“I’m sorry, Stefan,” he says.
“Get her out of here,” I tell him. “She doesn’t need to see this.”
Rafa nods, gestures to one of Catalano’s soldiers.
Lucas glances at me. He knows what’s coming.
The soldier takes hold of Gabriela and drags her kicking and screaming from the room.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
When windows crash and guns blaze and smoke and screams and blood and flesh explode around us, every man ducking for cover, every man drawing a weapon and shooting blind.
I’m knocked to the floor.
“No!” someone yells but I can’t tell who.
My men rush around me and everything happens in slow motion as I take a dropped pistol and get to my feet, opening fire on any Catalano man or cousin left alive and holding a weapon.
My mind is on her, my brain telling me she wouldn’t have had time to get out while simultaneously trying to block the thought.
She’s out. She’s safe. She has to be.
Because none of this will matter if she’s not.
The gunfire quiets, no more machine guns. It probably lasted all of two minutes but felt like an eternity.
As smoke clears, I take in the room, the carnage. What we leave in our wake in my family.
Collateral damage.
It’s what most of them become.
It’s what she was.
“Gabriela!”
I walk out of the room, count the bodies. Take in the blood.
“Gabriela!”
I see him first. Marchese on the floor, on top of her.
Blood pools around them and he’s not moving. Is she?
My steps slow.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Why was she here?
Why did he bring her here?
“Stefan,” it’s Rafa from behind me.
I don’t turn. I don’t care.
I get to them. Look at the expanding pool of blood.
I drop to my knees in it.
The floor is hard, the blood warm. It seeps into my jeans and I know Rafa’s calling me again but it’s like an echo, a distant sound.
Dropping the pistol, I push Marchese’s body off her, barely taking notice of him. Her eyes are closed and she’s not moving.
“Gabriela.” Even my own voice, it’s strange, that echo again. Like we’re in a tunnel.
She makes a sound, coughs, and her fingers move, streaking blood.
I roll her gently over, touch her, feel for a bullet wound, but the blood isn’t hers.
She blinks her eyes open, touches her head. “Stefan?”
I smile. In this terrible moment, I smile, and I lift her into my arms.
Her forehead’s bleeding. The impact of Marchese falling on top of her must have knocked her out.
I hold her to me with my cuffed hands, closing my eyes, kissing the top of her head, thanking God. Because it’s what we do in moments like this, believers and atheists.
It’s then she turns to see her father. It takes her a moment to register the fact that he’s not moving.
“Dad?” She pulls away from me, touches his face. “Dad?”
I watch them. See his eyes open, but it’s weak.
“Dad.” Her voice breaks.
His hand moves, reaches for hers. He can barely move it.
She takes it and blood soaks her fingers.
His lips move, but I don’t hear any sound. She must hear what he says though because she begins to cry softly, leaning down toward him.
His eyes close then and I hear the grief she’s feeling. I hear it in her sob.
Marchese saved her life. He shielded her from the bullet that would have killed her and died in her place.
“Stefan.”
I finally look up. Rafa stands beside Catalano. Catalano is holding a pistol in each hand, Rafa’s bleeding from his shoulder, but Catalano is unhurt.
I leave Gabriela with her father’s body and rise to my feet.
It’s not over.
“Do it,” Catalano says, holding a pistol out to Rafa. “Do it, or I will.”
Rafa takes the gun and walks toward me and I look at my cousin, my brother, at this man I would give my life for. Will he take it now? Will he be the one to take it now?
“I’m sorry,” Rafa says, coming to stand before me.
I catch him when he stumbles. He’s hurt worse than I realized.
“Rafa,” I start, sliding my hand over his, the one that’s holding the gun.
Rafa looks over his shoulder at Catalano and I know the answer to my unasked question. And so does Catalano.
“Fucking waste of space,” Catalano curses and raises his arm and just before he fires, Rafa meets my eyes and raises himself to his full height for one single, final moment.
I feel the impact of it with him. I feel him jolt, feel the breath forced from him.
And I take the gun from his hand and shoot Catalano, emptying it in him, sending him backward, drumming bullets into his stomach until the pistol clicks, empty and useless. Until there are no bullets and the only sound is that of my screaming as I drop to my knees with Rafa in my arms.
Rafa’s body limp in my arms.
“Fuck. Rafa. Don’t…”
“Brothers. Who knew?” he says, giving me that goofy smile one last time. One last fucking time before his eyes close.
“Rafa. No. Fuck. Don’t fucking die! God, please…”
I hold him and rock with him and I think this is worse than when I found out Antonio had died. When I saw Antonio’s body.
I think this is somehow sadder. Can you rate death as sad or sadder or saddest? It’s wrong.
All the loss. All the fucking loss.
And for what?
His lips are open, breath shallow as his chest barely rises and falls.
Gabriela crawls to me, and I see she’s crying too, pushing Rafa’s bloodied hair from his face, and he looks so young. Like a kid almost. Like he used to.
