Authors: Alexa Land
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“You have nothing to worry about, I promise.” Luca took a deep breath and let me lead him hand-in-hand to the back of the warehouse.
Dante and Vincent were right where I’d left them. Vincent sat upright with his hands folded in his lap, while his brother was sprawled out and taking up a lot of room, one arm strewn over the back of the club chair, one foot up on a mahogany coffee table. They wore matching, serious expressions though, as they assessed Luca. I introduced both of them, then said, “I’d like you to meet Luca Caruso.”
The brothers rose to their feet slowly. They were both around six-four and solid muscle, but then, so was Luca. It was rare for me to feel tiny at six-one, but I did then. They shook hands with Luca solemnly, the tension thick and heavy around us. “Jesus,” Luca said, “I had a nightmare like this once, where all my father’s enemies confronted me, and I had to pay for his sins.” Dante raised an eyebrow at him, and he went on, “I can only imagine how much you must hate me, and I don’t blame you one bit. I know what Sal Natori did to your family, and it makes me sick to my stomach. I’m ashamed to carry his DNA, and if I could somehow cut out that part of me, I would. I apologize on behalf of the Natori family for his actions, and I know how ridiculously inadequate those words are, but I had to say it. I’m done talking now. Please don’t shoot me. ”
Dante considered that for a moment, then said, “You’re making it pretty fucking hard to hate you.”
“Good,” I said.
After an awkward pause, Dante said, “So, a couple things need to happen. You two have to work things out, but first we have to figure out what the hell we should do about Andreo Natori.” He turned to Luca and asked, “How far do you think he’s willing to go to keep you from getting involved with a Dombruso?”
“How far? A bullet in Nico’s brain. I hope to God I’m wrong, but I think he’s probably capable of that. To say he’s a control freak is putting it mildly, and the fact that he can’t control me enrages him. I think he’d kill Nico just to teach me a lesson.”
“Wow, your brother’s a douche.” Surprisingly, that had come from Vincent, and when I looked at him he said, “What? He is.”
“You’re not wrong,” I told him.
“Come into my fake living room,” Dante said. “Let’s have a seat and see what we can come up with for defusing this situation.”
I brought Luca a cup of coffee from the breakroom (because he looked like he desperately needed it) then sat beside him on the brown sofa while my cousins returned to the matching club chairs across from us. I held his hand while we all brainstormed ideas, even though the earlier awkwardness still lingered. It was as if we didn’t know where we stood with each other anymore.
After a while, Dante got to his feet. “Come on, Vinnie, let’s raid the showroom manager’s desk. She often has peanut butter cups in there. I think Luca and Nico need a few minutes to talk. Plus, I’m fucking starving.”
Vincent got up too, and both of them had just started to leave the model living room when movement to my left caught my eye. The entire west wall of the showroom was glass, and a large, white SUV was headed straight for it. I managed to yell, “Look out!” An instant later, the wall shattered, and all we could do was crouch down and shield ourselves with our arms. Fortunately it was made of safety glass, so we weren’t ripped to shreds as the pieces pelted us.
The car ground to a halt ten feet from us, and three of the doors were thrown open. Andreo and two huge men with permanent scowls burst out of the vehicle with guns drawn. Dante and Vincent had pulled their weapons, too. Vincent held one in each hand, aimed at the pair of thugs, who in turn pointed their weapons at my cousins. Meanwhile, Dante and Andreo’s guns were trained on each other. “Who are you?” Andreo demanded.
I answered for my cousins, trying to draw his focus away from them. “They’re no one, just a couple bodyguards I hired when I heard you were on your way here.”
Luca started to approach his brother, saying, “How the fuck did you find this building? I’m using a burner phone, no way could you trace it here!”
Andreo swung the gun around so it was pointed at me and told his brother, “That’s close enough. I don’t want you to get any stupid ideas about disarming me to save your boyfriend.”
