“If you still value her as a daughter, you will let her live,” Marcello rasps, his voice as weak as the strength left in his body.
Molly laughs. “You think after everything you did, everything you said, I will ever forgive?” The look in her eyes changes from amusement to murderous as the smile on her face vanishes into thin air. “You are all dead to me. Along with that demon spawn growing inside you.”
The metal is pushed farther into my belly, and Marcello’s eyes follow the gun, a fire raging behind his pupils.
Suddenly, he pulls his gun away from Molly and pushes the trigger while it’s pointed at Frank.
One shot.
That’s all it takes to make his body go limp.
And for Molly to completely lose her shit.
Screaming her lungs out, she punches Marcello in the gut, grasping his gun, but Marcello refuses to let go. However, the metal is already pointed at his head, and she’s about to find the trigger and pull.
I can’t let it happen.
So I hold up my gun, shaking and all, and pull the trigger.
BANG!
As Molly falls down to the floor, I feel nothing but relief, her body convulsing as the blood pours from her head wound.
I just shot the one person I was searching for all this time.
The one person I used to call Mother.
The one thing she never truly was to me.
I sink to the floor, and the gun drops from my hand while I stare at the scene in front of me, completely out of it. Marcello sinks to the floor as well, his body firmly planted against the wall as he heaves and coughs up blood. When his eyes start to close, I snap back into action.
“Marcello?” I mutter, crawling over Frank’s dead body to get to him. “Marcello? Wake up!”
I shake him, but there’s no response, not even a groan. And when I pull away his shirt to check his wound, it only starts to bleed more.
“Oh no,” I mutter, and I wrap his arm around my shoulder and try to get him up, but I’m not strong enough to lift him by myself.
So I scramble to my feet and run to the door, screaming, “Frank and Molly are dead!”
Half the men don’t even hear me, while the other half stops fighting momentarily, staring at me like I just shouted something so completely insane that it can’t be true.
“Claudio! Ricardo!” I yell, catching their attention. “Marcello needs help!”
The men stop fighting and immediately come rushing up the stairs, ignoring the Polish and Irish still trying to throw punches.
“Where is he?” Claudio asks.
“In there,” I say, and we all run inside to Marcello, who is still not talking or moving.
I grab his wrist and feel a faint pulse. “He’s still alive.”
“Grab him. I’ll grab this end,” Claudio says to Ricardo, and they both put their shoulders underneath Marcello to help lift him. Claudio groans and sinks into his knees the second he’s standing. His injuries have gotten the best of him.
“Wait, let me do it,” I say, swiftly propping myself underneath Marcello’s shoulder.
“You sure you can do it?” Claudio asks.
“Yeah, stay behind to take care of what’s left of the Irish and Polish. I’ll take Marcello to a hospital,” I reply.
Claudio nods while Ricardo pushes on. We go downstairs and haul Marcello all the way to the blasted open hole in the wall where Mario is waiting with Andrea. He attempts to get up and help us, but I say, “Stay with Andrea. Finish this.”
He nods at me too, but then throws me a coat anyway. “Here. Don’t want you to get cold.”
I quickly put it on and cover my skimpy outfit. “Thanks.”
I’m glad he doesn’t try to stop me. I want to take Marcello to safety myself, and I’m not going to leave his side again.
Ricardo and I open the doors to the getaway car, shove Marcello onto the back seat, and hop inside. Ricardo races off, tugging at the steering wheel while he hits the gas. He ignores red lights and drives as fast as possible to get to the hospital in time. Because I’m holding Marcello’s wrist in my hand, and his heartbeat is getting fainter by the second.
“Hold on, Marcello. Hold on,” I mutter.
“What happened?” Ricardo asks.
“We shot down Molly and Frank, but Molly gunned Marcello first,” I reply.
“Fuck. It’s finally over then,” he says.
I shake my head. “It’s not over until Marcello is safe.”
He nods and hits the gas even more, going far beyond the speed limit. But when he goes left where the sign says go right to go to the hospital, I almost want to tear at the steering wheel myself.
“Where are you going? The hospital is over there!”
“Can’t go to a regular hospital. He’s a don for crying out loud,” Ricardo responds. “We go to a clinic I know and trust. Now let me do my job.”