“Gemma, stop,” Mama whispers. “Your father would never have told you anything to ruin your night. He wanted everything to be perfect, a celebration you’d always remember. That’s why he had so much security at the event.”
“So much for security,” I say in a choked voice. “How did this shooter get past everyone? Who did it, Mama?” The beeping sound next to me gets faster and faster as my pulse throbs harder and harder.
“Mi amore, please, you need to calm down,” she says, glancing at the monitor next to me. She presses a red button next to my bed and turns back to me. “This is too stressful on your heart. I need you to take a few deep breaths, okay?” Her voice is so soothing, even in the face of death. She’s always been so strong, such a force in our family. It’s no surprise that Papa always confided in her. She could handle everything.
Me?
I didn’t get that gene, that fuck-all one where you can look anything in the eye and say take your best shot, I can handle it.
And especially now, I don’t feel like I can handle a goddamn thing.
“How can this be happening?” I try to take a deep breath, but my pulse is hammering too hard in my throat. “Papa, oh God, I love him so much. How can this…how can he be…?” Tears sting my eyes, my mouth unable to form the words.
“You were everything to him, Gemma,” Mama whispers, sweeping my hair back from my tear-stained face. “His beautiful and perfect daughter. So smart, so strong, so bright and shiny. He wanted to give you the world. Lord knows, he tried for eighteen years.” She smiles through her own tears. “He loved you so much, sweetheart.”
Oh, God, I knew something was wrong. I saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. The signs were all there, but I ignored them. Instead, I danced with him, exposing him to his enemies.
“I can’t believe he’s really gone,” I sob, pressing my hands to my temples, willing the universe to turn back the hands of time so I can have one more chance to see his smiling face.
Just one moment of happiness before it’s yanked away forever.
A nurse walks into the room and flashes a sad smile at me. “I’m so sorry about your father.”
I nod quickly and mutter a thank you. She checks the readings on the heart rate monitor and turns to Mama. “I’m going to give her something to relax. She won’t fall right to sleep, but it will numb her pain and help her calm down.” She looks back at me. “I’ll be back soon.”
Mama nods and thanks her.
“I don’t want any drugs!” I cry. “I want answers. Don’t you? For all Papa told you, how can you be so calm right now? What if they come back for you? For me and Gio? Who’s going to protect us?” My voice rises and the heart rate monitor bleeps uncontrollably yet again. “And Papa…Papa is gone! Forever! And we don’t know who did it or who might come back to finish the job! How can you be so calm?”
Mama squeezes my hand. “Gemma, I have no choice but to be calm. I have two children. I have responsibilities. I have lives to protect. Do I want answers? Of course I do! But right now, I need to make sure the rest of my family is safe and protected. That means you need to rest.” She dips her head lower. “We will get through this. We can get through anything together, do you hear me? Papa is gone, but we still have each other.”
“They’re not gonna fucking get away with this,” Gio’s angry voice seethes as he stomps into my room. He pushes back his dark hair, his eyes glassy.
And menacing.
“Gio,” I whisper, grasping his hand and eyeing his cut-up knuckles. “Where have you been?”
“It doesn’t matter where I’ve been. It only matters what I’ve found out.” He leans down close and I can smell the scotch on his breath. His eyes are bloodshot, and I know it’s not just because of all the alcohol he’s probably sucked down. He brings my hand to his mouth, brushing his lips against my skin. “I swear to both of you right here and now that I’ll always take care of our family. Papa never trusted me to do it when he was alive. He put his trust in the wrong fucking people.” Gio’s eyes darken, his lips twisting into a grimace. “But he’s gone now and it’s up to me to keep you safe. Nobody will hurt us ever again, but I need you to believe in me. I just need to hear…” His voice cracks.
I nod, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes as I squeeze his hand. “I do.” My eyes tangle with Mama’s. “We both do. We have to, because we’re all we have left.”
And so, on the morning after my eighteenth birthday, instead of blissfully reminiscing about my fabulous celebration, I’m lying in a hospital bed nursing a gunshot wound and a broken heart that no amount of surgery can ever repair.