Luca stepped between me and the gun and said, “Knock that shit off and answer me! How did you find me?” A thought occurred to him, and he ran the lapels of his wool overcoat between his fingers. He then reached under the right lapel and pulled out a small, metal object. It was covered in tiny barbs and looked a bit like a burr. “Really? You planted a bug on me? What the fuck is wrong with you, Andreo?”
“What’s wrong with me? You’re sitting here having a tea party with three fucking Dombrusos, and you ask what’s wrong with
me
?” He turned his gaze on me and said, “I know those two aren’t bodyguards. Nice try, though. I remember their faces from the files we have on your family, I just can’t remember which one’s Dante.”
“I am,” Vincent said, stepping forward.
“Stop that,” Dante said, pulling his brother back and narrowing his eyes as he stared Andreo down. His voice rang with authority as he said, “I’m Dante Dombruso, and in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re on my turf right now. If you decide to prove to your brother just how big a psychopath you really are by pulling that trigger, know this: you’ll never make it out of San Francisco alive. The entire Dombruso family will hunt you down like dogs, and believe me when I say, they’ll show no mercy for the son of Sal Natori. They won’t kill you quick, either. They’ll make sure you and your lap dogs suffer, not just for this, but for generations of Natoris being a thorn in our side.”
Andreo swung the gun around and took two steps forward, pointing it directly at Dante’s forehead. My cousin didn’t flinch and his gaze didn’t waver in the slightest. He just kept staring Natori down, totally unphased. Even through my panic, I had to admire what a total badass my cousin was.
“So, what did you think was going to happen?” Andreo asked with a grin. “You’d make a big speech and I’d quake in fear before turning and running?”
“What I was
hoping
would happen is that you’d realize you’re in a no-win situation,” Dante said. “You start firing, we do, too. You somehow make it out alive, my family hunts you down. Why don’t you save us the trouble of killing you and crawl back under your rock?”
I stepped forward so I was standing beside Luca and told Andreo, “I know you’re not this unreasonable. You’re worried about your brother, and right now you’re probably incredibly pissed off at him. But how is that worth getting yourself killed? You’re the only real family Luca has. What’s he going to do if you die here?”
“He’ll probably throw a party,” Andreo said with a frown. “Luca doesn’t get it. He never has. Everything I do, I do for him. His safety is all that matters to me, and as long as you’re in the picture, he’s going to be in the crosshairs of the Dombruso family. I can’t allow that. If he ends up hating me for doing what I have to do, so be it.”
He swung the gun back around and pointed it at my heart, and Luca yelled, “Fucking stop it, Andreo!”
Since Andreo and his men had their backs to what was left of the glass wall, they didn’t see the big, black Ford Bronco approaching. Dante’s store was wired with an alarm system, of course, which had been triggered when the first SUV smashed through the wall. But it didn’t call the police. It called the family.
The Bronco crashed through a portion of the wall that was still standing. Andreo flinched when the glass shattered behind him. And that made him pull the trigger. The gun was still pointed at my chest.
I felt like everything was happening in slow motion. Fear paralyzed me, coursing through my veins, my breath catching in my throat. Someone was yelling over the noise of the engine and the shattering glass, but it sounded like they were far away. The crack of the gun echoed in my ears, loudest of all. I waited for the impact of the bullet. To my left, Luca was in motion.
In the next second, everything sped up again. More people were yelling. Luca collapsed as his brother lowered the weapon, shock and disbelief on his face. Luca had put himself between the bullet and me. He’d saved my life.
I looked down at him. He was on the floor, his eyes wide. A dark, wet stain was blooming on his grey shirt. He was bleeding out.
One second after that, I was in motion. I’d been trained for this, I’d worked as an EMT. I dropped to my knees, ripped his shirt open, and assessed the entry wound as I tore my shirt off. Then I wadded it up and pressed it to the wound to try to slow the blood loss as I yelled, “Call nine-one-one! He doesn’t have much time!”
Vincent dropped both his weapons and pulled out his phone, and I glanced at my watch and tried to estimate how long the ambulance would take to arrive. As my cousin called for help, I leaned close to Luca and told him, “Don’t you die on me. Do you hear me? An ambulance will be here soon. I know it hurts but you have to stay with me. You have to. Do you hear me, Luca?” He gave a single nod, his wide, green eyes locked with mine as the color drained from his face.
