Authors: Alexa Land
“He doesn’t need to know the truth,” Dante told him. “It would just stir up trouble.”
“Thank you.”
“Speaking of trouble, the police will be here any minute. It’s standard procedure for the hospital to phone them when a gunshot victim is brought in. We need to get our story straight. We can go with the whole ‘you were showing us the gun when it accidentally went off’ excuse. The cops hear that all the time, but sometimes it’s actually true. I assume it wasn’t properly registered, right?” Dante asked, and Andreo nodded.
“I had a colleague leave it and the car at the airport for me. I have no idea about its history,” Andreo said.
I didn’t notice that Dante had a backpack with him until he pulled it out from under his chair and unzipped it to reveal a gun case. “This is the same make as the gun you used and it’s registered in my name. We’ll dispose of the other one just in case it’s linked to other crimes. I discharged one bullet from this before I followed the ambulance to the hospital. They don’t run forensics in a case like this, so they won’t realize the bullet wasn’t from this gun. You should be fine.” He slid the backpack across the floor, and it stopped beside Andreo.
“I can’t believe you’re doing so much for your enemy,” Andreo said. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch, and you’re not my enemy. Your father was, but not you.”
Luca’s brother looked at the linoleum and said, “I never expected kindness from a Dombruso.”
“You heard your brother. He loves my cousin, and for their sake, we need to let this feud between the families die out. It’s been going on far too long anyway. I bet no one even remembers what started it,” Dante said.
Andreo smiled humorlessly and told him, “It was over two cases of wine.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“In the early eighteen-hundreds, my great-great-great grandfather, Vido Natori and yours, Mauritzio Dombruso, were the best of friends and heads of their respective clans. I’m probably leaving out about a few greats there, but you get the idea.” Andreo sat back in his seat and continued, “Both of our families were heavily involved in organized crime, as I’m sure you know, but they were allies all the way. The families had divided up Viladembursa and the surrounding territory years before. No one dared horn in on their claim, because the two families united were the strongest force in the region.
“The way I heard it, one day a wine delivery to Mauritzio’s grandmother’s restaurant came up short, and he accused Vido of skimming off the top since he was overseeing the delivery. This outraged my ancestor. A lot of harsh words were exchanged, and the two went from best friends to bitter enemies, just like that. Soon the families began to fight for control of Viladembursa. It all spiraled out of control from there. I don’t know how many lives have been lost along the way, but I’m sure it’s well into the double digits on both sides.”
Vincent shook his head. “It’s all so pointless.”
“Most feuds are,” Andreo said. He turned his head and stared off in the direction they’d taken his brother.
We were soon joined by a police officer, who looked skeptical as she took Andreo’s and Dante’s statements about the gun accidentally going off. She inspected the weapon and its registration card, and took it into evidence. She then wrote some information on a little notepad, including everyone’s name, address and phone number, and said she’d be in touch. When she left, Dante said, “It’ll be fine. All our stories will be the same, including Luca’s when he’s strong enough to talk to the police.”
“Where’d your men go?” I asked Andreo idly. I’d only been partly paying attention to what was happening in the waiting room. Most of me was focused on an operating room somewhere deep inside the building.
“I sent them to find a hotel. They’re not needed here,” he said.
Dante checked his phone, and Vincent asked him, “Did the work crew show up?”
His brother nodded. “The wall to the furniture store is being replaced as we speak. I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to clean up all that glass.”
I listened to my cousins chatting for a while, trying to let it distract me from worrying about Luca, but it didn’t help. I kept picturing his face right after he was shot, the color draining from it, his eyes wide with shock. And I kept hearing his voice as he said, “Because I love him.” I wrapped my arms around myself and pressed my eyes shut.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by those words. He’d already shown me he loved me by not giving up on us, even when I refused to answer his texts, and by flying halfway around the world just so he could talk to me. But to hear him say it, right after he’d actually taken a bullet for me, took my breath away.
It just killed me that he didn’t know it was mutual. I’d fallen in love with him back in Malta, but I’d barely admitted it to myself, let alone him. I’d tried to protect myself from heartache. I didn’t tell him how I felt because I was terrified of getting hurt again.
And now he was in an operating room, bleeding, possibly dying, and it was all because of me. Why the hell couldn’t I just have answered his texts? Why did I have to make him suffer for not telling me about his father, especially since, once the initial shock wore off, I understood why he kept that information to himself? I doubled over, head to my knees, my arms still wrapped around myself, and started to cry. He couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.
Once the tears started, it was hard to stop them. My body shook from the silent sobs. It was several minutes before I realized someone was sitting right beside me, comforting me by rubbing my back. When I finally got myself under control, I sniffed and sat up, then turned to the person beside me. I’d expected it to be one of my cousins, and was startled when it proved to be Andreo, his hazel eyes full of pain.
“You’re being awfully nice to me, considering you were prepared to shoot me less than an hour ago,” I managed.
“I wasn’t going to shoot you. I was just going to threaten you so my stubborn brother would get on a plane with me and come home. I never intended for anyone to get hurt.”
“If you don’t want anyone to get hurt, maybe don’t point loaded guns at people,” I said as I pulled off my glasses and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“I know I made a huge mistake. Several, actually. I’m so fucking sorry,” he said. “I had no idea. I thought the thing between you and Luca was just some fling. I was even arrogant enough to believe my brother insisted on seeing you just to spite me. I didn’t know you two are in love. If I’d had any idea what you meant to each other, I would have handled this differently.”
“You still wouldn’t have approved.”
“Well, no, but I would have been wrong. I never in a million years expected Dante and Vincent Dombruso to be so reasonable. I thought my brother was walking into a viper den.”
We were soon to find out his fears weren’t entirely misguided.