Papa was right.
I will remember that night forever.
Happy birthday to me.
A familiar scent wafts under my nose and my eyes float open, the lids heavy with sleep. I don’t know how long I was out for, but as soon as the nurse pumped that sedative into me, I drifted far away, leaving all of the pain and sadness behind.
I force them to stay open so I can focus on the figure hovering over me.
“W-what are you doing here?” I mutter, pulling my hand away.
A pained expression clouds Tommy’s face. “Gem, I had to see you, to tell you how sorry I am.” He lets out a deep sigh. “About everything.”
“Sorry about what, exactly?” I croak. “About rejecting me and breaking my heart after months of playing your bullshit games? Or about failing to do your fucking job and letting my father die on your watch?” I hiss, yanking my hand away from his. “You didn’t need to bother. I don’t care about what you have to say.”
But as toxic as the words sound coming out of my mouth, I can’t fight the dangerous combination of love and lust coursing through me at his nearness. A mere brush of his fingers against my skin can make my body quake with longing, even through my morphine-induced fog.
And God, how I hate myself for it.
I want to hate him, too.
But as splintered as my heart is, it still beats for him.
It’s always been him.
My heart stills when I remember he spoke those very same words to me the morning of my Sweet Eighteen party. God, it feels like years have passed since then because I have no idea what day it is or how long I’ve been in the hospital.
He’s a fucking liar! If he’d really meant what he said, he’d have never let you walk away!
But the nagging, rational voice inside of my head just can’t compete with the emotions he stirs up deep inside of me.
“I never meant for this to happen,” he says. “I never wanted to hurt you. I was just trying to—”
“Please don’t say you were trying to protect me because what you did…” I shake my head. “It destroyed me. You destroyed me.”
He straightens up, fisting his hair as he paces in front of my bed, mumbling. To himself, to me, I’m not sure. But each word pelts me harder than the last, puncturing my shield of rage. The cracks form quickly, raw and exposed like open sores that won’t ever heal. “I lost focus. Got distracted. I wasn’t thinking straight and I failed. I failed you. I fucking failed everyone! I never thought it would go that far…and I couldn’t stop it. Fuck, I let it happen. I watched it happen!” He stops, his tormented gaze piercing my soul.
I grit my teeth, my blood bubbling just below the surface. I want to tell him to leave, to never come back, but my lips refuse to form the words.
Because I need him.
And because I love him.
He finally sinks into the chair next to me and covers his face with his hands. “I’m so sorry, Gem,” he whispers through his fingers.
“Is that why you came?” I ask. “To say you’re sorry?”
“No,” he murmurs, standing up and inching toward me once again. “It’s not.”
“Then why are you here?” I ask the question, the flickering ember of hope still alive in my nearly decimated soul.
He leans toward me, his eyes heavy and guarded as always, his lips stretched into a tight line
. “I came to say that I—”
“Am a lying sack of shit?” Gio’s caustic tone sends a shudder through me. “Is that what you were gonna tell her, Tommy? That you’re a fucking double-crossing traitorous bastard who’s been working against my family for the past year?”
“What are you talking about?” My jaw drops and my eyes leap from my brother to Tommy, who doesn’t even open his mouth to defend himself.
What in the fuck is happening right now? I’d like to blame it on the drugs, but I’m damn lucid.
Regrettably, because I don’t want to acknowledge what my brother is insinuating right now.
Gio’s eyes are wild as he scours the room and grabs a tall crystal vase off a table. He flings the flowers across the room, splashing water over me. I yelp as he lunges at Tommy, swinging it toward his head. “Tell her the truth! For once in your miserable fucking life, tell someone the goddamn truth!”
“Gio, stop!” I screech.
“Tell her how you were working with Marco, you asshole! How it was you who let the shooter get into the party, and how it was because of you that my dad is on a slab of ice in the goddamn morgue right now!”
“You’re fucking crazy!” Tommy yells, swinging his fist into Gio’s jaw. “I was trying to protect your father!”
