Chapter 22: Wicked Fame: Chapter 22

I saw the bastard’s face.

Nothing in the world can save him from my wrath. I’ll torture him slowly, make sure he understands who he fucked with when he dared to hurt what was mine.

The sight of Francesca bleeding punches me in the gut. I called an ambulance as soon as possible. I briefly considered taking her to the private doctor who digs out bullets when I’ve been shot but he’s a quack who doesn’t use painkillers and handles patients roughly. I don’t want my girl screaming in pain when she’s already wrung out.

So I phoned her irritating CEO brother from her mobile. He lorded over me like he was my master, giving me instructions on which hospital to bring her to.

The corridor reeks of gunpowder and death when I return. Francesca was taken to surgery. I couldn’t hang around the hospital, not with the asshole who killed her still breathing.

“Your jaw’s swollen,” Nico points out, leaning against the wall outside my apartment door. Nico lives on the ground floor. He rode up the elevator as soon as he heard the shots. “I’m assuming her family wasn’t happy to see you.”

Ethan swung a punch at me the moment he walked in and threatened to do a whole lot more if I ever showed my face near Francesca again.

I’m gracious so I’m letting him rage. For now. Eventually, I’ll have to see how Francesca is doing, even if I have to mow down her domineering brother to get to her.

“This is a mess.” Nico shakes his head, the silvery strands in his dark hair glinting in the waxy light. His brows are twisted in a dark V as he surveys the blood-stained carpet.

It’s a good thing I own this building and most of the residents here also work for the Russo family. So far, we’ve kept the police out of it.

“Thanks for your help,” I say.

When I left carrying Francesca to the ambulance, I made Nico stand guard over the weasel who had hurt her. I’d shot both his legs to reduce his mobility, but I couldn’t risk him disappearing. There was no room for mistakes anymore.

Nico acknowledges my thanks with a minuscule nod. “How’s the girl?”

“She’s in surgery.”

“Will she live?”

“Can’t say.”

“Can you survive if she kicks the bucket?”

No. I’ll be livid. It’ll have been my fault. The possibility of Francesca being gone forever is harrowing. I could never forgive myself if that happened.

“I’m hoping she’ll pull through.” My tongue tastes like iron.

Nico’s dry lips pucker a fraction. He’s judging my optimism but I don’t give a fuck who thinks what of me now. Having the girl I love nearly die before my eyes straightened out my brain, snapped my whole world into alignment. I finally understand my priorities.

My first task is to beat the vermin who shot her to within an inch of his life. I can’t kill him since I promised Francesca, but it’s not my fault if he decides to kill himself once I’m through.

“Where’s the guy?” I ask, clawing the door handle of my apartment. “Is he still alive?”

“Ricardo tied him to your dining chair. I called our doctor to dig out the bullets and stop the bleeding. I assumed you’d want him alive when you returned.” Nico sighs. “Gabriele, what are you planning?”

“What would you do if someone hurt your wife?”

“Castrate him, cut his tongue out, break all his bones, and make him regret ever being born,” Nico answers in his characteristic dry tone without missing a beat.

I rub a hand against my neck. “There. You have your answer.”

“Wait.” Nico’s fingers close around my elbow. “I questioned him while you were gone. He’s a Bianchi. Thought you should know.”

A member of the Bianchi family, our rivals. I killed their underboss a few weeks ago after discovering he had tried to poison Angelo.

“What? How?” I stagger back in shock. “I took care of every single man in Miami.”

“He wasn’t in Miami or Chicago with the rest of them; he was hiding in Arizona. Word got around to him about what you’d done. Being a loyal soldier, he had to assassinate you to get his revenge. Unfortunately, your girlfriend got caught in the feud. That bullet wasn’t meant for her—”

Panic climbs in my chest, crashing swiftly into waves of self-hate as I complete Nico’s insinuation with the depressing truth, “It was meant for me.”

“That’s why he didn’t shoot her a second time,” Nico continues. “He realized he’d made a mistake. That you weren’t the one exiting the apartment.”

Shit. It’s my own fault Francesca is lying in surgery.

The vicious cycle of violence is never-ending. Once I kill this weasel, the Bianchis are likely to send someone for Nico’s head. That’s how these feuds go. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Underboss for an underboss.

Exhaustion scales my body. I’m sick of the fighting. It never excited me, but now, as the string of potential deaths stretches years ahead, I want no part of this war. Peace is what I need. Home is what I desire.

I want Francesca breathing on my skin, laughing at my quips, pressing that rose-scented mouth to mine.

There’s only one answer: I need to quit the mafia. As much as it pains me, terrifies me, angers me. I have to do it for us to have a chance.

Easier said than done, though.

