CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Trattoria di Sant'Angelo was a relic of an older, quieter Rome.
Tucked away down a narrow, cobblestone side street near the river, it was a place defined by its exposed brick walls, oak beams, and the rich, intoxicating aroma of roasted garlic, simmering tomatoes, and old wine.
It was not a place of ostentatious luxury, nor did it boast Michelin stars, but to Concetta Fazzari, it was the most important restaurant in the city.
It was the exact table where her late husband had taken her on their first anniversary, nearly forty years ago.
Tonight, the entire restaurant had been bought out and secured for a private event. The Fazzari family had gathered in full force to celebrate Concetta’s sixty-fifth birthday.
The atmosphere inside the warm, amber-lit dining room was loud, chaotic, and ordinary.
It was an insulating bubble of normalcy.
Aunt Nettie was holding court at the far end of the long, rustic wooden table, waving a half-empty glass of Chianti in the air as she loudly recounted a piece of neighborhood gossip.
Fina and Isabella were arguing good-naturedly over the last slice of bruschetta, while Uncle Salvatore leaned back in his chair, roaring with laughter at a joke Zoran had just made.
At the center of it all sat Concetta, practically glowing in a dark sapphire dress, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she looked around the table at her family.
Cassia sat near the head of the table, nursing a glass of sparkling water.
She wore a simple, elegant black silk blouse, her auburn hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders.
She was currently locked in a dry, deadpan debate with Zoran regarding the anatomical inaccuracies of a recent action movie they had watched in the penthouse screening room.
Dante sat beside her, his arm draped casually across the back of her chair.
He was wearing a tailored dark suit, the jacket unbuttoned, looking more relaxed than he had in a decade.
He wasn't paying attention to the movie debate.
He was watching his wife. He watched the way her pale blue eyes flashed with competitive intelligence, the subtle curve of her smirk when she backed Zoran into a logical corner.
"You cannot pull a knife out of a femoral artery and keep sprinting, Zoran," Cassia stated, her tone dripping with clinical finality. "The loss of blood pressure would cause syncope in under forty-five seconds. The protagonist would have been unconscious before he even reached the stairs."
"It was an adrenaline surge, Doctor," Zoran argued, grinning widely as he buttered a piece of bread. "Mind over matter."
"Biology does not care about your willpower," Cassia shot back smoothly, reaching for her water glass.
Dante let out a low, rich chuckle, leaning in to press a warm kiss to the side of her neck. "Give it up, Zoran. You cannot win an argument against a trauma surgeon regarding blood loss."
"I am merely defending the cinema," Zoran laughed, taking a bite of his bread.
Cassia rolled her eyes, turning her head slightly to look at Dante. The prickly armor she wore for the rest of the world was absent when she met his gaze. She offered him a faint, private smile, her hand shifting under the table to rest comfortably on his thigh.
It was a perfect evening.
Right up until the exact moment the front windows exploded inward.
The shift from warm, familial peace to deafening carnage was instantaneous. There was no shout of warning. There was only the concussive roar of automatic gunfire, accompanied by the violent, diamond-like shower of shattered glass raining across the brick floor.
The suffocating reality of the mafia reasserted itself in a fraction of a second.
Dante’s first instinct—honed by decades of survival yet fundamentally rewritten by the woman sitting beside him—was immediate and unwavering.
He didn't reach for the weapon holstered beneath his jacket.
He didn't look toward the source of the breach.
He moved with explosive speed, launching himself over the armrest of his chair and tackling Cassia directly to the floor.
"Down!" Dante roared, his voice tearing through the chaos.
He pulled her flush against the hardwood floor beneath the oak table, covering her with his own body. He curled his broad shoulders over her, pressing her face into his chest, physically shielding her from the hail of bullets chewing through the plaster and wood above them.
Around them, the restaurant erupted into a highly coordinated warzone.
Zoran Valente was already on his feet, flipping the dining table onto its side with a massive heave of his shoulders to create a thick wooden barricade.
He drew his weapon in a blur of motion, returning fire toward the shattered front entrance.
