I jump, my heart lurching into my throat.
Dad’s men suddenly close in from all sides. They move with frightening efficiency, guns appearing in their hands.
“What—” Don Elio starts, his hand moving toward his jacket.
He never finishes the sentence.
The first gunshot cracks through the air, impossibly loud in the enclosed space. Don Elio staggers backward, a red bloom spreading across his white shirt.
The room explodes into chaos.
Gunfire erupts from every direction, a thunderstorm of violence and noise. The chandelier shakes overhead, the crystals chiming. I scream, but I can’t hear myself over the roar of bullets and breaking mirrors.
Marco throws himself in front of his mother, and they both go down in a spray of blood. Dante pulls a gun from inside his jacket, and he gets off two shots before he’s cut down, his body crumpling beside his cousin.
This isn’t a party.
It’s a massacre.
The daughter runs toward me, her face white with terror, her mouth open in a scream I can’t hear. She makes it three steps before bullets tear through her. She falls to her knees, confusionand pain flickering across her face, before she collapses onto the gleaming marble.
“No!” The word rips from my throat.
Lucia Vici is somehow still alive, clutching her bleeding side. She’s trying to reach her daughter, crawling across the floor, leaving a trail of crimson on the white marble.
I drop to my knees beside her, my lilac dress immediately soaking with blood.
“I didn’t know,” I sob, pressing my hands against the wound in her side. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t die.”
Her eyes, the same eyes that stared out at me from Vincenzo’s mugshot, lock on to mine. Blood bubbles from her lips.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out again, tears streaming down my face. “I’m so sorry.”
Rough hands seize me, yanking me backward. I fight against them, screaming, trying to reach her, but I’m dragged away.
Lucia Vici dies alone on the floor, still reaching for her daughter’s body.
The gunfire stops as suddenly as it began, leaving only ringing silence and the smell of gunpowder and copper.
My father’s voice cuts through the quiet, cold and businesslike. “Check them. Make sure they’re all dead.”
The soldiers release me, and I watch in numb horror as his men move through the carnage, firing single shots into bodies that might still be breathing. Execution shots. Making sure.
One of them rolls over Don Elio’s body, checking his face. Then Marco’s. Then Dante’s.
“Boss!” The capo’s voice is urgent and confused. “This isn’t Vincenzo Vici. Neither is this one.”
Dad’s face goes white, then red with rage. “What?”
“Vincenzo Vici isn’t here. He’s not among the dead.”
“Find him!” Dad roars. “Search every inch of this building.”
His men scatter, boots pounding on marble as they shout to each other.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The room tilts around me, golden light reflecting off pools of blood that are sickeningly bright in the chandelier’s glow.
Dad positioned me in the middle of the room so the Vicis would see me first.