I think about how sorry I am as sirens wail in the background. I think about how much I’m going to miss him.
“Hold on, brother. Hold the fuck on.”
35
Stefan
Any luck I’ve ever had has been bad.
But that night in the warehouse, that luck finally took a turn. Or maybe there is a God. And maybe he heard me. Because I’m sitting beside Rafa’s hospital bed holding a fucking cup to his mouth as he drinks water from a straw and I’m so fucking grateful. I am so fucking grateful.
“You look like shit, you know that?” he says to me.
I set the cup aside and smile. It’s been almost a week since the shooting. I haven’t left the hospital since we got here so yeah, I probably look like shit.
“Pot calling the kettle black,” I say. And what I feel, it’s elation. All that’s happened, what he did…all I can think is that he’s alive. He’s alive. “I’m going to beat the shit out of you when you get out of here.”
A shadow crosses his features just as the door opens and we both turn to find Gabriela walk inside.
I stand, smile at her, wrap my arm around her waist. She has some scratches, some bumps, but she’s fine. Again, I’m grateful.
“How do you feel?” she asks Rafa.
“Pain killers are doing their work,” he says.
He was badly injured. The bullet his father put in him missed his heart by a hair or this would be much worse. That wasn’t the only bullet he took but it was the worst.
She touches the bandage on his face. “Girls like scars, right?” He’ll have one across his right cheek, a constant reminder of how close he came to death.
He doesn’t smile. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking from her to me. “I’m sorry for all of it. I knew better and I’m sorry.”
My throat tightens.
Gabriela pushes hair off Rafa’s face then leans down to kiss his forehead and whispers something to him. She straightens, turns to me and slides her hand
s into mine.
“I’ll wait for you outside. You need to come home with me Stefan.”
I nod, squeeze her hands. I don’t watch her go.
Rafa stares up at me.
“You almost died,” I say, sitting back down.
“I deserved to die. Part of me wanted to. I betrayed you, Stefan. And all you’ve ever been is a brother to me. Blood or not.”
“You took a bullet for me. That’s what I know,” I pause, consider what I’m about to say. It may be the thing to seal his fate. “I do have one question for you.”
The way he looks at me, it’s like he knows what I’m going to ask before I ask it. Knows the importance of his answer.
“Did you know they’d put Gabriela at the bottom of that well?”
His face contorts, eyes wet as he shakes his head. “No. I didn’t know they’d do that to her. Believe it or not, I never wanted her hurt.”
I do believe it. Maybe it’s stupid of me, but I do.
The door opens again and Gabriela peers inside. “The car’s here.”
I nod, stand and when Rafa’s hand closes over mine, I see on his face the pain it costs him.
I close my other hand over his and I look at him and think about what he’s lost too. And I know myself. I don’t forgive easily. And I never forget. But I want to.
“Get better, brother.”
Epilogue 1
Stefan
It’s been three months since everything.
For three months, I haven’t let Gabriela out of my sight. For three months, I’ve woken in the night to look at her. To touch her. To feel her beside me. To know she’s there. To know she’s real.
I look at her now, too, in the glow of the moon. The night is clear but cooler than the last time we sailed out here. Out to Skull Rock.
She’s quiet but she smiles more even if her smiles are sad.
I think that’s always going to be a part of her. That sadness. It’s woven into the fabric of her. It makes her who she is.
But it’s changing little by little. Those smiles, they appear more and more.
I bring the boat up to the beach and climb out. She stands as I secure it before helping her out. We’re both barefoot and the sand feels good.
“How cold will it be here in winter?” she asks.
“Mild. Nowhere near as cold as New York.”
We sit on the sand and I follow her gaze to the sky. I remember our last conversation when we were here. It was the day of Alex’s memorial service and she’d told me she believed we became those stars when we died.
“Are you looking for your mom?” I ask her.
She nods. “Dad too.”
I squeeze her hand. “He did the right thing in the end.”
She glances at me, exhales. “A single heroic act does not a hero make, Stefan. But it must mean something.”
“It does.”
She turns away, and I can see she’s struggling to believe that. “What happens with you and Rafa now?” she asks when she shifts her gaze back to mine.
After his release from the hospital, Rafa left. It was a mutual decision. Things can’t go back to what they were. I think he and I both know that. But I also wasn’t ready to do what I, as head of the family, should do.
“I don’t know.”
“He saved your life.”
“I know. But the family has suffered again due to betrayal. I can’t let that go.”
“He’s been punished enough, don’t you think? He lost everything.”
“He lost everything he would have stolen from me.”
“You don’t care about that more than you care about him.”
She’s right. And he did lose it all. Even Clara. Although I’m not sure that was such a big loss.
“What happens if I let this go? History repeats, Gabriela, unless we break the cycles.”
“Then punish him if you have to but bring him back. You miss him. I see it, Stefan. I feel it.”
