Chapter 87

Dario quickly removed his belt. I fastened it high on Rana's thigh in hopes of reducing his bleeding.

"It's no use," he muttered.

"Shut up," I spat.

"We are on our own, Massimo," Elio mumbled, locking his phone back and tucking it in his pocket.

"Where's Nate?" I asked for the brother I still hadn't seen.

I met his clashing irises, hooded. Adam's apple bobbed as his head shook. "I don't know."

My attention was drawn by a gripping fist. It was weak, and yet, my eyes fell on the man who desperately needed me. If it hadn't been for the color draining out of his face and the trembles that shook against my chest as he hung onto my shirt, I would've killed him on the spot.

I was too consumed by red to see past reasoning, too lost in ire and bloodthirst.

Too out of control.

"Boss." His breath quivered. "Please, Miley. I was all she had left."

Was.

"Don't let her get sent to a home." His eyelids grew heavy. "Please," he begged.

Miley.

The bright, talkative child whose mother died at birth. The five-year-old that ran through the church pews as if God's house was her own jungle gym. The little girl who spent most of her time in the bakery, covered in flour and stained in chocolate. This was when Rana roamed the streets doing his capo's, Dario's, bidding. But it was my bidding. My orders.

No mother. No grandparents. No aunts or uncles.

Miley only had Rana.

"Please." His hand fell, his will faded, but his eyes waited, holding for one more second.

Holding on for peace.

Hoping while his spirit bled away with the red.

I held on to his eyes as they dimmed. Dark maroon watered down as if ice melted them from the inside, taking their color, their life, the pain.

"I won't," I promised, and he let go.

No father.

An orphan.

A girl alone in a ruthless world.

My heart plummeted. I had taken the only life that mattered to a child, and while I'd taken many, it hadn't been Miley's.

What a cruel, unfair world.

"We need to move."

The need to lay my eyes on Alessandra was a current I couldn't fight against. A tiring battle in vain, doomed with every stroke. Seeing Rana's vacant eyes and his daughter's name slipping past his lips as his last words was enough to succumb to the current.

"You're hurt," Elio voiced.

"And Rana is dead. Nate is gone, and my fucking woman is not by my side!" I roared. "We need to get moving, Elio, or we will face the same fate as Rana!"

I turned to Dario. "Where are the others?"

He whistled.

Yamal, Oliver, and Fer rushed through the fire and three more followed.

"The others were spread around the outside of the church, posted in corners," Dario added when I waited for more to appear.

"How low are you?"

Ammo.

"We are on the last clip, boss." Oliver's bald head shone with glistening raindrops.

"Okay." I thought about our numbers. "We will go on three. Elio, Dario, and I will be the last. Pick up any loaded guns you find. Ready?"

"Yes, boss," echoed, and lawless gazes turned toward the door.

"Be quiet. We don't know what's waiting inside," Elio cautioned.

I discarded the empty gun to the side, picked up the heavy weapon on my back, and pulled the lever back.

"Ready," Elio uttered.

Here we go.

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

"One," he whispered.

Controlling my breathing, I aimed.

"Two."

Zeroed in, sight clear.

"Three." His shot wasn't clear.

My target's head was easy to keep secure. A mop of long wavy hair drifted with the storm in black drapes of filth, late twenties with an addiction. From the twitch he couldn't suppress to the persistent hand that itched his nose, he was too high to take cover.

Too high to realize he was about to take the last hit.

"Go."

I exhaled.

Pop, pop.

Six bodies tumbled under gravity.

All six of us hit our targets, and when the gunfire returned in our direction, we had new targets to expire.

The next three went, and I'd killed five men in mere minutes. Together and in sequence, our system worked better than the wasted ammunition of loose bullets.

"I think we can take these out, Massimo," Elio's low tone murmured.

I believed so too, but my need to get Alessandra overruled logic. In the end, my reeling emotions had no power over the lives of others. No power when these feelings were too raw, rare, and new for my mind.

"No loose ends," I whispered back.

Dario slipped his last magazine and readied.

We pointed and finished the job until no more rounds were heard or trained at us.

Blood rushed from my head, and I steadied my feet, falling back onto the wall. I closed my eyes for a brief second while my hand crossed to my side as the burning increased. But until I could dig out the piece of lead from inside my body, the damage would continue.

"Boss?" Dario questioned.

"I need to find Alessandra." I launched forward, taking a look at Elio's calculating gaze. I didn't care. My demon screamed to find her. "You coming?"

"Let's go." Elio turned, and we followed his silent trail.

Alert and searching for a threat, I picked up a gun from the floor just feet away from the door. Quickly I released the magazine and stared at the four bullets left before Elio and I slipped inside the door with Dario in tow.