Marco and the perimeter guards stationed near the kitchen instantly surged forward, their shouts of tactical commands mixing with the deafening crack of gunfire.
"Get Donna Concetta to the back! Move!" Zoran bellowed, laying down a suppressing volley of fire that forced the attackers at the door to duck for cover.
Dante kept his body pressed tightly over Cassia’s, his heart hammering a frantic, violent rhythm against his ribs. He gripped the back of her head, shielding her from the falling debris.
"Stay down, Cassia. Do not move an inch," Dante ordered, his voice tight, his icy green eyes scanning the chaotic periphery of the overturned table.
"I am perfectly fine," Cassia said, her voice remarkably steady, unpanicked despite the fact that she was pinned under her husband in the middle of a shootout.
Her spatial awareness, forged in the unpredictable fires of her childhood and homed in the chaotic confines of emergency rooms, was operating at maximum capacity.
Despite Zoran and the security detail's swift, brutal response to lock down the perimeter, the sheer violence of the ambush created momentary blind spots. The air was thick with gray plaster dust and the bitter, acidic stench of cordite.
Through the haze of the smoke, Cassia’s pale blue eyes caught a sudden, erratic movement near the side entrance of the restaurant.
A rogue gunman from the rival faction had managed to slip through the broken flank.
The man was moving erratically, adrenaline clearly overriding whatever caution or tactical training he possessed.
He stumbled through the debris, his eyes sweeping the overturned tables until they locked directly onto the Don.
Dante was momentarily exposed, his focus consumed by keeping Cassia pinned to the floor, his back turned to the side corridor as he reached for his own weapon to assist Zoran.
The gunman raised a high-caliber pistol, aiming squarely at the center of Dante’s chest.
Cassia didn't think. She didn't calculate the emotional weight of her actions, and she certainly didn't wait for Dante to turn around. Her reaction was instinctual, reacting a fraction of a second faster than Dante’s own highly trained reflexes.
"Dante!" Cassia shouted.
With a sudden, violent burst of leverage, Cassia planted her hands against Dante’s chest and shoved him backward with everything she had.
The sheer force of her shove knocked Dante off balance, throwing him hard to the left, out of the direct line of fire.
At the exact same millisecond, the deafening crack of the pistol echoed through the room.
Cassia felt the impact before she heard the sound. It felt like being struck by a red-hot sledgehammer directly beneath her left collarbone. The kinetic force of the bullet spun her backward, slamming her shoulder into the legs of the overturned table.
A second later, two of Dante’s perimeter guards opened fire, dropping the rogue gunman instantly, his body hitting the brick floor with a lifeless thud.
The immediate threat was neutralized. The gunfire ceased, leaving only the ringing echo of the shots and the frantic shouting of the security detail securing the street.
But for Dante Fazzari, the world had just stopped spinning.
He scrambled up from the floor, his eyes wildly searching the dust-choked air until they landed on his wife.
Cassia was sitting slumped against the table leg, her right hand clamped tightly over her left shoulder. The pristine black silk of her blouse was already tearing open, the fabric rapidly turning slick and with dark crimson blood.
The moment Dante saw the blood, something deep, fragile, and essential shattered inside his chest.
His vision tunneled. The sound of Zoran shouting orders faded into static.
The dimly lit restaurant in Rome vanished, replaced instantly by the horrific, suffocating memory of a different restaurant, eight years ago.
He saw Flora lying in the glass. He saw the light extinguishing in her eyes.
He felt the phantom weight of her blood on his hands.
It was his worst nightmare, perfectly violently recreated.
"No," Dante choked out, a raw, guttural sound of pure, unadulterated terror tearing from his throat.
He crossed the distance on his knees, sliding over the shattered glass, and gathered her instantly into his arms. Panic overtook him his massive hands trembling violently as he hovered over her, terrified to press against the wound, terrified to let her go.
"Cassia. Cassia, look at me," Dante begged, his voice cracking, his face stark white and drained of all color. He pulled her against his chest, his breathing rapid and shallow, teetering on the very edge of hyperventilation. "No. Not you. Please, God, not you."
Cassia winced as his grip jostled her shoulder, but her mind was clinically clear.