Agostino went still behind me.
Dante’s lips curled like a villain’s moustache, eyes dark as tar. “When you attacked our container, you caught one of your guys and he squealed like a stuck pig. Gave up the location as easily as he stopped breathing. Yeah, Don di Carlo, if you were going to make it out of here alive, how would you ever explain that one to the Venturas? It’s better really that I’m going to put a bullet through your brain right here.”
Agostino reanimated, his pride wounded so, like an animal, he attacked because he couldn’t flee. “Vaffanculo a chi t’è morto,” he cursed savagely before taking the gun from my mouth and aiming it at Dante. “I’m going to kill you and your woman then take your entire fucking empire, Salvatore. My brother always preaches patience, but sometimes, the only thing to do is be a man and act.”
He fired the gun.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The first shot grazed Dante’s shoulder and the second embedded itself in his left bicep.
My husband barely flinched, firing off his own shot as Agostino shot his third.
Only, Dante was no longer in his line of fire.
Jacopo was.
He’d surged to his feet between the two men with his gun raised. Agostino’s bullet found its way through his throat.
Dante’s in his low belly.
But Jacopo didn’t go down.
His face clear and cold, eyes filled with pain that was more spiritual than physical, he fired a shot straight at Agostino.
At me.
He was a turncoat. A traitor. And it was clear that he’d never totally approved of me.
So I felt one moment of fear that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Because the bullet didn’t touch me.
It went straight through Agostino’s skull.
He collapsed to the ground behind me.
In front of me, Jaco swayed, his free hand going to the base of his throat were the wound bubbled grotesquely.
When he fell, Dante was there to catch him, lowering him to the ground gently, going to his knees beside him.
“Cazzo, Jaco,” he cursed, pressing a big hand to the wound in his neck.
I dropped to my knees and pressed both of my hands to the one in his belly.
“Are you okay?” Dante demanded, his eyes wide and matte black. “Tell me, merda, are you all right!?”
“Yes, yes, focus on Jaco. I’m fine.”
Adrenaline had eradicated whatever damage Agostino had done to me. I was pure energy, all of it focused on the dying man who had stood between Dante and a gun.
“Why?” Dante murmured, pressed his hands even harder around the seeping wound. “Why didn’t you just tell me, you stubborn stupido?”
Jaco’s lids fluttered, his breath a wet rattle. “Family shame. Started with my father. D-Didn’t want to hurt you, D.”
“Stai zitto,” he ordered. “Shut up. You can explain when you are healed.”
Jaco tried to laugh, but blood spurted from his mouth like a mini geyser. “’Fraid not, fratello. ’S okay. I go to Bambi and Papa.”
“Jacopo.” Dante’s voice was ravaged with tears, his face so taut with anger I thought it would crack in two. “You idiot. I would have protected you all.”
A little smile teased the bleached edges of his mouth, but Jaco didn’t open his eye again. Blood leaked from the corners of his lips and trailed down his chin.
“Can’t protect the w-whole world. Call me your brother before I go,” he whispered, hardly any sound. “Forgive me.”
“Fratello,” Dante murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Ti amo sempre, fratello mio.”
I will love you always, my brother.
Tears dripped down my own face as Dante held his cousin in his lap and watched him die, choking slightly on his blood then going still. His face relaxed with peace and Dante kissed him again on the forehead as he murmured a prayer for the dead in Italian under his breath.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
I knew they were coming closer because I’d left my phone in the closet.
My heart stopped then restarted with an awful electric shock. I shoved to my feet and sprinted to the kitchen cabinet to throw the door open.
Aurora sat huddled in the shadows at the back, hugging her knees to her chest as she rocked herself, tears dripping from her cheeks.
“Vieni, gattina mia,” I murmured, bending into the cabinet to pick her up. “Come here, sweet girl.”
She clutched at me, her nails breaking the skin on my arms as she practically crawled up my body into my embrace. I held the back of her head and bottom as I stood up, careful to keep her from seeing the dead bodies in the living room.
Although she had just spent the last half an hour in a closet listening to her mother, father, and uncle die.
She was so quiet, crying silently in my arms, until Dante stalked forward, his face like a thunderclap. She didn’t flinch as he approached even though I almost did, he looked that ferocious. Instead, she turned in my arms and launched herself into his, sobbing the second she hit his chest.