It was a trap.

And the reason we weren't caught on the floor dead was Fer. He sat with his finger over his mouth beneath the shadow cast by the rail. Next to him, a body faced the ground with its head bent unnaturally to the side.

We moved away from the door, hiding from the light.

"Vadim took our men upstairs. Giuliani has every inch covered from the top." Fer's hushed whisper carried only into our ears. "Vadim's plan was to slip behind them, spread away, and take them all at the same time."

My head shook.

It was either the worst fucking plan I'd ever heard of, or the greatest if achieved.

"We have the numbers inside the church. But it's bad." His eyes slid away from me. "Most of ours carry empty guns, and"

And what?

Why couldn't he look at me?

Fucking face me!

"Speak," I gritted.

"It's bad, boss. They've captured many, and"

The current pulled me beneath. Stealing my breath. Burning my lungs. Poisoning me in salt as open wounds torched in pain. Every gasp for air was replaced by suffocating blades slicing through my airway, flooding me with fear.

"Alessandra?" I whispered her name, obtaining the response I sought out of him.

Fer's eyes lowered, and his head turned to the rail opening. Alessandra was through there.

She couldn't be.

Breathe.

It was shallow. Useless.

Alessandra.

I took a step, and a hand stopped me.

"Wait, Massimo. You must think it through," Elio rushed out.

Think it through?

All I did was fucking think! I was a prisoner of the future, pondering for a time when I wished to be God. As if every piece I moved didn't cause a chain reaction. As if I felt anything but anger. All the time.

Anger for my mother.

Anger for the boy I once was.

Anger for who I'd become.

Anger becauseI enjoyed it.

Just anger.

Until her.

I pushed him back against the wall with my arm over his collarbone.

"Look at what it's gotten me."

"Don't lose control. Not now."

Not now

My lips curled with a snarl.

"What control?" I pushed off his body and turned.

"You hear that, sweetheart?" Old croaks rasped, and I was paralyzed. Feet rooted, soles embedded to the ground by his voice. "Silence. Either he's dead or inside." He chuckled. "Oh, Ma-ssimo!" Giuliani sang loudly.

His voice carried through the Pipe organ, echoing throughout the church. One of the hardest instruments to learn and master, yet his voice produced a sinister-driven melody as his vocals filtered in pressured air up its windpipes with my name. A repetition bounced into the high ceilings of the church, and the storm that roared outside the web-stained windows played the acoustics.

A full-crafted tune.

I wasn't ready for what I will be encountering. Because the scene in my head was far from the nightmare I would soon witness.

My feet pushed forward into the light, strong footfalls that carried me into dismay and fright.

Blond hair, kneeling with a gun to his head.

Nate.

Fratello. My stomach turned with rattling bile as his deep blues were straight ahead by the threat that touched his skull.

To his left, Aldo mimicked the same position. On the floor, a body lay face down, beaten into deep sleep, perhaps even death.

Dante.

Alessandra.

It's true, they never made it to safety.

My eyes flew above to the guns drawn and pointed at me, but everywhere I turned, Alessandra was nowhere to be found.

"Giuliani!"

"You just couldn't be dead, could you?" My head snapped, and my fingers trembled in rage upon seeing her.

Alessandra.

My Alessandra.

Walking backward, Giuliani dragged Alessandra with an arm wrapped around her neck like a noose. Bruising and suffocating, with a silver Colt on her head. A barrel begging to be used, a trigger twitching to be pulled.

The bottom of her dress cracked with the top layer of dried muck. A trail of raindrops plopped onto the floor from its soaking ends, and the rest was a scarlet tie-dye.

A cherry watercolor.

The corner of her lip bled. Her wrists and arms were sharp violet. A whole sleeve hung in crying lace by a thread, and her eyes popped with ruby vessels that blanketed over its white.

I met her dull olives. They were dry, tired, but they latched on and clung to me even as she struggled to match his pace. Fabric trapped her feet, causing him to drag her tighter into his arm's chokehold.

I took a step, and guns cocked all around.

Giuliani pressed his Colt harder on her. "Tsk, tsk," his tongue warned.

I didn't take another.

"Let her go," I seethed.

Calm washed me, but it was the calm that promised cruelty. Ill wishes and acid torment. The kind of calm that masked evil.

"Did you really think it would be that easy?" Gray disheveled hair and dark circles colored his puffy eyes. He'd lost weight since the last time I saw him. His sickness took a toll on him. But it wasn't a natural sickness. It was a sickness he'd created with his mind and deranged retribution.

What started as a broken vow turned into war to gain respect. Instead, he had lost because of his own delusions.

And now, I stood before the most dangerous type of man. The kind who had nothing to lose.

Power stripped.