will never be a day that you don’t drive me crazy, you know.”
“This is what you tell me at a time like this, Nico?”
“You drive me crazy, and I love it. I love you. With every fucking beat of my heart. How about that?”
Tears spill down my cheeks when I tell him, "You drive me crazy, too. And I love you, Nico. Sempre, amore mio. Always.”