*****
Luca came out of surgery after three and a half hours. He awoke briefly, then slept for the next several hours as I sat by his bedside. I’d intended to stay awake, but I awoke in the evening with my arms and head on the edge of his bed. He was awake and stroking my hair gently, his hand trailing cords from an IV.
“Hey,” I said, taking his hand carefully and brushing his dark hair back from his eyes. “Are you in pain? Do you need me to call the nurse?”
His mouth was dry when he tried to talk, so I quickly poured him a cup of water from the little plastic pitcher on his bedside table and held the straw to his lips. He took a couple sips, then asked, “What happened?”
“Your brother accidentally shot you. He would have accidentally shot me, but you got in the way of the bullet.”
He thought about that for a few moments, then said, his voice a raspy whisper, “There was a car, a black one. It crashed into the furniture store.”
“Right. That was my cousin Jerry and a few of his men. They came running when the alarm to the store was triggered. When they saw everyone with their guns drawn through the glass wall, they decided to create a diversion.”
“Is everybody okay?”
“We’re all fine.”
“Where’s Andreo?”
I tilted my head to the upholstered chair in the far corner where his brother was sleeping and said, “I think he’s pretty jetlagged, he’s been sleeping since you got out of surgery and the doctor told him you’d be okay.”
Luca seemed groggy, probably because they had him on a steady narcotic drip. He asked after a moment, “Is he giving you problems?”
“No. We reached an understanding.”
He looked relieved at that, and murmured, “Good,” as he closed his eyes.
A nurse came in a few minutes later and took his vital signs, then told him, “I’m supposed to call the police station now that you’re awake. They want to ask you about the shooting. Do you feel up to that?”
When Luca nodded, she left the room and I filled him in on the story they’d put together to keep Andreo from being arrested. The same officer showed up about twenty minutes later and took Luca’s statement. When she finished, she handed me a business card and said, “Seems pretty straightforward. Tell Mr. Dombruso he can pick up his weapon at impound tomorrow. I don’t anticipate any further investigation.” Andreo, who’d awakened when the officer arrived, waited until the woman left before letting out a sigh of relief.
*****
Dante and Vincent returned around midnight, after being gone several hours. Both men were tense and on high alert. They’d left after Dante received a text that seemed to concern him. “We’ve got trouble,” he told me.
“What’s going on?” I asked as Luca’s grip on my hand tightened slightly.
Dante said, “It’s Jerry. Apparently he didn’t buy my story about Andreo’s identity, so he did some digging. Our family has files, too, on a lot of people we’ve done business with, and on everyone we’ve ever identified as being a part of the Natori organization. That includes a couple old photos of Andreo. There are hundreds of pictures in the files, which is probably why Jerry didn’t remember Andreo when he first met him. I guess he still looked familiar though, or maybe our story was flimsy enough to make our cousin head for the archives. Now that he knows the truth, apparently he’s furious that we lied to him.”
“Shit,” Andreo mumbled.
“It gets worse,” Dante said. “He wanted to know why you were in town, so he traced your men to the Oberon Hotel.”
Andreo stood up quickly. “How?”
“He’d noted the license plate of your SUV and has a contact that can hack into all the traffic cams in the city. I guess they were pretty easy to track down, because they were parked on the street right in front of the Oberon. Once he found them, he went to their hotel with a bunch of men and roughed them up until they started talking. One of them folded like a house of cards, apparently. He told Jerry you’d come to San Francisco to get your brother Luca, because you were afraid we’d find out he was a Natori and kill him.”
“Oh God,” Andreo mumbled, his face going pale. “All these years of keeping my brother hidden, and just like that, it’s all gone to hell. It’s totally my fault, too.”
“How do you know all of this?” I asked Dante.
“Even though I stepped down from running the organization, a lot of our family has remained loyal to me, especially those who’ve questioned Jerry’s leadership and decision-making since he took over. That includes his sister Carla. I texted her earlier today and asked her to keep an eye on her brother for me, since I had a feeling he wasn’t fully buying what we told him,” Dante said. “Turns out I was right.”
“So, what happens now?” I asked him. I was on my feet, one hand on Luca’s shoulder.
“I’m getting all of you out of here. I have a private ambulance on the way to transport Luca, I don’t think he’s safe in this hospital. I sent my husband to Nana’s house, Nico, and told him to locate your passport and pack a bag for you.”
“My passport? Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Dante said. “Andreo, do you have what you need to travel?”
Luca’s brother touched the pocket of his suit jacket and said, “I have my passport right here. Just so you know, I’m going wherever my brother does.”
“We planned on that,” Dante said. His phone buzzed and he took it out and looked at the screen, then said, “The ambulance is five minutes out. Let’s move.”
“Luca’s in no condition to travel,” I said.
“I realize that, but the good news is, his bed is on wheels. He doesn’t have to move a muscle,” my cousin told me.
“And you think the hospital staff is just going to let us roll him out of here?”
“They’re about to get really busy,” Dante said. I could have sworn there was a little spark of amusement in his dark eyes.
While his brother was talking, Vincent released the wheel stops on the bed and slid the table out of the way. He turned to Andreo and said, “Your job is to stay right by your brother’s side and hold this up.” He unhooked the IV bag from its metal stand and handed it to Andreo, who took his post with a solemn expression.
“Alarms are going to go off as soon as you unhook him from these machines,” I said, then quickly went around the room and powered down all the monitors before disconnecting them from Luca.
A minute later, a blood-curdling scream came from down the hall and Dante grinned. “That’s our cue. We’re going in fifteen seconds, everybody be ready.” Doctors and nurses were running past our doorway, heading toward the scream, which had come from somewhere to the left of Luca’s room. Soon my cousin said, “And we’re out of here,” then swung the door open and held it while Vincent pushed the bed.