Gio stumbles into a chair but never falls to the ground. He shoves Tommy against the wall, making the nightstand shudder from the force. “I thought you just had a hard-on for Gem and that’s why you were letting shit slip. Then I found out the real reason, that you were just keeping us close until it was time to strike.”
“You don’t know shit, Gio! It’s your fucking fault Freddie is dead, not mine! You killed Marco! He was the one plotting against Freddie, not me!”
“Oh yeah?” Gio’s voice is laced with malice, sending chills slithering across my skin. They face off against each other, both breathing heavily, both twitching to hurl the final blow. “Then how come you went searching for Marco’s body? You cleared the path for the shooter. You invited him in to fucking destroy my family! Devo told me everything,” he growls. “So, Gem, this sonofabitch right here, this fucking traitor, the one you’ve been finger-fucking yourself over? He’s a goddamn mole. He sold out the old man. And he sold us out, too.” He narrows his eyes, pulling out his phone and stabbing the screen. “But don’t take my word for it.”
A loud ringtone blares from my coat pocket and my throat tightens.
Fuck.
Me.
It rings once, twice, three times.
Gio creeps toward me, the vase clutched in his outstretched hand. “Answer it, Tommy. Answer the fucking phone in your pocket!” He turns to Gemma. “Spoiler alert, it ain’t Tommy’s phone that’s ringing. It’s fucking Marco’s! Tell us why you have Marco’s phone, asshole! Why you grabbed it out of Devo’s trunk at the party!”
Bile rises in my throat, and I clap a hand over my mouth to silence the piercing scream about to erupt from my chest.
Gio lets out a roar and hurls the vase at Tommy’s head. Tommy ducks out of the way just in time and it smashes against the wall.
Two orderlies slam open the door and pull Tommy and Gio apart, ready to drag them out of the room until Tommy yells for them to stop.
“Let him go,” he says, his voice thick. “It was my fault. I’m leaving.”
He looks over at me one final time, and my heart all but screeches to a stop when the realization hits me like a cement block to the chest.
I can finally see what’s inside of his eyes, the ones I’ve stared into for as long as I can remember, wishing for the chance to just float away into the depths forever, never to return.
The barriers are broken.
He’s no longer guarded.
His eyes hide nothing because he’s empty.
Just like me.
Chapter Nine
Tommaso
I push open the door to my house half an hour later, my body aching from being crumpled in a waiting room chair for most of the night. I grit my teeth as I slam it closed behind me.
That fucking phone.
That fucking asshole!
Gio wants me gone.
He sees me as a threat.
Always has.
I’d always suspected that Gio heard me confess my feelings to Gemma that day in the hospital when she blew out her knee. He never confronted me, but he didn’t have to.
I just knew.
He’s been waiting for his chance to take over.
And today, he took it.
Seems like he’s been doing a lot of his own recon lately, except his searches would have yielded more if his head hadn’t been so far up his drunken and drugged-up ass.
Working with Marco. Is he serious? Why in the fuck would I ever align myself with that douchebag and risk Freddie’s wrath if he ever found out I was working against him?
I was never working against Freddie.
I was just never working with him.
And I sure as shit never wanted to see him dead.
But I signed my own death warrant when I went back for Marco’s goddamn phone. It’s my fault fucking Devo sold me out.
Gio will avenge his father’s murder even if he secretly wished for it.
My only hope is that the loan sharks get to him first. When they try to collect on his gambling debts and fail, he’ll wind up six feet under before he even has a chance to squeeze off a bullet in my direction.
I stagger into the kitchen and collapse onto a bar stool, my head falling into my hands.
Footsteps clunk on the floor, and I look up to see Vince spoon feeding himself black icing left over from Gemma’s cake. He looks like a vampire, his lips, teeth, and tongue all stained black.
“How the fuck do you get this shit off?” He grumbles, continuing to feed himself from the bowl with black-tinted fingers.
“Well, for one, you stop eating it,” I mutter.
Vince smirks. “It’s good. I don’t wanna stop.”
“So the man who’s always in control of everything in everyone’s goddamn lives can’t stop himself from doing something?” I roll my eyes.
