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She laughed, holding Niccolo to her neck as she watched me. “Does it hurt to know he loves me more than he ever cared for you?”
“No,” I said honestly. “It hurts me that those two boys you gave birth to and groomed to be miserable are dead because their mother is a fucking psychopath.”
“Watch yourself,” she cautioned, placing the heavy gun on the countertop with a clack. “I want to keep you alive for our surprise guest, but I’m happy to kill you now.”
“And eat your omelet cold?” I asked with faux politeness as I dished up the omelet that I’d split in half and went through the swinging door to the grand dining room table, where I laid the plates out with cutlery for the diabolical duo. “Buon appetito.”
Carla and Niccolo moved to the table and dug into the omelet as if they were starving. Maybe rebellion and murder mustered a vicious appetite. They didn’t ask why I wasn’t eating. I watched them from my place by the door, within lunging distance of the gun Carla had placed by her elbow.
I just had to wait for my moment.
With Dario and Luca dead, I didn’t have much to lose, and it was worth it to take these stronzi down with me when I went.
The doorbell rang, and both their heads swung up, eyes to the hall like dogs awaiting their master.
“My last guest,” Carla proclaimed as voices moved down the hall. “Well, guests, but you only know one of them.”
“You shouldn’t mourn Dario and Luca,” Niccolo advised, speaking to me for the first time. “They kept so much from you. How they shot up your wedding, how I survived the massacre . . .”
Someone headed down the hall toward us, a male and female voice and the sound of small children.
“It shouldn’t be so surprising to you that Ricco survived too,” Niccolo said with glee as my brother walked into the dining room holding hands with a woman and two small children.
Ricco stared at me in astonishment for a moment before breaking into a wide grin and lunging forward to hug me.
I stood frozen in his arms.
“Sorella mia,” he murmured warmly as he swayed me back and forth. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see you again.”
I blinked over his shoulder at the woman he’d come in with, noting the diamond ring on her finger and the two small children hugging her legs. One of them, the older boy, looked just like Ricco.
“What is happening?” I asked, and my voice sounded disembodied.
“The Ferretti men came for us, and they thought they won,” Ricco explained eagerly, pulling back to clasp both my hands. “But they didn’t know I’d survived the shooting. I went into hiding thanks to Felipe, and he acted as my proxy. I had some physicality issues because of lack of oxygen to my brain, so it took me a while to recover, but I’ve been leading the Cosa Nostra through Felipe for years now. Just biding my time to get these bastards back. Niccolo, my right hand, has been instrumental in pulling this off. I came just to bring you home, Fia. At last, you can come home.”
I couldn’t comprehend the word home when it was disassociated from Luca. After so long, I’d finally felt like I found my place in Chicago and in my marriage.
And now it was all gone.
Because of Carla fucking Ferretti.
“They lied to you,” I said, shifting so that Ricco’s back wasn’t completely turned to the kitchen table, when Carla had stopped eating her omelet halfway through and studied us with careful scrutiny, her fingers curled around the gun. “That’s your wife and children?”
Ricco frowned, hands clasping my shoulders as he bent slightly to look at me with the same concerned eyes as our papà. My heart clutched as a tidal wave of memories threatened to take me under. I was poised on the precipice of emotional disaster, and only the thought of watching Carla and Niccolo die at my hands kept me level enough to speak.
“Yes, Vinnie for father, and Margherita. My wife is Zita. They’ve heard so much about you.”
“As much as I hate to ruin the reunion,” Carla said lightly, and I watched as she raised her gun as if in slow motion. “But I’m getting tired. We have been up half the night, and I’d like to go to bed for a few hours.”
Ricco’s frown deepened, and he started to turn, but not before Carla got a shot off.
I slammed into my brother, pushing him out of the way so the bullet connected with my forearm, shattering the bone on impact. My scream punctured the air.
Vaguely, I was aware of another shot, and Ricco’s resulting curse before his children started screaming and an unfamiliar Italian voice, Ricco’s wife, shouted at them to run with her. I watched bleary eyed as Niccolo raced after them.
Of course, he couldn’t let them live.
Vomit welled in my throat, but I swallowed it back, refusing to look at my throbbing arm, holding it instead to my side as I turned to see Carla advancing on Ricco, who had fallen to the floor against the island, clenching a hand over a bleeding wound in his side.
