Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4)

by Bethany-Kris

  “We’re family now, Adriano,” Joel said. “It would do you good to remember that.”

  Adriano scoffed quietly. “When you begin treating me and my wife like family, then I’ll give you respect back, Joel. My crew goes to Tommas, but it won’t go to you.”

  “Well,” Tommas drawled quietly, bringing Joel’s attention back to him. “What do we do about that?”

  “Take him,” Joel spat. “He’s fucking young and useless, anyway.”

  “He’s a fantastic Capo.”

  “If you think so.”

  “I know he is,” Tommas said calmly, refusing to feed into the rage brimming in Joel’s eyes. “How he’s managed to keep out of this entire war for the most part showcases exactly how good of a Capo that Adriano can be. Any man would give their left arm for a man who desires nothing more than peace on his streets and money in his boss’s hand.”

  “I guess I don’t see it the same way, old friend.”

  Joel was hitting his breaking point already. That was the thing about Joel Trentini. He could only pretend for so long, and then his anger diffused like a damn bomb.

  “That leaves you with what?” Tommas asked. “Only your crew, huh?”

  “Keep in mind that my territory dominates on shipping the products that the other territories sell, Tommas.”

  “And we’ll pay accordingly for the privilege until we can figure something else out.”

  “That works for me,” Joel said.

  “What else is there?” Tommas asked.

  Joel lifted a hand and gestured toward Abriella. “You asked for something at our last meeting. I’ve given it some consideration, and thought you might want to chat about it.”

  For a moment, Tommas’ throat thickened at the possibility of what Joel might be talking about. It didn’t help that his lover met his gaze from across the table with a deadness in her stare—something he’d never seen from her before. It was like for that brief second, she’d dropped from time because she didn’t want to be there at all.

  “A marriage?” Tommas asked.

  Abriella wet her bottom lip and looked down at her lap. The muscles in her arms jumped like she was squeezing the purse in her lap for all she was worth.

  “Yes,” Joel confirmed. “If anything, it would guarantee a peace of sorts between us. Family and all that nonsense.”

  Nonsense was exactly what it was. Joel cared nothing for family or what the word meant. Family was only useful to him if he was capable of using it to hurt someone else or for his personal gain.

  Tommas wanted Abriella more than anything.

  God knew he would have her.

  He would.

  But first … first he needed to hurt her again. Hopefully, she would see this for what it had been, and she would understand. She would hopefully accept one last person’s blood spilling to the ground for the sake of everyone else.

  “I don’t accept,” Tommas said quietly.

  Joel’s head snapped up, confusion lighting up his features. “What?”

  Abriella, wide-eyed and silent, watched Tommas with an understanding dawning as she glanced back and forth between her lap and her lover’s face.

  “Just as I said,” Tommas replied with a confident smile. “I don’t accept the offer of marriage. I don’t feel it’s necessary. There’s nothing I want from Abriella that frankly, I haven’t already gotten.”

  Abriella sucked in a hard breath. “Tommas, don’t …”

  Two words.

  That was all it took for Tommas to confirm everything he’d been wondering for the last week and a half since he’d last talked to his lover. Her voice was raspy, and tired, like she hadn’t been sleeping or talking all that much. There wasn’t enough makeup in the world to hide the worry on her face, or the sadness in her frown.

  “But I must say,” Tommas drawled, standing from the table slowly, “… that I enjoyed every damn minute of what I was given from your sister.”

  Joel stood, too, his fists clenching hard at his sides. “You’re admitting it then?”

  “I have no reason to hide it.”

  “Her reputation, her safety?” Joel asked scathingly. “Did you consider that maybe my offer was a way to save her from shame?”

  “Your offer is a way to lull me into a false sense of security, just like everything else has been, Joel. I’m not an idiot, but we’ll do this the way you want. I’ll let you think that this show of separating the Outfit is real. I’ll walk out of here stupid in love, happy in my heart, and blind to whatever is it that you have planned next because you’ve handed her over to me. The one thing I want more than anything is Abriella away from you and happy with me. You think you’re so much better at this game, but you’re not. I am not an idiot. When something feels too good to be true, it usually is.”