Leaving the hard part for later, I ease my way into my apartment. The living room stinks of antiseptic and sweat. Ricardo is huddled at one end of my sofa, eyes trained on the Bianchi soldier who is squirming and crying in pain. The floor is slicked with his blood and sweat. There’s no sign of the doctor. He must have left.

“Can you speak?” My shadow looms over the bound man. As he bobs his face up, a greasy, triumphant smile etched on his disgusting lips, the firestorm inside me threatens to undo my needle-thin civility.

“You sonofabitch,” he exhales. If hatred had a smell, it would be the rotting stench of his breath. “You should be dead.”

“Sure you’re not confusing me for yourself? I’m not the one who shot an innocent girl,” I retort.

“Was she your bitch?” His lips draw over yellow, broken teeth. That misshapen, slimy grin widens. “I hope she suffers. I hope she dies and you understand what it’s like to lose everything.”

My teeth ache from how hard I grind them. He’s right about one thing at least. If Francesca dies, I will lose everything.

But right now, the only thing I’m in danger of losing is my temper. The rage rattling inside my ribcage breaks into a squall of adrenaline. I swing a fist at his jaw, but even the crunch of my knuckle connecting to his jawbone and the click of it dislocating doesn’t bring me any peace.

“Ricardo, you can leave now,” I say. “I’ll handle him on my own.”

At the edge of my vision, Ricardo’s long-limbed form rises. He shrugs. “Should I get a body bag ready?”

I shake my head, withholding a verbal answer. I want the Bianchi rat to die of anxiety predicting what I’ll do to him. I want his heart quaking with fear wondering if I’ll spare him or rid the world of his unworthy soul.

Once Ricardo has left, I slide the army knife from my pocket. It’s the perfect weapon for slow, miserable torture. Part of me rebels at using the same knife I did to bring Francesca pleasure. I don’t want to taint her beautiful memory with his filthy blood.

“At least make it quick with a gun,” the man says. I detect a pleading note in his voice. Nico’s interrogation probably has him at the limit of his tolerance. “We both don’t have time to waste.”

Too bad I don’t care for his comfort.

“Nothing good ever came fast.” I lick my lips but my veins are filled with ice. This is revenge, not pleasure. Regardless of how much he screams, nothing can earn me Francesca’s forgiveness.

That’s all I care about. That she lives, she recovers, even if it’s only to hate me in the end.

Misery floods through me at the thought of his incident leaving a scar on her. What if there’s damage to her nerves? What if she can never paint again?

My greatest fear isn’t her anger or her indifference. It’s destroying her chance at happiness. She has fought her demons for so long that she deserves to have the future she wants. The fame she needs.

There’s nothing I can give her—money, connections, comfort, not even safety—but I refuse to take everything from her.

“Know what? Small cuts are too good for you.” Changing my mind at the last minute, I put away my army knife. Instead, I grab the meat cleaver from my kitchen.

The Bianchi soldier blanches at the sight of it. Good. He knows what’s coming for him then.

“Get out.” It’s Mr. CEO, standing at the threshold of Francesca’s hospital ward like a gargoyle in his slate gray suit. There are bags under his eyes and the crooked set of his lips conveys his deep resentment. “Go before I call the cops and get your filthy ass hauled to prison where it belongs.”

Desperation and anger collide into a writhing mass at the bottom of my stomach. I’d love to wring Ethan’s neck and push him out of my way so I can make sure Francesca is fine with my own eyes. But he isn’t the villain of this story.

I am.

Besides, Francesca would never forgive me if I maimed him and I’m going to have a hard enough time earning her forgiveness already.

“Can I see her?” Humility tastes foreign on my tongue. The meek voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

“You don’t have the right to see her.” Ethan’s hostile expression conveys everything. Unyielding, firm, with his arms, crossed across his chest. I don’t doubt for a second that he’s furious. “It’s because of you she is in this state. I swear, I should’ve done something about it when she said you were a friend. You’re a criminal. That’s what you are. And your filthy, dangerous world isn’t a place someone like my sister should set foot in—”

“I know—”

“Then you should have kept her safe.”

Bile rises in my throat. I hate that he’s making valid points. She’d be healthy if it wasn’t for me. She wouldn’t be fighting for her life if it wasn’t for me.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for her to get caught up in mafia politics. Tell me she survived.” The backs of my eyeballs sting. Whether from the smell of antiseptic or the fear of losing Francesca forever, I don’t know.

Ethan’s chin shoots up, making him look haughtier than he already does. “She will. I’ve already arranged for the best surgeons and they’re operating on her as we speak. She’s my sister and there’s no way I’m letting her die.”

The asshole is the most irritating human being to deal with, but he cares a lot for his sister. That’s why I put him down as Francesca’s emergency contact when she was brought here. I wanted it to be me, but that wouldn’t have been right. I’m not sure Francesca will ever want to see me again after what happened. I broke her heart, then she got shot because of my neglect.

