As for Mr. Armani, it’s definitely Luca, and he’s definitely not moving. I crouch down by him, kneeling in the blood still pooling around him, my fingers trembling as I reach out to press them into his neck. My heart leaps in my chest when, like a viper striking, he grabs my wrist with one hand and presses his gun to my forehead with the other, his eyes cracking open.
“Nick,” he croaks.
“Help’s coming.” Where thefuckis Vitali?
“Finch,” he says, his eyes opening wider. “Finch.” He tries to move, but collapses back with a choking groan.
“I’ll get him,” I promise. “You just make sure you stay alive for him.” With that, I run up the stoop, past the dead guards—they didn’t stand much of a chance, poor fuckers, judging by the destruction the Irish have rained down—and into the fiery townhouse.
* * *
Vitali and Carlucci,it turns out, are both inside already, pinned down on the second floor by some fucker at the bottom of the stairs with a machine gun. He’s too busy cackling in delight to hear me coming up behind him and drop him with two shots to the back of his head. “Clear!” I holler, and Carlucci and Vitali run down the stairs fast, flames just about chasing them. “The hell were you doing up there?” I have to shout to be heard over the roaring fire, and the smoke is thick and choking. Carlucci and Vitali have wrapped shirts around their lower faces, their eyes streaming.
“Trying to find Finch,” Carlucci coughs. “But if he’s up there…” He devolves into coughing and wheezing.
Vitali and I lock eyes and come to a mutual decision. “Any more Irish down there?” I ask, gesturing down the long hallway that leads to the rooms at the back of the townhouse.
“Not sure.”
“Go. Get the Boss on your way and for Christ’s sake, keep his heart beating.”
Vitali nods and pulls Carlucci out of the townhouse with him, while I start down the hall. I go fast but check my corners, and I do run into one more IFF asshole, more dead than alive, but still able to shoot. I end him with one bullet clean between the eyes and keep moving.
The kitchen is starting to catch fire and there’s smoke everywhere, my eyes blurring with it, so I have to blink hard a few times to make sure I’m seeing what I’m really seeing.
“Hey!” I shout, and then cough.
“Nick?”
It’s not a mirage. It really is Finch D’Amato, crouching down behind the end of the kitchen counter, looking terrified. “Let’s go,” I say, coming over to yank him to his feet. “You hurt?”
“No, but I don’t know where Luca—”
“He’s outside. Let’s go.Move.” I half-drag him out with me, both of us choking on thick black smoke that has only increased in the few minutes I’ve been in the place. Outside, we both pull in big lungfuls of air. The first responders have moved in now, the firefighters starting to hose down the townhouse, the paramedics checking over the bodies in the street. The cops are shouting and pointing at me but I ignore them as I pull Finch over to one of the stretchers at the back of an ambulance that Vitali and Carlucci are gathered around.
Finch throws himself at Luca, who’s looking paler than I’ve ever seen him. He’s still conscious, somehow, wrapping one weak arm around Finch. The paramedics are pushing the rest of us away, trying to get Luca in the ambulance, but as I start to pull Vitali and Carlucci away with me, Luca reaches out to grab my wrist again. Finch is sobbing on his chest, and I can see dazed pain in Luca’s face, but he’s trying to say something. I can’t quite make it out, between the noise of sirens, the fire, Finch crying. I lean in close to hear—
“…me right…” he whispers.
“Move,” hollers one of the paramedics in my other ear, and physically throws me out of the way. I stumble back, but Vitali steadies me, and we watch them load Luca and Finch into the back of the ambulance. The doors slam and they take off, sirens wailing.
I turn around to ask Vitali how the hell this all went down, but he’s disappeared. No—there he is, being led away by a couple of cops, and Carlucci, too, still coughing up his lungs, and before I can react, my arms are pulled behind my back and cuffed.
“Hithere,” says a chirpy voice. Detective Gina Garcia leans to the side to smile up into my face. “I really wanted to do this myself,” she confides.
“Am I under arrest?” I ask.
“You most certainly are,” she tells me with satisfaction.
“On what charge?”
“Somany things. How about we start with criminal interference to health care services—have we done that one before?” She laughs and begins to recite my Miranda rights.
“Well, in that case,” I say, as I’m walked towards the nearest black-and-white, “I guess I’m gonna need my lawyer.”
“Right here,” says the one voice I didnotexpect, and Carlo falls into step with me as Garcia marches me forward. He looks fine as hell in his favorite Tom Ford suit. “I’ll meet you at the precinct. Don’t—”
“—say anything, yeah, yeah. What the hell are you doing here? I told you—”