  “You’re wrong,” Joel spat. “I would have done this, but you’ve proven to me that you’re not ready for this war to be over.”

  “I am,” Tommas said. “I am more than ready.”

  Abriella blinked up at Tommas from where she was still sitting. Her eyes had always spoken far louder than her mouth did, although she was never without something to say.

  Crazy, her gaze screamed.

  He was being crazy.

  Didn’t she already know?

  Abriella had made him this way.

  “Aren’t you at all curious why no one around us seems shocked to find out that I was fucking your sister?” Tommas asked, smirking. “It’s because most of them knew in one way or another, Joel. Don’t you realize that both of your sisters played you for years?”

  Abriella stood fast from the table, her anger burning into Tommas from feet away. “That’s enough. Stop it.”

  “Why should I? Joel has done nothing for you, Ella, and even less for me. Joel thinks he knows everything there is to know about me, but actually, he knows very little.” Tommas’ gaze drifted to Abriella as he said, “He doesn’t know that everything I do is for the only thing that I want. And for those who do know me, they will know exactly what that is, and they know that if not today, I will get what I want tomorrow.”

  Abriella was the only thing he had ever wanted, after all. She came with a whole list of amazing things, and a few terrible ones added on, too. He loved her all the same. A future with her also carried the weight of expectations, now, he knew. Things that Tommas hadn’t given much thought to before—being a boss, for one.

  She knew …

  Abriella had to know it was always for her.

  Joel’s hand smacked the table hard. “We’re done, Tommas.”

  “We’ve been done for a long time, Joel. There’s no real offer here. Whatever you were trying to do with me, whatever you had planned, is over.”

  “There was an offer,” Abriella whispered.

  Joel grabbed Abriella’s arm and yanked hard. It took all that Tommas had inside his soul not to beat the man to death with his fists.

  “Shut up,” Joel hissed to his sister.

  Abriella jerked from her brother’s grasp with a glare. “There was an offer, and my choice just got easier.”

  “We’re leaving right now.”

  “Then let’s go,” Abriella replied.

  The moment Joel turned from the table, Tommas knew something was wrong. Abriella didn’t move to follow her brother. Instead, she flipped open the clutch purse her father had handed over before the meeting. It drew Tommas’ gaze down to her steady, delicate fingers wrapping around the butt of a small handgun.

  Where had that come from?

  Her father?

  Why?

  “Ella,” Tommas said. “Ella, don’t do that.”

  His voice was a breath.

  Stunned, barely there, and not even heard.

  Abriella pulled the gun out, lifted it, cocked back the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Tommas wasn’t even sure if she aimed before she fired.

  But the girl hit her mark.

  The bullet entered the back of Joel’s head just above the hair o
n his neckline. A soft, fleshy part of the head where the bullet could penetrate easier, and instantly hit the spinal cord. The small caliber handgun wasn’t big enough to cause a major shock on impact, but Joel still let out a gasp a second before he fell forward.

  Blood pooled.

  Silence echoed.

  Abriella lowered the weapon, and her hand began to tremble at the same time she let out a loud, broken, agonizing sob. The sound alone was enough to slice Tommas’ heart open for her. She shouldn’t have had to make that choice. She shouldn’t have needed to hold that weapon or to pull the trigger.

  Everyone seemed to move at once, charging for the woman with the gun and to the man on the floor. People from the outside flooded into the building at the sound of a gunshot going off. The roar of the new people entering the restaurant and trying to figure out what had happened was damn near deafening.

  Tommas was already jumping over the table toward his lover. In the process, he knocked whoever was in his way to the ground. He didn’t even care. Joel’s fools would want to protect their boss, but it was probably too late.

