by J. J. McAvoy
This place had built her.
Pushing open the doors to the bedroom with the best view, sitting high by the window, was an older woman with long, gray hair, a round face, and a pulpy body. Nothing about her said dangerous or mastermind. She looked like a grandmother, and on her little table, sat Italian pastries and a glass of milk.
“Who are you? How did you get into my room?” She frowned, looking around. “Are you a nurse?”
I chuckled.
Generations of strife and blood for this? A blood feud that fucking ended in this? An old woman who could barely recognize the world around her. She should have cut her losses. But then again, when the losses are children, there is no other way this could.
“I am not a nurse,” I said replied, wobbling over to her. “I’m Calliope’s husband.”
“Calliope’s husband? Impossible, Calliope just turned sixteen. She isn’t married; I won’t allow it! Where is she? Bring her to me! Right now!”
“Don’t bark at me, lady. Besides, you can’t reach her anymore.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Who are you to talk to me? Go get Calliope, and she better have a good excuse for having you here, or I will—”
“You will what?” I asked, pulling up a chair to sit in front of her. “Or what?”
She smiled and put her hand on the desk, and I did the same. “Luca, come get this idiot out of my face.”
“He’s dead.”
“Mary—”
“Just killed her, too.”
“Calliope—”
“Not dead. But not on your side.”
“This is her family—”
“No, I am her family. Which is why I’m here to deliver this,” I said, pulling out the vile for her to see.
She stared at it for a long time, and then like magic, her demeanor changed. She looked to the door. “You killed them all?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes shifted on to me. “They seemed to put up a good fight, though.”
“Not good enough.”
She chuckled. “I knew that little bitch couldn’t do it. Even after everything I did for her. But that stupid husband of mine was so sure we’d broken her well enough. One day your family’s luck will run out—”
“So many of you have said that. But that day is still not today.”
“It might be.”
I pointed my gun at her. “I do not like chatting. Drink.”
“My son isn’t finished with you all. Luca made him a special surprise for you.” She drank from the vile. “I wonder, will you make it out of here to see what is left of your fucking cursed devil fam…fam…ily—”
She choked on the words as she coughed blood. It poured from her eyes, nose, every hole in her body. The blood came out, and she trembled, shaking, her face turning purple. I rose as she fell out of her chair. It was then that I saw whatever device she was sitting on went off.
“Of fucking course,” I sneered and hopped up as I felt the house quake under whatever the hell had just exploded.
“Die…you…all…should…die!” Siena gasped out as the door opened.
“Ethan!” my father hollered as he came into the room, watching as Siena convulsed in blood.
“The whole place is wired. We need to go,” I said, already moving to the door. He grabbed me, helping me out. “Where is Mother?”
“Is this over?” he asked back instead.
“I’m not sure.” Honestly, I wasn’t, but that was why I’d had Calliope stay back. Even when we were apart, she knew what to do. Whatever piece I was missing, she would get it, and we’d end this.
No Orsini could live.
None.
HELEN
I felt sick.
My hands were cramping.
Sweat rolled down my face, only to be cleaned off by someone else. I thought it was Sedric, but I couldn’t look away.
The person who had created this bomb was sick in the head. I’d never seen a pipe bomb so small and yet packed with so many explosives. Calliope was smart. She knew from the start that her half-brother had always meant to kill her daughter. I could see that when I looked inside. There was no way he could switch off the bomb. There was no remote detonator. It was time or sensor—that was it. Her half-brother wanted to torture her mentally first and then emotionally for the rest of her life.
“Focus,” my father whispered in my ear.
And I wanted to smile.
He was here, awake, and speaking to me—alive. For so long as I didn’t fucking screw up. I glanced at the time, fifteen minutes. How? Where had the time gone? That isn’t enough time! Fuck! Who the fuck puts a bomb on a kid! Fuck! We are going to die.
“Calm down,” my dad said to me.
“It’s not enough time, Dad—”
“It’s more than enough; breathe and stay calm,” he said, and I inhaled, breathing in and exhaling before I looked back down. “Now, do you see the switch plate?”
“Yes.”
“Wyatt?”
“What does the switch plate look like again?”
“Like a smaller light switch,” my father said, slightly annoyed, and I smiled…I had missed that, too.
“Okay, I think I see it.”
“You think?”
“Yes, Uncle, it’s my first throat pipe bomb. Please feel free to double-check with your blessed eyes,” Wyatt said back with a bit of humor in his voice.
“I will remember that tone,” he replied.
“If we live—”
“We are, both of you push the switch when I count down,” he said, and I bit my lip, trying to keep my hands from shaking. “Three…two…one. Now.”
I heard a click, but it didn’t unlock. Instead, the timer began to speed up. “Fuck!”
I looked up at my father, who still had his eyes on the bomb. “Dad—”
“It’s supposed to scare you,” he said, ready to take the tweezers from my hand, but his hands were shaking when she pulled back. “When you are scared, you are distracted. You focus on the time more, and then you want to give up and run. Why do that? Because we’ve almost got it.”
“Almost is not very comforting right now, Uncle,” Wyatt said to him. “What are you going to do?”
