Whether it was from the eerie noise or orders, suddenly gunshots blasted over the bridge, instantly making my ears ring and go quiet.
They seemed to come from every direction.
Brando lunged forward, taking advantage of the distraction of the scream to seize me by the ankles, half of my body tilting back painfully before Nemours let go of me and went over the side to avoid being shot, or Brando catching him.
Pulling me back to the ground, Brando flung his body over mine, a human shield. From my vantage point on the ground, I saw the face of a man that I thought I’d never see.
Livio.
He’d been shot—his hand reached out, and Brando took it.
“Tell,” he said in Italian, swallowing hard, “tell Cerise that I love her. I am sorry. I was meant to die with my first wife. Tell her…” He closed his eyes, then lifted them once more. “Tell her I adore the name Livia for our daughter. I should have told her.”
His eyes stayed open even after his chest ceased to move, the rain pooling in his eyes, falling like tears on his peaceful face.
“He died for you,” I whispered to Brando.
Screaming at Nemours, Livio had not taken cover, taking a bullet to the back for Brando.
Brando rolled over, releasing me as a sudden quiet seized the air, the battle over.
“He died for you,” he said.
Too shaky to stand, I rested my weight against Brando’s chest, a noise coming from his throat that made me slide right off. It reminded me of a wounded animal.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, feeling his chest.
He’d been stabbed and shot!
“Uncle Tito!” I screamed as loudly as I could. If blood was in the air, Uncle Tito would be there.
Brando squeezed my hand. “I’m all right, Ballerina Girl. Just a bit off.”
“DAUGHTER!” A roar seized my attention.
“Oh, dear God,” I said, scrambling to where my feelings pulled me like a magnet. The blood in my veins rushed like fire, but not to the point where I knew my husband would die. It wasn’t him. “Rocco.”
Our men had almost obliterated the enemy. Most of them lay dead or floating in the canal. More than a few of our men were wounded, but none of them as critically as Rocco. I always had a strong sense of him too—and in that moment…a faint murmur existed where once a strong pulse had existed.
“Kiss him!” Rosaria pleaded with me, out of her mind with fear. “He will…he will live for you!”
All the brothers had been shot, even Luca, but none of them were in danger of dying. I could feel them all around me, but they were weakened by the fading pulse of their brother.
“Father,” I said, taking Luca by the shirt, making him look at me. Rocco’s head was cradled in his lap, and he was holding his head, praying underneath his breath. “He needs you.”
It wasn’t the love of a woman that would save Rocco. He needed something else. Something he’d craved since he was a boy. Sometimes all it took was one spark to come through the darkness, that spark becoming our moment to hold on to, the ember strong enough to light our way back.
“He will be all right,” I said to Luca, to the universe. “He will.”
He had to be.
“Scarlett.” Brando rested his head in my lap, holding me tight around the waist. “Scarlett. My brother.”
I had no words.
The area began to clear, the most critical taken first. The dead were being covered; others were being recovered from the water.
The sight of Uncle Tito kneeling on the bridge, hands lifted to heaven as if he were offering them up, blood sluicing down with the rain, would forever be imprinted in my mind.
