Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Darius finally elbowed her hard in the face, and she hit the floor, the knife still lodged in his neck. He reached for it, and in his insanity, he yanked it out, another squirt of blood spraying like a geyser into the sky. He dropped to one knee, staring at me with a veil across his gaze, like he was already halfway gone.
That was when Rocco and Cosa Nostra leaped into action. Tommaso and the others fired at the gunmen with their handguns, and Rocco picked up a chair and slammed it down hard onto the gunman who had his rifle against me again.
Rocco knocked him out cold before he took the gun and did exactly as I’d asked and shielded Aurelia with his body before he shoved her under the table. Gunfire erupted throughout the terrace, and people ran for their lives. Cosa Nostra tried to tackle Darius’s men even though they were outnumbered.
I wasn’t taking any chances this time, so I ran to Darius to finish the job.
But right when I got there, Medusa jumped on him—and literally ripped out his throat.
He barely screamed before his windpipe was gone, and he was done. When she pulled away, her white teeth were covered in blood, her fur soaked in it. Even the bow tie that had been white was now bloodred. She growled at his body as if what she’d done wasn’t quite enough.
I went to my mother, who hadn’t moved since she’d hit the floor. “Ma.” Her eyes were closed when I found her, and I gathered her in my arms and sat her up against me.
The movement made her stir, and she sucked in a deep breath and released a gasp.
I felt the back of her head, and my hand came away with blood on it.
She let me support her as she stared at Darius before her, a massacred corpse now.
“Ma, are you okay?”
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . I’m fine.” She suddenly left my arms, crawled across the floor, picked up the knife Darius had yanked out, and started stabbing him in the chest with it—over and over—a mother unleashing a catharsis of grief.
I let her be. She deserved to do whatever the fuck she wanted to his body after what he’d done to Edric.
The gunfire receded, and it seemed as if Rocco and Cosa Nostra had either taken them all out or run them off.
I moved to the table where Rocco had shoved Aurelia and lifted the tablecloth to find her, clearly in shock, judging by how snow white her face was. She trembled from head to toe, and when her eyes found mine, she immediately started to sob.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay.” I pulled her into my arms under the table and clutched her tight. “He’s dead. Everything is okay . . . it’s okay.”
Her hand moved to her stomach like she needed to make sure our baby was all right, that a stray bullet or a knife hadn’t come close.
I felt her hyperventilating against me, afraid not for me or for herself, but for the person we both already loved with our full hearts.
“Everything is okay,” I repeated. “Everything is okay.”
“Your mom?” she asked through her tears.
“She’s fine.” I could hear her continue to stab Darius through the tablecloth.
Then Medusa ducked her snout underneath the white material and lifted it as she came to us, blood all over her face from getting her revenge against Darius for breaking her leg . . . and to protect my mother.
Aurelia didn’t care about the blood at all and brought her into her arms like Medusa was our child, a seventy-pound baby covered in fur. She got blood all over her dress as she snuggled Medusa, sobbing into her fur because she was relieved she was okay.
I’d fucked up again. I’d never gotten the irrefutable evidence that Darius was actually dead, and it had nearly cost me my entire family. “I’m so sorry.” Tears sprang to my eyes when I mourned what I’d almost lost. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Chapter 30
Constantine
There were no further casualties other than the family seated together at that table. It was the Renaldo family, who operated one of the souvenir shops in town. My mother had gone to school with the father, so he was an old family friend.
They were brave for trying to help, but I wished they hadn’t.
When Tommaso and the other guys moved Darius’s body, my mother was still stabbing it, creating a huge pool of blood underneath her that soaked her dress and got into her hair . . . everywhere. She was literally soaked in blood, sweat, and tears.
The brightest day of my life turned into one of mourning.
When they took Darius away, my mother started to scream because apparently she wasn’t quite done massacring his remains.
I kneeled down next to her and grabbed her by the shoulders as she tried to yank Darius by the arm to continue her carving. “Ma.” I pulled her into me. “Ma, it’s done.” I took the bloody knife out of her hand and handed it to Tommaso, who set it on one of the tables.