“The same thing,” he replied.
I stared at him wide-eyed. We’re down to ten minutes now. “Dad—”
“We were right the first time. It’s the pressure sensor we need to press as you hit the switch,” he said, this time trying to hold the whole bomb, but again, he wasn’t well enough. Over my head, another pair of white arms came and held the bomb. When I looked up, it was Uncle Neal, smiling down at me.
“This pressure good enough?”
My father stared at him.
“Dad?” I said when he didn’t speak, and they just stared at each other.
“Do the same thing. Someone grab Giovanna quickly,” he said, focusing again. “Three…two…one.”
We pressed, the bomb unlocked, and Calliope grabbed Gigi into her arms. However, the bomb clicked back in place, wrapping around Uncle Neal’s hands, and the time sped forward again. I stared in shock, looking at his hands and them back up at Uncle Neal’s face. However, he was smiling.
No!
DECLAN
He looked directly at me.
“You knew this might happen, didn’t you?” he said with that stupid grin on his face. “That’s why you were trying to take it. Sorry, man, it seems like I get to be the hero for once.”
There were no heroes here!
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Dad?” Sedric whispered, coming up to him.
“Sedric, my boy, get all the women out of here.” Uncle Neal said to him seriously, then looked to all of us. “All of you get out.”
“Daddy, no!” Nari screamed, rushing to the bed. “Helen, unlock it again! Unlock it!”
“Nari!” he screamed at her. “This thing is a son of a bitch; it’s going with someone. That is what they were trying to say. Can�
��t let the youngest go, now can we?”
“Daddy, I—”
“Sweetheart, I’m the oldest,” Evelyn said, eyes wide. “I’ll—”
“I can’t have mom upstage me, either.” He chuckled.
“Neal!”
“Mom, it’s okay. Surviving is your thing,” he said, getting up off the bed. “Sedric, Son, don’t let me down. Step up and be the man I know you are.”
“Neal! No, please, no!” Evelyn’s screamed, but Wyatt was holding up her back.
Sedric rushed to grab his mother.
My son rushed to Nari as they all tried to rush toward him, while I was utterly useless, watching as if time had slowed down.
“Neal!” I finally managed out. “We still have time?”
“Remember what we promised each other when we were younger?” he said to me, walking closer and closer to the window.
“You idiot! You have nothing else to make up for! Neal!” I tried to push my body to go to him, but my body was just so damn weak.
Damn me! Goddamn me!
“Two minutes left?” he said instead of looking from his arms to Calliope, who stood staring eyes wide.
She shook her head.
“Give me the same deal you gave Coraline,” he said to her. “You’re Mrs. Callahan, and you’ll watch out for them as such.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
“Neal!” I screamed.
“Sweetheart, no! Please don’t do this to me. Please! Please! Stop. Stop right now!” Evelyn’s screams were the loudest.
And even amid my own tears and screams, I saw her say, “Deal.”
“Mom, my hope, Mina, my love, Nari, my precious, Sedric, my pride, I love you all so bloody fucking much. I’m sorry. Goodbye.”
And with that, he threw himself out the window.
Finding strength I didn’t think I had, I pushed myself off the bed and to the window, but the force of the blast shattered the glass and threw us back.
“No! No! No! No!” Evelyn screamed…I screamed…it was all just screams.
I was useless.
I was fucking useless.
When I tried…they died.
When I did nothing…they died.
Ah. Why can’t I save anyone? Why?
CALLIOPE
I lay over Gigi’s body, blocking the glass from reaching her.
I lay there for…for I wasn’t sure how long.
The smell of smoke and fire filled the room, telling me what I’d just witnessed wasn’t a nightmare. It was a reality. It was real. My daughter’s life was saved, but another one was taken right in front of us.
Slowly I pulled myself off the floor, sitting on my knees, looking at the room…looking over them. Sedric stood dazed, staring at the hole where the window used to be. Nari wept on the floor beside her mother. Wyatt was at Evelyn’s side as she’d collapsed. Whether it was pain or grief or anger, she’d collapsed. Helen was beside her father and Declan as he sat with his hands on his head. No one needed to see. They all knew.
Neal A. Callahan was dead.
Murdered by an Orsini.
Smiling and with ease, he had given up life for my daughter, his grandniece.
Reaching up, I touched my eyes. Shocked at the water coming out of them. Tears? I didn’t do tears. Quickly, I tried to blink them away, but for some reason, they kept coming.
“Stop,” I muttered to myself, rubbing my eyes and rising from the floor. Cleaning my face, I took a deep breath, calming myself down.
This was not a time for crying.
Mrs. Callahan couldn’t stop to cry.
The Callahans couldn’t stop and cry because there was always someone else waiting to cut them down if they bowed their heads. I was mad at Ethan, but maybe this was what he had seen that I hadn’t. That Siena may have been my enemy, but she had family, her son, my half-brother, and he had family, my mother, and half-sister. It was all fucking twisted. There was a rumor that to be Mrs. Callahan, you had to abandon your old family. I didn’t consider them family, but they were. And I couldn’t abandon them.
I’d had to kill them.
