“Goddammit, shut up, Marco. Let’s just focus on the feasibility of a northern corridor.”
The words had no sooner left my mouth than a sound that had never been heard whistled through the room. Sandro’s modified panic button alarm. The four of us gaped at each other for a split second before vaulting into action. Racing down the stairs and into the garage, we hurried toward the Escalade.
I called Molly again, and when she didn’t pick up, left a terse message for her to take cover and get to safety. Out of my mind with trepidation and frustrated by her refusal to answer, I yanked open the driver’s door.
When Marco made to stop me, I roared at him, and he shoved me toward Sandro and Gabriel. “Get him in the backseat.” I fought them, more pissed than I’ve ever been, but Marco simply stated, “You might be in charge, but you’re in no fit state to drive.”
As Marco squealed the tires on the way out of the driveway, the rest of us pulled our weapons, automatically making sure they were loaded and prepared. I looked around at us, struck by a horrible insight. I was in the same seat I’d been in when my father had ordered me to go on an errand to deal with Jackson Randolph sixteen months ago.
It’d been an errand that kept me away from Alana as she went into labor. I’d spent the hours I should’ve been with her stuck in an alley dealing with low level goons. I’d gotten injured and lost even more time, only getting to Alana’s side a few minutes before she’d lost consciousness.
A few minutes before I’d been ejected from the room so Anna could be delivered by caesarean section.
A few minutes before the woman I loved died.
The thought of it, the similarity of it, made my pulse elevate to unhealthy levels as my breathing followed suit. I hit the number for the first guard, then the second. Neither answered. Then I again pushed the number on my contacts for Molly.
She didn’t answer, either.
I called her again and again, just kept hitting it over and over. She still didn’t pick up. Catching Marco’s gaze in the rearview mirror, I snarled out, “Run every sign and every fucking light.”
He nodded, crossing the double yellow line as we flew through an intersection. We barely missed a one-ton pickup, our momentum swinging us wide as Marco swerved out of the path of a small sedan. The car honked and t-boned the pickup instead, the sound of metal on metal audible. We continued on, leaving the two wrecked vehicles behind.
We arrived in front of the café, and I had the door open on the Escalade before Marco even put it in park. Next to the patio area lay one of the two men I’d assigned to Molly as her security detail, clearly dead. The second was spread eagle about twenty paces down the sidewalk. I took one fleeting moment to examine the area to spot who might be responsible but saw no one. Having no time to waste, I pushed through the double doors.
Inside the restaurant pandemonium dominated everything. Shattered glass that had once been windows covered the floor, adjacent tables and chairs. People cowered behind knocked over furniture and the nearby countertop for cover. I heard ambulances in the distance, but they still sounded like they were several blocks away.
I stepped through the glass and debris, my eyes sweeping the environment, seeking. Searching. And then I found her and sunk to my knees.
“Molly! Molly!” My heart squeezed as I hovered over her, taking in her condition.
She lay in the floor on her back, bleeding from one, two, three places on her body. Her shoulder, her thigh, and her stomach.
Christ.
When she didn’t respond I shouted out her name again, and she stirred, her eyes fluttering as her features contorted in agony. “Molly, talk to me. Talk to me, please.”
“Luca?” Her voice was faint, barely there, but I heard her. It was nothing like the smartassed woman who was in charge of our entire drug line. Instead, she sounded tiny. Scared.
“It’s me. It’s Luca. I’m here with you, so don’t go anywhere, okay.”
She blinked but couldn’t seem to focus on me. To slow the bleeding I took her hand and placed it on the wound in her abdomen, then I pressed ag
ainst the ones on her shoulder and leg. She whimpered.
“I know it hurts, but we have to apply pressure. Help will be here soon.” I sensed rather than saw that my brothers had come in behind me, guns out, securing the location.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, spilling over and down her cheeks. Her left hand joined her right over her stomach wound. “Oh, God.”
Her gaze lifted to look up, but her pupils were dilated, one bigger than the other. The indication of a possible head injury. She started to blink rapidly, her eyes swiveling blindly around, flitting to my face and away again without rhyme or reason. She arched her back and said my name again, this time sounding near hysteria.
“Luca?”
I lowered my head closer to hers, murmuring in her ear. “Hey, I’m right here. Can you hear me? I’m right here, Molly.”
“Luca, the baby. The baby, Luca…”
What baby? I glanced around the room, searching for any infants or toddlers nearby, but couldn’t spot any. Thankfully, there were no children of any kind in sight. Molly began to weep, the motion wracking her frame. I attempted to calm her knowing any movement would only make her bleed faster. I couldn’t lose her. I refused to.