“I’m staying here,” I tell Ethan, leaning against the wall.

His stony eyes harden. “No.”

“Didn’t ask for your permission.”

“I’m calling the security.”

“Do whatever you must to make yourself feel useful.” I sneer.

He scoffs. Reluctantly, his shoulders lower a fraction. Judging from the stillness of his posture, he seems to have quit actively trying to toss me out of the building at least. We’re not going to be best buddies anytime soon but I’m happy with this temporary truce.

Ethan digs his thumb into his forehead. A cold, dark gaze slithers over my form, from the base of my toes to the spiky hairs sticking up from my head.

“Who shot Francesca?” There’s an accusation buried inside that question. He suspects me but he doesn’t say it in so many words.

I wish I could lubricate the dry, crackling animosity between us with a quip, a haughty zinger. Diverting people with humor was a whole lot easier when guilt wasn’t searing fiery trails through all my organs.

“It was someone from a rival group in the mob. He was trying to kill me but shot her by mistake.”

“Must have a shit aim. You’re clearly a whole lot bigger than Francesca.” A choking grunt. Did he really make a joke?

“I wasn’t with her,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because I just broke up with her.”

If Mr. CEO hated me before, he’s going to tear my sorry ass apart with his bare hands after this answer.

“Just when I think my impression of you can’t get any worse, it hits rock bottom.” He’s doing a better job than I ever could at the whole ‘dry humor’ thing. Either he’s planning to ruin me slowly or he is too scared about Francesca’s surgery to waste his emotional energy pointlessly lashing out at me.

“Save your cussing until you hear the rest.” My masochistic desires rear their head. I want him to hurt me, to pay the penance for my part in this mess. “I’m getting married.”

Within a second, Ethan grabbed me by the collar, hot, furious puffs of breath leaking from his mouth and hitting me squarely on the nose. “You fucker. You were cheating on my sister all this time?”

I want to curl into a ball of nothing and disappear.

Shadows stretch beyond the white walls. Nurses and patients come and go, their footsteps like tolling bells. I have no idea how I’m going to live through the next few hours, how I’m going to keep myself from drowning in the sea of anxiety that’s pulling me under with vicious ferocity.

Francesca’s face is imprinted in my brain, burned into my retinas. Every moment hammers in the uncomfortable realization that I’m not remotely ready to live in a world without her.

I’d rather die with her.

“I didn’t cheat on her.” I shove Ethan off me, my excuses sounding both stupid and pointless to my ears. “It’s an arranged marriage.”

“That doesn’t change—”

“Ethan, what happened?” A frail brunette wearing glasses and the ugliest patchwork jacket shoulders past me, grabbing onto Ethan’s arm. “Is she alright?”

Mr. CEO pauses his tirade against me. He wastes no time drawing the girl into his arms, kissing the top of her head like she’s a newborn baby. “It’ll be okay, princess.”

This must be Ella, his girlfriend.

Regret. Envy. Longing. Nostalgia. Emotions buffet me from every direction.

It’s a tender, intimate moment between Ella and Ethan, definitely not something I expected from the gray-suited gargoyle. It reminds me of the cuddles and kisses Francesca and I shared every day in my apartment.

My chest is bleeding from the memories. I should’ve held her tighter, kissed her more, treated her gentler.

I should’ve treasured the tiny gestures and realized how precious they were.

I snatch my attention away, pretending to scan my phone. I’m going to rupture an artery from how hard I’m resisting staring at the two of them.

“Are you Francesca’s boyfriend?” Ella comes over. She is completely different from Francesca, not stereotypically fashionable or pretty.

“Not anymore.”

“Then why are you here?”

A shudder ghosts down my back. The petite, glasses-wearing girl is peering through my soul, cataloging every single one of my lies and flaws. How do I answer her when she already knows the answer?

Ethan doesn’t waste any time slamming into me with his hard gaze. “Yeah, why are you still here? Go to your bride. You no longer have anything to do with my sister.”

“I…” Words betray me. “Francesca…I have to make sure—”

“Don’t call her name,” Ethan says. “She deserves better than someone like you. If you can’t value her, the least you can do is give her up.”

Resistance spins its threads around my neck, tightening like a noose. I could argue. Could protest. Could lie.

But none of that will make me worthy of Francesca’s forgiveness. Ethan’s right. I can’t face Francesca with my half-assed attitude. What can I offer her if not my complete fidelity and devotion?

Her words from long ago gurgle like bubbles of water in my ears.

Don’t give me false hope with your mixed signals and break my heart. I’ll never forgive you.

I stalk out of the hospital as quietly as I came.

I didn’t even get to see her face.