71
SCAR
Everything was gone. The Bellandi Estate was nothing but a pile of ruin and ash, the building that had once been the center of our family falling apart with a gaping hole in the center.
The place where we’d all been married. The place we’d all come to be a family. And yet we still stood, united in our vengeance and the oath we swore without ever speaking a word.
Murphy would die very slowly. He would feel nothing but pain every day for the rest of his miserable life for what he’d taken from us.
For the family member who lay dead in the back of an SUV leaving what had once been our home behind us. Eventually, we would rebuild.
But for now?
We had a score to settle.
Every boundary the Bellandis had held this far in the war was erased in a single explosion, every line we thought we wouldn’t cross eviscerated.
Matteo sat with his family in the backseat of the SUV as I drove us toward the safehouse, my field-dressed gunshot wound complaining with every push of the pedals. Ivory curled into his side, her hand clutched in Irina’s as she leaned forward to press her forehead to the back of my wife’s seat.
I didn’t know exactly what had happened in those tunnels before I arrived, but I could guess just how much it had taken for Irina to face her fears and willingly go to battle with Darragh.
Security was already surrounding the safehouse tucked into its surroundings when we finally arrived, each of the vehicles departing the Bellandi estate having taken a different route in case we were followed.
For now, secrecy was our strength.
Rafael’s men surrounded the car as we pulled in, under strict instructions to defend the property against all costs. There would be no snake in the grass to betray Rafael Ibarra.
He’d have sent Madison away with the other women if he’d had his way, shipped her to a center and paid for her recovery rather than have to deal with the teenager himself.
He trusted no one outside his own carefully cultivated circle, and his punishments were swift and brutal in a way we couldn’t ever imagine. His people lived an isolated life with their own traditions, and they held true to them no matter who was hurt in the process.
I climbed out of the driver seat, my leg throbbing in the absence of adrenaline pumping through my veins. Irina was quick to jump out of the passenger seat, sliding herself beneath my arm to take what she could of my weight.
“You need a doctor,” she said, guiding me into the house. I nodded, knowing that Doc would be thrilled to pull yet another bullet out of my damn body. At some point, I would need to accept the fact that I seemed to be a magnet for them, attracting them from all directions.
Shoot-outs probably didn’t help matters.
Doc was finishing with the stitches in Yavin’s leg when we arrived, Aoife’s hand clutched tightly around the patient’s as the man soaked up all the attention he could from his prickly fiancée. When the fear wore off, she’d realize the vulnerability she’d shown in the moments when she’d thought she might lose him.
I had no doubt she’d make him suffer for it.
Once the final stitch was in place, he tapped Yavin’s knee and stood, leaving Aoife to take Yavin to the bedroom they would share at the safehouse for the time being. They might go back to their respective houses or they might not.
All of us being in one place left us vulnerable, but it was much easier to assemble security for one location instead of the half a dozen homes we had to protect with all of us spread out.
“I’m fine,” Matteo said, brushing off the doctor’s attention as he came to inspect the gash on his head. His eyes were clear, his stare intense as he looked around the living room to the makeshift family he’d built.
Not one person had been spared from injury except for the wives and children that hadn’t been on the property. Every one of his men bore the marks of war on their skin. Only Ivory and Luna remained untouched, protected by my wife with a brutality that would have made a serial killer proud. Matteo’s eyes again found Irina’s, his gaze dropping to where Ivory snuggled Luna and rubbed her nose along her cheek.
He stepped over to the two of us, bringing the doctor along with him. “Scar’s leg needs tending,” he said, chuckling as I lifted myself onto the kitchen counter and rolled up the leg of my pants.
The doctor sighed, rolling his eyes as he removed the dressing and lifted his forceps to pull the bullet free from my flesh. Irina moved to follow, stopping when Matteo stepped into her path.
He dropped his forehead to hers, my wife staring up at the hardened criminal in shock as his blood smeared onto her skin. “Thank you,” he whispered, touching a hand to her shoulder. The moment was over as quickly as it began, Matteo moving off to tend to the rest of his family that needed him.
I smiled at Irina, at the heavy look of pride that stole over her features.
She’d never be a victim again.
Then the doctor slid the forceps into the hole in my body, blocking out everything but the fire inside my calf.
* * *
Hours passed, Irina insisting on utilizing her First Aid training to assist Doc as he made his rounds through the wounded among our men. She tended to them with quick efficiency, doing what she could with a very limited range of skills.
She was used to treating kid injuries at the center, not dealing with shooting victims who’d been crushed by a house collapsing above them. It was a wonder as many of us walked away as did, Matteo working to get a count on how many lives had been lost.
We needed to replace them immediately, and we’d need to draw on more allies outside the city to make that happen. “I’ll call Aleksandr and Mariano,” Matteo said, dropping his head forward. He hadn’t wanted to call the former, wanting to allow him to live out his time in New York peacefully with his growing family. Years had passed since Aleksandr had helped him overthrow his father and end his reign of terror.
Mariano would help with only a moment’s notice, sending all the men he could afford even as he dealt with his own rising tensions in Brighton Beach nearby.
I hated to leave Irina, wanting nothing more than to stay at her side, but she turned to me with a knowing stare.
The need for vengeance stirred in my blood, knowing the person who was responsible for the death of a friend still walked free.
Simon had been there the day I’d met Ivory. He’d told her there was no point in avoiding her life with Matteo. He’d been there from the start.
“When you find her, you bring her to me alive,” Irina said, her mouth working to form the cruel words. They were so unlike the shining beacon of light I’d thought her to be when I’d first seen her. So rooted in the darkness where I’d made my home, I should have felt a momentary flash of guilt for dragging her down into the mud with me.
Instead, all I felt was pride, knowing that nothing could possibly be sexier than watching her destroy the person who had thought to ruin her. The one who had used her vulnerability and her love and care against her, taking her sacrifice and making it into something ugly.
I hoped Madison was ready for what she had coming to her, because when it was all said and done?
I wouldn’t be the one who sent her to be with the man she’d defended.
Ryker was at my side in an instant, kissing his wife and the kids goodbye quickly. Axel took Luna from Ivory, guiding her over to the toys he’d set up for the girl to play with to distract her and the other kids from the chaos around them. Ryker smiled at his boy, reaching down to tousle his hair.
And then we went hunting.