  He simply needed to protect Abriella.

  “Ella!”

  Abriella spun out of a man’s grasp and pointed the gun again. Tommas slid an arm around her waist, pulled her back into him, and slipped the gun from her hand at the same time. He aimed it straight at the face of the fool who had come directly at Abriella. Almost everyone in the restaurant stilled the moment Tommas had control of the only weapon around.

  His lover shook in his arms, like a little leaf ready to blow away in the wind.

  “It’s okay,” Tommas whispered in her ear.

  Not once did he drop his weapon from the face of the enforcer that had checked him earlier. Darryl was the guy’s name. He looked after Abriella for Joel, too. No doubt, the man was close to Joel and loyal to him like nobody else.

  Abriella sobbed again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what he was gonna do, Tommy. I didn’t know, but—”

  “Shhh, baby. I got you, Ella. I’m always going to have you.”

  She quieted, but her trembling continued.

  “This is done,” Tommas said loud enough for every person standing frozen around him, unsure of what to do. “The fighting, this war, it is done. No more. Stop hurting people for your own agenda, and stop letting others use you for the same reason. Be better—we are better than this. No more blood, not in Chicago. I won’t allow another drop to spill for this war.”

  “Aye,” came a quiet call from the corner.

  Adriano Conti.

  “Aye.”

  Damian.

  “Aye,” echoed Theo DeLuca from the floor.

  Tommas looked down at Theo. The man had been helping another man flip Joel over.

  “He dead?” Tommas asked.

  “Yeah,” Theo confirmed.

  Abriella made a pained, muffled sound that caught in her throat. Tommas held her tighter, feeling her body weaken under her own weight. She needed to get out of here. That gunshot had been terribly loud for such a small weapon. He wanted this meeting to stay under the radar of the cops and agents, but now it probably wouldn’t. The restaurant was in a decent part of the city where the sound of gunshots wasn’t common. The cops would be on their way soon.

  “This is done.” Tommas still hadn’t lowered his weapon from Darryl.

  “Done,” the enforcer said quietly, but strained.

  “Play the right cards,” Tommas told the man, “and you’ll get another day, man.”

  Darryl dropped his hands, empty with nothing to fight back, to his sides.

  He was a stupid man to do it.

  Tommas would have him killed before the night was out. Darryl had been too close to Joel, and Tommas knew some of the stuff that had been said to Abriella by the enforcer.

  “D?” Tommas called.

  “Right here, boss,” Damian said, stepping around the men he’d brought along to the sit-down.

  No one seemed to know what to do.

  “We need to fix this and fast.”

  “I’ll take her.”

  “No,” Abriella said, looking back at Tommas with wide eyes. “I don’t want to—”

  Tommas, uncaring of those watching, pressed a kiss to her trembling lips to quiet her. “Go with Ghost. Please.”

  “But, Tommy.”

  Her tears welled, and his heart broke.

  “I’m sorry,” he said right before Damian grabbed Abriella’s arm and pulled her away.

  His lover was dragged from the restaurant to the stunned silence of everyone else.

  When the door swung shut, Tommas said, “Is there any objections to my seat?”

  No one said a thing.

  He still had that goddamn gun, after all.

  Outside, Tommas heard the screech of tires and the faint scream of sirens.

  Shit.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  These men couldn’t be here. Most of them were good, honorable men for the Outfit.

  “Fucking go,” Tommas barked. “Get out of here!”

  He didn’t have to say it again. His mind raced to catch up with what was happening as men started to scramble from the restaurant. Some went straight out the front, but most went out the back. Tommas’ shoe slipped on a small puddle of blood, but he caught himself quickly as he turned to leave as well.

  The sound of the door opening stopped him.

  Behind him, Tommas found Peter Trentini waiting. The man held his hand out.

  “Give it to me,” Peter said.

  Tommas held tighter to the gun, his one failsafe in that moment.