“I didn’t say I can’t. I said I don’t want to. Semantics, dude.” He takes a seat next to me, swirling the icing around with his spoon and heaping more onto it. He holds out his hand. “You want some? It’s fucking great.”
“No,” I say, my arms folded across my chest. “And thanks. I know how good it is, ass munch. So does everybody else in the family.”
Vince snickers, sucking the icing off of the spoon. “You know why I’ve never eaten any of your cakes?”
“Because you’re a fucking prick who doesn’t know how to enjoy life and only knows how to destroy everyone else’s?”
“Harsh,” he says, lifting an eyebrow. “But actually, you’re wrong. The real reason is because I know how much I love sugar, and I’m afraid if I let myself eat it, I’ll turn into one of those fat bastard bosses who sits around slurping spaghetti and guzzling wine while everyone else does the hard work. It’s a choice.”
“And suddenly you’re not afraid of that anymore?”
Vince shrugs. “Eh. I got bored waiting for you. And it’s not like you stock celery in there,” he says, nodding at the refrigerator.” He puts down the bowl. “Seriously, though? I wanted to prove a point to you. See, I understand consequences. I know shit can easily go sideways if I let go of my self-control.”
“It’s hard for me to take you seriously right now, Dracula,” I mutter, sweeping a hand through my hair.
He takes a swig of the water on the counter and gargles for a few seconds. “Better?”
“Not really. Can you get to the point?”
“Listen, the point is that you let your emotions get in the way of your job. And I’m not just talking about tonight. You’re in love with Gemma, and you have been for a long time. I’m not blind, Tommy. And neither is anyone else. There have been plenty of times over the past year that we could have gotten some good intel on Freddie’s enemi
es, but instead you decided to play house with his hot ass daughter.” He narrows his eyes. “Did you fuck her?”
“No!” I slam my fist on the counter. “You’re a real dick, you know that? I didn’t want this to happen! Freddie is dead, and it’s on me! Not fucking Gio who probably prayed it’d happen, not Marco who orchestrated the whole fucking thing. It’s all me! And that’s not even the worst thing.” I pull Marco’s phone out of my pocket and slide it over to him. “They think I was in on the hit. They think I set it up and was working with Marco!”
Vince picks up the phone and looks at me. “Whose phone is this?”
“It’s Marco’s. After I—” I stop myself from saying the words ‘rejected Gemma’ and re-route my thoughts. “After Gio killed Marco, I knew I needed to get the phone to find out who he was working with. I was too late. I tried to get Freddie out of the party, but he wouldn’t go.” I rub the back of my neck. “I should have tried harder. I shouldn’t have let Gio kill Marco. I should have done a lot of things differently. But I screwed up. I still don’t know who the shooter is, Freddie is dead, Gemma is hurt, and they all think I was working with whoever took him out. They think I betrayed them.”
“You did,” Vince says.
“Thanks!” I shout.
“Look, you could have stopped it all from happening. If you’d have been on Marco’s ass instead of fantasizing about riding Gemma’s, things would be different right now.” Vince sighs. “That was my point about the sugar. To me, it’s always forbidden because I know once I start, it’ll be hard as hell to stop. Gemma is to you what sugar is to me. You fell for her, and because of that, you lost your focus. You put us all at risk.”
I fist my hair and let out a loud groan. “Why did you put me on this? Huh? Why not Ant or Diego? Why the hell did you choose me?”
“Because it was time for you to step up,” Vince says, going over to the sink and rinsing out his mouth. He rubs his lips with a paper towel, and I’m happy to see that he still looks like a creature of the night. I hope that shit never comes off. “I know you were hurting after Mama died, but you’ve never had a chance to make a name for yourself, to really prove you can handle this life. It wasn’t until Pop died that I got you out of this kitchen and into the world. I know you’ve worked with the guys on jobs, but I needed to see for myself just how far you’d go for the family and how much trust I’d be able to put in you to get things done.” Vince frowns at me. “Let’s just say it’s not much.”
Taken: A Dark Italian Mafia Romance (Men of Mayhem Book 3) Page 9
