“But he’s dead,” I said, pointing to Vito on the floor.
“He is,” Niello said. “But he wasn’t the head of the family. He had the final say when it came to Club Desolation, but this is different.”
He turned to me and took me in his arms. I couldn’t breathe again, but this time I didn’t complain.
“Let’s sneak out the back,” I whispered hoarsely. “They won’t even know.”
He pulled away so I was forced to look at him. “As soon as I go out the front, you go out the back. Go next door and leave. Take Angelia with you. She’s with Paul and Ginevra. Peppin will give you the address.”
“What about you?” I said, the pleading in my voice unmistakable.
“This is my life, Rosalia,” he said as if that explained everything, and after kissing me until my head went fuzzy again, he left me.
* * *
How couldhe expect me to leave him with this mess? I refused. There were so many of them and only one of him, not counting Quentin and Abe.
If Quentin and Abe hadn’t called Niello, and they weren’t dead or tied to the kitchen chairs…they must have let him in. Or had Aniello told them of his plan? I didn’t think so.
There was no time to focus on that, though. I had to focus on what I could change—which was, I realized, not a damn thing.
Even my gun was gone from the side of the bed.
“Where the fuck did it go?” I asked myself, looking around the room.
It was hard to miss the dead guy on the floor, but I tried to avoid his ugly death stare as much as possible. It felt as if he hadn’t left the house. Maybe he was stuck here. A version of hell.
“Downstairs,” I heard Quentin say, his voice startling me. I turned around. He was pointing my gun at me. He used it to motion toward the steps. “It’s not safe for you to be here. Aniello told you to leave.”
“Leave him to be slaughtered?”
“You’d rather be slaughtered with him? Who’s going to raise that baby girl? The rules are different now. She comes first.”
Baby girl.He used to call me that, and I wondered…was it to help me remember? This was all so fucked up and so confusing.
We stared at each other for a minute before I released a deep breath and started to move toward him. His posture relaxed some when he realized I’d given in, but not by much. He didn’t trust me. For good reason. My mind was still working.
“You didn’t have to pull a gun on me,” I snapped as I moved past him. If he wasn’t so capable, I would have snatched the gun and trained it on him.
“Never underestimate a woman in love,” he said from behind me. “If it were Simone, someone better pull something and fast, or it would be lights out for them.”
“I would hope no one ever pulls a gun on Simone,” I said. “Especially not a friend.”
“There are no friends in this life,” he said. “Only people you trust more than others. And even trust has limits.”
I stopped when I came to the front door. Abe stood in it, his big body blocking most of what was going on. I could hear voices from outside, though, and then Niello basically telling them to go fuck themselves.
Abe stepped out of the doorway, moving closer to where the group (the men I didn’t know and Big Bismo) stood, right behind Niello. Abe called his name once, and as Niello turned, Abe pulled his gun and shot Niello right in the chest. Before Niello hit the ground, he did it again.
My body flew forward without thought, and at the same time, I started to scream, but a strong arm hooked me around the waist, pulling me back.
“No!” I wailed. “Let me go! Let me go!”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Quentin said in my ear. He turned me away from the scene, even though I was fighting as hard as I could, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Leave. Take the baby girl and go, dammit.”
“That was the deal,” I heard Abe say to the crowd, who had just watched The Titanium Candle be snuffed out. “We take him, you leave her and us alone. You got what you wanted. Now let her go.”
“They want you, too,” Quentin said, his mouth still close to my ear. “Leave while you have a fucking chance to save yourself.”