  “Give me the gun, Tommas. She did the right thing, didn’t she? My girl did the right thing.”

  “Yeah,” Tommas said, confused and sad at the sight of the man’s pain.

  “I love my girls. Both of them. I’d do anything for them.”

  The confession came easily for Tommas. “I love her, too.”

  Peter laughed bleakly. “I know. Joel thought I was a fool, that I didn’t know how to do anything. He treated me like it, too. This last week and a half, Ella didn’t come around. She’s been coming over to my wing ever since her mother was killed just to keep me company, make sure I was fed, and give me someone to talk to. I knew something was wrong when she stopped coming.”

  Tommas sucked in a deep breath; the air burned in his lungs.

  “I logged onto the cameras for the house using the program the tech guys put in, and watched it all. I heard what Joel said to Ella about things.”

  “What things?”

  “You, how he was going to use her to trick you into something, but he didn’t really say what, and that he needed to make sure you didn’t find out about it. He locked her in the wing upstairs, and took away all of her things. All week I’ve been watching her cry in the hallways. She just wants to be happy, Tommas.”

  God.

  Tommas ached inside. “I know she does.”

  “Please make her happy.”

  “I will.”

  “And tell her I’m sorry.”

  Tommas didn’t get the chance to respond. Peter had slowly moved closer to Tommas as the men talked until he was just a foot away, and snatched the gun from his hand. Turning fast on his heel, Peter ran for the front door. The blare of the sirens roared directly outside the restaurant and red and blue flashed in the windows. Peter pushed the door open and stepped outside, still holding the gun tightly in his palm.

  What was he going to do?

  “Put the gun down!”

  The shout shocked Tommas. It came from a loud speaker somewhere outside.

  Peter lifted the weapon and wrapped his finger around the trigger.

  Tommas choked.

  “Tell her I’m sorry, but Joel wouldn’t have ever seen her coming,” Peter said. “He expected you, Tommas, or someone else, but not her.”

  The gun would have Abriella’s father’s fingerprints on it, Tommas realized. Gunpowder residue, fresh from the weapon as it had just been
shot, would be on his hands. A murder-suicide would be the headline. A vengeful father who blamed his son, maybe.

  Peter had planned it all.

  Sometimes, allies showed up in the most unlikely of places.

  Knowing all of that didn’t make it easier when Peter pulled the trigger, and the guns from the police answered him back.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Abriella, are you okay?”

  Blinking out of her daze, Abriella turned in the passenger seat to stare at Damian Rossi. The tight, grim set of the man’s mouth spoke of his concern. He’d been mostly quiet ever since he shoved her into the car except to tell her that he was taking her home.

  Where was home?

  God knew the Trentini mansion certainly hadn’t felt like home for a long, long time.

  “Are you okay?” Damian asked again.

  “Do you care?”

  Damian’s brow furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I care?”

  “I shot a man—it’s over now. Why should you care how I feel about what I did?”

  “Because that man was your brother.”

  Abriella glanced back out the window, a strange mix of sadness and confusion swirling around her heart and suffocating the very life out of each beat. She’d been so confused when her father brought her that small clutch outside the restaurant. She hadn’t brought a clutch along, and she hadn’t noticed her father with one in the car on the drive to the sit-down.

  When she felt something hard in the purse during the dinner, and opened it up to find a small gun inside, Abriella knew right then what she needed to do.

  Joel had forced her into confinement for a week and a half. He’d refused her access to her father, to a computer, or even a phone. The only thing she was left with for her time was herself, her thoughts, and her choices.

  By the time the sit-down arrived, she still hadn’t been able to choose.

  Peter gave her another option.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Abriella whispered.

  “To kill Joel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Someone else would have done it, I’m sure. No one is going to blame you for any wrong doing, as far as that goes. This has been a long time coming.”

  Damian was right.

  Abriella knew it.

  She wished that helped the odd guilt swimming in her veins, but it really didn’t.