“As if you don’t plan on that anyway,” Leo says, grabbing my wrist as I move to step around him. He shakes his head, taking the gun and pushing me back behind the protection of his body. Leo slides the gun across the hardwood floor, and Gino kicks it away. It glides under the old velvet couch.
“I see you don’t deny it,” Gino says. “I suspected you might be fucking him.”
“Are you really that surprised?” I jut my chin up, playing the part of the hurt wife. “You fucking lied to me!” I hiss. “You said you could never love any other woman. That Juliet would always be the love of your life.”
“I was truthful when I told you that, but I was wrong. I just needed to meet the right woman and open my heart to make room for her too.”
“Fuck you.”
“My, my, how you have lowered your standards since I’ve been gone. Sleeping with the enemy and cursing like a common whore.” He tut-tuts and Leo grabs hold of my arm, sensing I’m seconds from lunging at the prick, holding me in place.
“Leo is worth a million of you,” I say without pausing to think. “And he’s not the enemy. Greco is.”
“He fucking started everything! Him and Mateo!” Gino roars, darting forward and pressing his gun to Leo’s temple. “This is all your fault for messing with the order of things. If you hadn’t killed Carlo, Greco wouldn’t have killed my wife!”
“How did you find out?” I ask, panicking and stalling for time. I need to do something, find something to attack Gino with, before he kills the love ofmylife.
“I always suspected Juliet had been murdered to punish me. I have spent years trying to find out who orchestrated her car accident. I had almost given up when a guy I was torturing last year told me it was the Grecos. His uncle was one of their capos, and I hunted the man down, and he told me it was true. He had been the one to mess with her car. I killed him, and then I went to kill Greco, and it all came out.” He digs the muzzle of his gun in harder to Leo’s brow. Leo hasn’t moved a muscle, but he looks undeterred, and I’m wondering if he knows something I don’t or if he has another weapon stashed someplace on his body.
I fucking hope he does because Gino is unhinged.
“At first, they believed it was the Colombians. That’s the bullshit Angelo had fed them. They wanted revenge, so they spent three years looking for the guy who had met with Carlo at the warehouse that day. When they found him, he told them it wasn’t him, and he had a rock-solid alibi. He had gone straight from the warehouse to a three-hour-long meeting with a crooked cop, who happened to be on the Greco payroll. The cop confirmed his alibi, and that’s when they figured Angelo had lied to protect someone.” A wry laugh tumbles from his chest. “They fucking thought he lied to protectme!” he shouts, waving the gun around.
Seizing the opportunity, I duck down and pop back up in front of Leo. I act fast so he can’t stop me. Leo curses, wrapping his fingers around my arm, as if to yank me back behind him, when Gino smiles, pushing the muzzle of his gun into my head. “Don’t move an inch, Messina, or I’ll pull the trigger.”
Leo’s arms wrap around my waist from behind. “Hurt her, and you’re a dead man,” he promises.
“A two-for-one special.” Gino grins. “This must be my lucky day.”
“Or not,” a familiar voice says from behind. “Put the gun down, Papa,” Caleb adds, his arm extended, training his weapon at Gino. “If you hurt my mother, I will smash your fucking head in and laugh the whole time I’m doing it.”
45
Natalia
Gino turns around, keeping his gun pressed into my temple the whole time. “What are you doing, son?”
“Protecting and loving my mom the way you should have but never did. Give Mama to me or I’ll shoot. I mean it.” His arm is steady, and I see nothing but determination in his eyes.
“Let her go,” Leo says. “We both know it’s me you want.”
“No.” I hold on to Leo’s hands as he tries to remove them from my waist. “I won’t walk away so he can kill you.”
“Aw, how touching.” Sarcasm is thick in Gino’s tone. “And Natalia is going nowhere. You both must pay. You were in this together. You both killed my wife.”
“Are you fucking insane?” Caleb yells, walking forward with the gun still pointed at his father. “Maximo Greco killed Juliet, so why the fuck aren’t you taking it out on him?” He shoves the gun into Gino’s chest, and my heart falters. If Caleb kills his father, he will have to live with it for the rest of his life. I don’t want that for my son.
“Caleb? What the fuck? What the hell is going on here?” Joshua asks, rubbing his eyes, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
“Tell him, Papa.” Caleb digs his gun into Gino’s chest, and I’m scarcely breathing. The pressure of the gun at my temple has me sweating and on edge. It’s only Leo’s strong arms around my waist keeping me together. “Tell him how you made a deal with Greco, the man who killed our bio mother, instead of putting a fucking bullet straight through his heart!”
“I’m interested in that story too,” Ben says, appearing behind Joshua. I almost collapse in relief when I see him with Brando, Nario, and Ciro holding up the rear. Ben pulls Joshua behind him, warning him with his eyes to stay put.
“Son. You don’t have the full picture.” Gino sounds way too calm for a man who has five guns trained on him.
“How about everyone puts their weapons down,” Ben says, “and we talk about this.”
Gino snorts. “Always with the political bullshit, Mazzone.”
