The Woman in the Wrong Place (Grassi Framily)

It was right then that I realized I never should have let my guard down, that I never should have assumed that it was a lone gunman.

Because I heard the stomp of boots behind me, a sound that made a helpless gasp escape me.

I’d lost my frying pan.

And Massimo’s gun was just out of reach.

But even if I made a dive for it, it was too late.

Because hands were reaching out to grab me.

The phone fell from my hands.

And all I could do was be taken.

And scream for Matteo.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Matteo

I didn’t even say anything.

I just turned and ran back to Luca’s car, hopping in, turning it over, and flooring it.

I knew my brother as well as Lucky and Milo would rush to follow, knowing it wasn’t good if I couldn’t even spare a minute to tell them what was going on.

The docks weren’t even that far from my house, but it felt like it took hours to get there as my mind raced with a million horrific scenarios that I could walk into, or that Josie could be enduring after being taken.

The car screeched to a halt, and I was flying inside without even cutting the engine, screaming Josie’s name.

Into an eerily quiet home.

“No. No no no,” I hissed, refusing to believe they’d shot her. Or that they’d taken her.

But when I got around the island to see the unconscious Massimo and the phone right beside him, I knew she was gone.

“Fuck,” I yelled even as my hands instinctively pushed the dishrag back into Massimo’s thigh, feeling a small bit of relief when his body jolted and he grumbled at the sensation.

“Shit,” Luca hissed, running in a moment later to find me there.

“He’s alive. Aurelio?”

“Hanging on. Josie?”

“Gone,” I said, barely able to force the words out of my mouth.

“Fuck,” Luca growled, dialing his phone. “Two,” he barked at whoever answered. “This one to the thigh. Unconscious. Yeah. Okay. Alright.”

“Who was that?” I asked, my mind jumping around so fast I could barely focus on one thought.

“Remember Michael’s cousin Lettie?”

“Little Lettie,” I repeated, since that was about all I had.

“Not so little. Dropped out of med school a week before graduation,” he said, reaching out to feel Massimo’s head even as Lucky and Milo pulled Aurelio inside.

At least Aurelio was still conscious.

Writhing in pain, but conscious.

“She might not have the degree, but she had all the knowledge. So she started a little business for herself,” he explained.

“You’re going to let her work on Mass and Aurelio?” The words choked out of me, mostly disbelieving. “They need to be in a hospital.”

“And they will be. Of sorts,” Luca told me. “It might not function as a hospital in the above-board kind of way, but it is a hospital. She’s got everything she needs, the staff she needs, and even a fucking ambulance. Which she’s bringing here. You want to explain this to the law?” he asked, waving at my house, at the blood and bodies there.

He had a point.

And if Lettie really did have that good of an operation going, who was I to object? I was sure Massimo and Aurelio knew that if the shit hit the fan, that was the treatment they were going to get.

“Why would they take her?” I asked, mostly to myself. “They shot Mass and Aurelio and left them for dead. Why take Josie?”

“To draw anyone out who has survived tonight?” Lucky asked, jaw tight.

I could see his gears turning.

I could feel my own moving in tandem.

Rolling through the members of the Family who were in danger from a clear attempt to overthrow us. But also to just the members of the family. The wives and girlfriends, the moms and kids.

Everyone was a potential target if they were trying to clean house.

We needed to get someone back to the docks to look for identification, so we could figure out who we were up against.

“Pops,” Luca said, and we were clearly on the same wavelength. “Bad. Real bad. Mass and Aurelio down, but alive. Josie gone. We were ambushed at the docks. Everyone needs to be in lockdown, armed, and aware of the threat. Yeah. Good. And I need someone at the docks to check out the identification of the bodies in the container marked with the bio label. No. Not you, goddamnit,” Luca yelled.

Luca never raised his voice.

He was calm and collected even in a crisis.

It was what made him a good leader.

But this was the biggest threat our Family had faced since our mother had been killed. You could see the cracks forming in Luca’s perfectly crafted and fitted mask. He was worried about his dad, about his wife and kids, about our cousins and aunts and friends.

Luckily for me, I guess, everything else seemed to be dulled in my system right then.

Everything but Josie.

Where she was.