“NO!”
I raise my gun and shoot at Bartolo as he waltzes toward us. Five shots and then my bullets are out, but he finally falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes littered with bullets. I’m glad he’s rotting in the dirt where he belongs.
I tuck the gun back into my pocket and immediately kneel beside Matteo, checking his wounds. There’s a gnarly bullet hole on the right side of his body, opposite his heart.
“Matteo? Matteo!” I slap his face to wake him up, but no matter what I do, he won’t respond.
“No, no, no, no!” I push my fingers against the open wound to try to stop the bleeding, while I fish out his phone with a bloodied hand and unlock it with his limp thumb.
“C’mon, c’mon, quickly!” I yell at myself while opening the emergency contact and pressing Call.
Seconds feel like minutes as the call goes unanswered, and it feels like my life just flashed before my eyes. But all I can focus on is how Matteo is just lying here in a pool of his own blood, unresponsive, while I wish he would say my name one last time.
I can’t lose him. It’s too soon. Please, don’t die on me, Matteo.
“Matteo?” Finally, Franco picks up.
“He’s down! Matteo got shot! Help us!” I yell through the speakers, panic slicing my voice into pieces.
“Stella? Shit, I’m onmy way.”
STELLA
Francoand his men arrive within a minute and immediately carry him back to the car we came to the cemetery in. I sit down on the back seat with my hand on his chest, still applying pressure to the wound so he doesn’t bleed out.
Matteo is brought to a special clinic by his own men, and the medical staff immediately take over, lay him on a bed, then wheel him into the next room. I follow them while they check for a pulse and give him oxygen.
“Is he going to make it?” I ask the medics.
“I don’t know, ma’am, but we’re going to do everything we can.”
They wheel him into a closed system where the operating room is, and when the doors close on me, I’m leftwith an incredible fear of the unknown.
What’s going to happen to him?
Will he survive?
I swallow away the nerves as I stare at his bed through the small window until he disappears from view.
My ears are still ringing from the gunshots mere minutes ago, and when Franco places a hand on my shoulder, I jolt up and down.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
I shake my head, tears stinging in my eyes. “No. Matteo protected me. He kept me safe while they shot at him.”
Franco immediately pulls me in for a hug. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”
I’m overwhelmed, but I still push back the tears and swallow them down. I don’t know why I care so much, but I do. I don’t want him to die.
“Do you think he’ll make it?” I ask.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” Franco says. “But this private clinic is the best of the best. We can only put our faith in their hands.”
Four hourslater
When the nurse exits the room again, I immediately get up from my seat in the waiting area.
“Is he still alive?” I ask.
