Silence descends on the estate.
I slump back against the plaster wall, my rifle slipping from my grasp, clattering uselessly against the floorboards. The adrenaline is finally crashing, leaving nothing behind but blinding agony.
My breathing is ragged, shallow gasps. I look down at my chest. The thick white bandages Noemi and Dr. Santoro applied are completely saturated with wet red. The blood is pooling on the floor beneath me.
"Cassio!" Noemi gasps, dropping to her knees directly in front of me. Her hands hover over my chest, terrified to touch the ruined bandages. "Cassio, look at me."
I lift my head, the movement requiring a monumental effort. My vision is tunneling, the edges blurring into black.
"We held them," I rasp, a wet, rattling sound accompanying the words.
"You tore it wide open," Noemi says, her voice cracking, the fierce warrior from thirty seconds ago vanishing, replaced by a terrified wife. She presses her hands frantically against the edges of the bandages, trying to stem the flow of blood. "Matteo! Get Santoro back up here now!"
Matteo drops his rifle and sprints toward us, dropping to his knees on my other side. He curses violently in Sicilian when he sees the blood. "He’s going into shock. Boss, stay awake. Keep your eyes open."
"I'm fine," I slur, my head lolling slightly to the side until it rests against the cold plaster wall.
"You are not fine!" Noemi snaps, a tear finally escaping and tracking through the white dust on her cheek. She grabs my face in both of her hands, forcing my heavy eyes to focus on hers. "You promised me a truce, you arrogant bastard. You promised me we were a team."
I stare into her dark eyes, and I can see the profound terror in them.
"I'm not dying," I whisper, forcing my left hand up. My blood-stained fingers brush against her cheek, tangling in her messy hair. "I just got you."
21
Noemi
The Vellutini estate smells of an acrid and choking stench of C4 and pulverized drywall, it mixes with the metallic tang of spilled blood and with the freezing rain still blowing through the shattered remnants of the grand foyer. The gunfire has stopped. The police sirens have faded into the distance, bought off or redirected by Matteo’s frantic phone calls.
I stand at the top of the glass staircase, looking down at the wreckage. My bare feet are covered in white plaster dust, and the oversized black t-shirt I’m wearing feels stiff with dried blood. Below me, men are dragging bodies out the service doors. Others are sweeping up glass in tight-lipped silence.
Every single man in this house is looking at his brother with suspicion.
The Bratva didn't guess how to breach the lower gates, they didn't stumble upon the exact blind spots in the perimeter cameras, or the exact moment the guard shifts were changing. The security protocols of this estate were a fiercely guarded secret, known only to the inner circle.
We have a mole. A rat breathing our air, eating our food, and smiling to our faces.
"I don't give a fuck if he’s been with us for ten years! Strip him of his weapons and throw him in the basement!"
The roar echoes from the makeshift war room Cassio has set up in the west wing library.
My heart drops into my stomach. I pivot away from the staircase and march down the corridor.
When I push the heavy oak doors of the library open, the sight that greets me makes my blood boil with a mixture of terror and fury.
Cassio is standing at the head of a massive mahogany table. He shouldn't be standing. He shouldn't even be conscious. It has been less than two hours since Dr. Santoro re-stitched the high-caliber sniper round exit wound shut in his back.
He is wearing a pair of dark slacks and an unbuttoned black dress shirt. His skin is a horrific, ashen gray with fresh bandages around his chest. And right in the center of those bandages, a fresh, bright red stain is rapidly blooming.
Matteo, Dante, and three other Capos are standing around the table, looking incredibly uncomfortable but too terrified to tell their Don to sit the fuck down.
"Boss, Gianni was on the east wall, he couldn't have—" Matteo tries to argue.
"Gianni had the radio frequencies!" Cassio snarls, slamming his uninjured left hand down on the table. The violent movement jars his right shoulder. He violently flinches, a harsh, jagged hiss escaping his gritted teeth. His knees actually buckle for a fraction of a second, his left hand grips the edge of the mahogany table like a vice just to keep himself upright.
He is bleeding out. Again.
Something feral and uncompromising snaps inside my chest.