57
Vincenzo (39 years)
The squeal of tires outside the beach house had me striding to the door. I opened it and Julian rushed inside with Gianna in his arms, her white dress red with blood. “What the fuck happened,” I growled.
“Sniper hit,” Julian looked flustered, or he was just trying to hold his emotions in check.
“Backroom,” I ordered. “I need to get Dr. Lipschitz.”
“On his way,” he called over his shoulder as a second set of tires screeched to a stop.
Marco, Rosana, and Dr. Lipschitz rushed in and hurried behind Julian without a word to me. Shutting the door, I followed to the in-house medical facility I had on the property. When I entered, Gianna was already face down on the bed, and Rosana snipping off her dress while Marco assisted the doctor to assemble his equipment. Julian was pacing, shoving his hand through his hair every few seconds. I knew until the doctor examined her and began working on her, there was nothing we could do. Rosana was a trained nursed and accustomed to handling this shit. Marco was good at following orders and the Dr. Lipschitz a family doctor, was equipped to handle the worst shit in my family.
“Julian, let’s go.”
“I can’t leave her,” he began, and I shook my head. One of us had to be strong and I knew it had to be me.
When he followed me to the bar, I poured him a stiff brandy and stuck it in his trembling hand. “Drink.” He downed it in one gulp. I poured another and again gestured for him to tip it back. “What happened,” I asked, certain he was calming down.
Julian looked at me then breathed in deeply. I’d never seen the man this shook before. “We were delivering the child to the girl. Gianna was in the plane and Gabriel was crossing over to speak to her and...” he paused as if remembering the moment. “Sniper. Gianna went down.”
I gave him a minute. “You want to start from the beginning, Julian?” At his confused look, I added, “what child, what Girl, and who the fuck is Gabriel.” Forgiving his loss of memory about my knowledge of what he’d just unraveled because of his unhinged emotional moment, I poured myself a brandy and waited.
He spent the next ten minutes giving me a summarized version of what had gone down in the last few days. “Are you fucking telling me that Zayne, the man she married, was meeting her?” The glass flew from my hand, slamming into the wall, crystal splintering into a thousand fragments, impossible to glue back together, just like my fucking heart.
Julian stood. “She thinks you’re dead, remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” I grunted, turning to stare at the shimmering blue waters that served as my backyard view. A private beach for miles that except for a few people, no one knew existed, not even my killer wife. My sanctity when I needed it. “I remember sitting up and feeling my ruined shirt and vest beneath and thinking, she’d actually fucking shot me. My meek little wife who’d jump at my voice shot me.” The impact had been worse than being kicked by a fucking horse. “The bullet hadn’t knocked me, more like winded me and the spot turned purple the next day. Regardless, I just laid there, hoping she wouldn’t put a bullet in my head then she walked out.” Her last words stayed with me,“there’s no hell more powerful than a broken woman determined to rise.”I turned to look at the other man. “You know, Julian that first night in my home, I knew she’d mess with my head. I remember thinking that a Phoenix rising is far more powerful than its predecessor when I looked at her. What do you think? Were my predictions accurate?”
He nodded. “If you saw this coming, why let her shoot you?”
“Because I needed her to live again. She hates me and the only way she would’ve lived is if she knew I was dead.” And that’s what I’d done, I’d left her to run my business while I ran a hotel on a private island. I viewed it as a temporary retirement and returned yesterday, ready to let her know I was back. Only Julian, Rosana, and Marco were aware of my return. I didn’t expect to walk into this.
“And now?” Julian eyed me skeptically, I knew he was thinking about whether she’d make it or not.
“Now, Julian, I bring my wife back to life. She’s stronger now, she’ll fight this.”
“Does she know about the prison camp?”
I shook my head. “We’ve never got a chance to discuss that.” I thought back to what we did discuss that night. Yes, I fucking owned her even if she killed me.
“Mr. Salvatore?”