“You’re gentle. After everything.” I study her face in the moonlight. “I love you. Do you know that?” I ask. “I watch you at night, when you sleep.”
“Creeper.” She makes a face that makes me smile at least momentarily.
“I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“I don’t want us to ever find that out. I love you, Stefan. I remember the first time you said that. I told you I hated you and you said I didn’t. You said that I loved you. That was when I knew.”
I sit up, reach into my pocket. “I have something for you.” I take it out, keep it in the palm of my hand.
She sits up too. Waits.
“I want to make this right. Do it again, do it right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Give me your hand,” I tell her, taking her left hand. I take both the engagement ring and the wedding band off and pocket them.
“What are you doing?”
“You didn’t like those, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. A little over the top.”
“Hideous. Like how this started.”
I open my hand and she looks at it, at the ring in the center of my palm.
“What is it?”
“What does it look like?”
She meets my eyes. “Don’t be an ass.”
I smile, take the ring and bring it to her finger. “This is my mother’s wedding ring. My father gave it to her. It’s an old Sabbioni family ring, more than a hundred years old.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says, looking down at it.
“Will you marry me, Gabriela?”
“We’re already married, Stefan.”
“Now who’s being an ass?”
She laughs.
“Well?”
“Ask me again?”
“Gabriela Marchese, will you marry me and be my wife and the mother of my children?”
“How many kids are we talking?”
“A dozen. To start.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” she asks, her eyes bright, her smile wide.
I wait.
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you, again, this time of my own free will, and I will have your babies and fill that house up. Fill it up with noise and laughter and happiness.”
I slide the ring onto her finger and pull her to me. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
I draw back to kiss her and that kiss, it’s as though it seals something between us. And when I lay her down and strip off her clothes and make love to her, I never once let her go. I hold her and I fill her up and I know this is it. I know that for me, she is it.
This woman, this pawn that I took from my enemy is mine. And ironically, we saved each other.
Epilogue 2
Gabriela
Six Months Later
* * *
The sky burns orange behind me. I’m wearing my mother’s dress. It was her mother’s before her and her mother’s before that.
The breeze blows from the sea, salty and cool, the sunset one of the most beautiful I’ve seen since coming to Italy. A gift, maybe.
“Are you ready?” Gabe asks me.
I turn to him, look up into his handsome, sweet face. I don’t think about what could have been for him. I can’t do that anymore. He is here. He is alive. And I think he’s happy. Maybe he’s happier than he would have been if none of this had happened.
“You look really handsome in your suit, Gabe,” I say, adjusting his tie.
“Thanks, Gabi. You’re so beautiful. You look like mom. You make me remember her face.”
Tears warm my eyes.
“I think she’s watching us sometimes,” he says.
“Me too. I know she is.”
He smiles.
I think about all that’s happened. All the things I know. The things I don’t want to know. Like what Stefan had on my father that made him give me up in the first place. I don’t want to know that. I know it will be terrible and what I know about him is terrible enough.
&nb
sp; I think, instead, about what he did. His final act on earth.
He saved my life.
He died to save me.
When I told Gabe, he cried. But then he said something unexpected and so wise. He said he was happy dad was at peace. I love that about him. I love Gabe’s innocence.
The old door of the chapel creaks and someone peers their head out. It’s Miss Millie.
“Ready?” she whispers.
I nod.
Gabe lifts the veil to lay it over my head, covering my face. Yellowed lace obscures my vision as I turn to the chapel, look at the old stone walls, at the tall, arched stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible.
When Gabe takes my arm and tucks it into his, the doors open and organ music trickles out, the opening notes of the piece Stefan chose. We step onto the carpet and Gabe squeezes my arm when the few people gathered stand and turn to us.
I breathe in the scent of incense, remembering Alex. Knowing he’s watching over us too.
I only glimpse Miss Millie’s face for a moment before the soprano begins her song, the music rising, and my gaze falls on Stefan standing at the end of the aisle. He stands alone and I think Rafa should be here. Rafa should be by his side.
I hope one day he can be.
But I can’t think about that now. Past is past. Today is the beginning of our future.
Stefan smiles as I walk toward him and I feel Gabe’s grip tighten, feel that tender, reassuring squeeze again. Stefan looks as handsome as ever, even as the hair at his temple has greyed a little, even as there’s one more crease on his forehead.
When we reach the altar, the priest speaks.
“Who gives this woman to marry this man?” he asks.
“I do,” Gabe says.
The priest nods, and I turn to my brother. He lifts my veil and leans down to kiss my cheek. “Don’t cry,” he whispers.
I respond with a loud sniffle and hug my brother. He hands me to Stefan and takes his place at my side.
Stefan smiles, squeezes my hands and kisses my cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”
“So are you,” I say.
“And now you’ll stop crying. No more tears. Understand?” he asks, pulling back.
Damage: an Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance Page 20