Andreo had dropped to his knees, too. He looked stricken as he stammered, “Luca, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Why’d you do that? Why’d you get in the way of the bullet?”
“Because I love him.” His voice so thin.
“Oh God, Luca,” I whispered, and bent to kiss his forehead, never taking the pressure off his wound. With my other hand, I picked up his wrist to check his pulse. It was weak.
My cousin Jerry plucked the gun from Andreo’s hand and demanded, “What the fuck is going on here?” It took me a moment to register the fact that he’d arrived in the Bronco and brought some people with him, all of whom had guns trained on Andreo and his men.
Dante stepped forward. “This is Mike Mazetti,” he said, indicating Andreo. “I was working with him on a business deal, and we had a difference of opinion. Tempers flared, you know how it goes. I appreciate you coming to help, but Vincent and I can take it from here.”
Jerry narrowed his eyes and said, “I thought you were on the straight and narrow these days. It’s news to me that you’re still involved in the type of business that involves firearms.”
Dante shrugged and said, “It doesn’t usually, but shit happens.”
After considering that for a long moment, Jerry handed Dante the gun he’d taken from Andreo and said, “Alright. So who’s the guy that got shot?”
“Luca Caruso, Nico’s boyfriend,” Dante said, sticking the gun in the back of his waistband.
I looked up at Jerry and said, “The ambulance is on its way. We need to clear a path for it.”
“You heard him,” Jerry yelled. “Get those vehicles out of the way!” His men rushed to comply, and Andreo handed one of his people the keys to the white SUV. Glass crunched under their tires as the big vehicles were backed out into the street.
The ambulance pulled up a minute later, sirens blaring. A man and woman in uniform hurried into the building carrying a large crash kit. Andreo got out of the way, and I kept pressure on the wound as I glanced at my watch and told them, “Single GSW to the chest, six minutes ago. Significant blood loss, pulse dropping. It missed the heart and lungs, not sure if the bullet exited the body.”
It tore my heart out to have to step back and let them take over, but they had all the equipment, not me. In just a couple minutes they had him as stable as possible, and transferred him to the gurney that the ambulance driver had wheeled out. “There’s room for one of you to ride along to the hospital,” the female EMT told us.
Andreo and I looked at each other, and he said, “You go ahead. He’s going to want to know you’re there, not me. I’ll follow in my rental.” I nodded and climbed aboard the ambulance.
Luca was swimming in and out of consciousness when I sat down beside him and picked up his hand. He blinked at me over the oxygen mask that covered his nose and mouth, and I told him, borrowing the nickname, “It’s going to be okay,
mio tesoro
. You’re in good hands.” He couldn’t reply, but kept his eyes locked with mine until he finally passed out from the blood loss.
Only when he was no longer looking at me did I press my eyes shut and let my fear and worry show. “Please don’t die,” I whispered. “This can’t be how our story ends.” I kept my finger on his pulse as I held his hand. It was so faint. I thanked God for every beat, no matter how weak, and prayed for them to continue.
They wheeled him straight to surgery when we arrived at the hospital. I stood in the long hallway staring after him, feeling so lost. The fluorescent lights made everything look so cold and unnatural, like a dreamscape I wished I could wake up from.
I jumped when someone touched my arm, and turned to look at my cousin Vincent. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” When I looked down at myself, I realized I was shirtless, and that my hands were covered in blood.
I let him lead me to the men’s room, and washed my hands thoroughly. He handed me a dark grey t-shirt and said, “This was in my gym bag in the car. It’s clean, though.” I thanked him and pulled on the t-shirt, which turned out to have a big Superman logo on the chest. “My son got it for me,” he explained.
When I was cleaned up, we went into the waiting room and sat beside Dante. We were joined a few moments later by Andreo. He perched on the very edge of a chair across from ours, his forehead creased with concern and strain showing around his hazel eyes. After a while, he asked, “Why did you lie to your cousin about who I am?”