Every Orsini had to die for this.
I looked down at my daughter. I would make sure to add this part to the story for her one day. She needed to know the cost of her life, so she wouldn’t stop fighting for it.
Both of them. I thought, placing my hand on my stomach.
“Helen, you will stay with Gigi in the bunker—only you. Wyatt, you stay to watch over Evelyn and everyone else.” When I looked up, they were staring at me—all but one. I walked over to him, placing my hands on his shoulder, but he shrugged me off.
“Don’t touch me,” Sedric sneered, his eyes wide, and when he turned, his eyes held nothing but rage. “This is all your fault! All of this! If you never came… If you fucking just stayed where the fuck you’ve been hiding with your brat—this wouldn’t have happened!” With every other word, he basically spat in my face.
“Blame me if you want. But blame me after we’ve killed the people responsible for this. Every last one of them will die today. I will help you do it!”
“I don’t want your fucking help—”
I punched him as hard I could into the gut, causing him to gasp. “Your father was murdered. You are heartbroken and hate me. I get it. However, don’t let your hate for me blind you to the fact that we were attacked. This was an attack. So, either way, I will go! I will fight! Because there is no way in fucking hell that I am letting your father’s murderer go free after what he did for me. Not any of them. They will die. Anyone left with the name Orsini will die for what they did to him. I am going. Are you coming with me or not?”
On his knees, holding his stomach, his face red, he stared at me, trembling in anger. But slowly, he swallowed it.
“All of them,” he spat out.
I nodded. “All of them.”
“Do you know how to find them?” Killian asked, coming up beside us.
“Yes,” I said and picked up the gun I had dropped. “They’re at home.”
“And how do you know?” Wyatt called.
“Because Roman has apparently been waiting for me to crawl back broken and defeated ever since I left.” I pulled out the chamber of the gun before placing it back inside.
Roman could have killed Gigi while he was here, but his hate for me was deeper. Just like mine was for all of them. Just like when I could have killed my sister and mother in the church. Death wasn’t good enough. Suffering was. He needed to see me suffer, and he wouldn’t leave or run until it happened. This was how he’d close the book on me, too.
“Roman either thinks my daughter’s dead or you all are dead. Either way, he’s waiting,” I added.
“Waiting with or without a gun?” Killian asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sedric replied, rising and standing straighter. “Whatever they have, it doesn’t matter. If they have guns, we will use bigger guns. If they have bigger guns, we will use fucking bombs. It doesn’t goddamn matter!”
He stepped forward, crushing the glass under his feet. Only to stop and look at the large hole where the window used to be. The sun was slowly rising over the horizon. His face bunched once before he went to his mother, hugging her as she began to cry in his arms. All of them held onto each other as they sobbed.
Killian stepped in front of me. “What if you’re wrong, and they fled?”
“We hunt them down like the beasts they are and string them up.”
“All of them? Even your mother—”
“That woman isn’t my mother. She may have given birth to me, but she is no mother. I faced worse than she faced, and never once did I take my pain out on my child. She dies. All of them. That is the biggest priority of this family now.”
“Funny how Ethan isn’t here for this biggest priority.” He glared.
I glared back. “Funny how you seem to have the mind to think of what Ethan isn’t here for. And funny how you are still wrong. He’s killing the Orsinis there. We kill t
he ones here. See. Same priority. Only he’s facing the man who made the bomb and much worse without any of us. Without his family behind him. Do you still find this funny? Or do you think questioning the head of this family will suddenly make you the new king? Quick history lesson—that never works out. So, go help your father before we go.”
No one was going to insult Ethan but me.
Killian cracked his jaw to the side.
Walking over to Gigi, I carefully picked her up off the floor. “Helen, let’s go.”
“Why me?” she asked, already following behind me.
“Because you didn’t work so hard to save her just to get hurt. Wyatt has to take care of Evelyn and everyone else. I’m going to need Sedric and your brother to fight. Any more questions?”
“Yes, why are you answering questions?”
“Because…you all are going to need to start to understand me, and you are not as fast on the uptake as Ethan,” I replied, petting the back of my head.
“Where is Ethan?”
“Italy.”
“I know that, but—”
“He’s fighting.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“Have you been in contact with him?”
“No.”
“Then how do you he doesn’t need more help?”
I turned to her. “I don’t know, Helen. I trust that he can at least do that. I trust that if he needs help, he has a signal for it. I trust that he has a plan, even if I don’t see all of it. I trust that he will not die because he has much bigger dreams and family here waiting for him. I trust him even when he sometimes does things without my permission or breaks my trust as he did by leaving me behind. I trust him. That is why I am not worried about him. I’m worried about us right now. Finishing what we need to finish so that all he has to focus on is grieving the uncle he lost.”
That was a lie. I didn’t trust him, not 100%, not anymore. But that wasn’t what they needed to hear.
“And—”
“When I said any more questions, I sort of meant that sarcastically. You’re abusing it now, and it’s annoying,” I replied only to see her brown eyes just peering into me, annoyed also. “But I will deal with that because I am grateful. Thank you, Helen, for working so hard to save my daughter. I owe you.”
