Jason is already moving. I see him in silhouette, throwing himself between Amauri and the chaos with a single, desperate leap. Amauri is screaming, but the shots drown everything out. The first round is so loud it feels like it cracks the bones inside my head. The muzzle flash lights the room in freeze-frame horror: Jason's face twisted, eyes wide, arms outstretched. He goes down immediately, the force of it knocking him back into the table, his body crumpling like a rag doll. Amauri falls with him, a tangle of limbs, and for a split second, I think maybe he's shielded, maybe he's okay, please God let him be okay.
The men are on top of them. They swarm like jackals, one grabbing Amauri by the collar—Amauri flailing, he's alive! Thank God—another man shoots a single round into Jason's head. They shout commands in a language I don't understand, but the violence is universal. I try to scream. I try to run. But a hand—a huge, gloved hand—snatches my ponytail from behindand pulls me off my feet. They scramble for purchase, kicking wildly, but the air is gone, and all I can taste is fear.
Carter is in the living room, his wheelchair wedged behind the couch. For a moment, I see him try to wheel himself out of the room, his eyes wild, jaw clenched. He throws something—a remote, a mug, whatever he could reach—at the men. It bounces harmlessly off one of their backs. The man turns and, without breaking stride, slams the wheelchair over, sending Carter sprawling. I hear the dull thud of his body on the floor, the air punched out of his lungs.
I taste copper, and it takes me a second to realize it's my own blood. I twist, I flail, but the hand in my hair is unbreakable. Another arm wraps around my waist, pinning my arms, and I'm dragged backward, heels against the marble. They haul me to the ground, face-first, pressing my cheek into the cold tile. Tears and blood blur my vision of the kitchen; my eyes land on the math homework scattered like confetti.
Amauri returns to my sight, tiny and shrieking, arms windmilling as he fights the man holding him. He screams for me, the wordMummystretching into something raw and animal. He kicks, he bites, and for a moment I'm filled with pride—my child, my little fighter—but then the man clamps a hand over his mouth, and the pride curdles to terror.
I lose time, maybe minutes, maybe seconds. I don't know. There is a high buzz in my ears, a static that drowns out everything else. I'm vaguely aware of Carter being dragged out from under his wheelchair. I try to turn my head to see Amauri, but a boot presses down on the side of my face, grinding me into the ground.
They are talking to each other, rapid and clipped. One yells into a radio. Another flips Carter over with his boot and pats him down, efficient and dispassionate. They're not here for money.Not here for things. They're here for us. That realization is a hundredfold more terrifying.
Blindly, I reach out, and my hand finds the handle of a cast-iron pan that must have fallen to the floor. My fingers curl around it, slick with blood, and I swing it upward with everything left in me. A sense of déjà vu overcomes me—another time, another man—making me sick to my stomach, but there is no time to think about the past. The pan connects with the side of his head, and he lets go. Instantly, I'm on my feet, rushing forward straight for the intruder holding Amauri. Taking him off balance, his grip on my son loosens, and Amauri scrambles away, crawling toward me, but a third man catches him by the ankle and yanks him back so hard his sneakers slip right off his feet. He screams again, high and keening.
That's when Carter shouts. "You motherfuckers!" His voice is ragged, furious, and so loud in the silence that even the invaders pause. He's upright again, knuckles bloodless on the arms of his chair; his whole body is trembling. "Let me go! Do you have any idea who I am?"
The man nearest Carter smirks, orders two of the guys to lift Carter up, then punches him—hard—in the gut. Carter doubles over, held up on his useless legs by two men.
A fifth man grabs Amauri, who is still struggling, and throws him over his shoulder like luggage. I lash out again, this time with my fists, but I'm lifted into the air, a hand covers my mouth and nose until I can't breathe, until my vision goes white at the edges. I come back to myself in the grip of a man carrying me like a sack of flour. The world tilts and spins, and from above me, I can hear the whir of a helicopter. Everything still feels so surreal to me, like I'm dreaming, or maybe caught up in an action movie, like this isn't really happening to me. To us. But then I hear Amauri scream again, see him being carried into the hovering helicopter. A helicopter! In the middle of our yard! I struggleagain, remembering bits and pieces of a few self-defense classes I took over the years, twisting hard in the man's grip, I somehow manage to drive my knee into his solar plexus. His legs buckle, and his grip loosens around me. Enough for me to twist some more and fall to the ground. The problem is, I can't seem to stop falling. I keep rolling. The ravine!
The backyard slopes sharply here by the terrace toward the ravine, and I'm tumbling down it. My bodyis nolongermyown. And then there is pain.Theworldflipsendoverend. More pain. So much pain. A rock hits me in the hips, and my palm tries to grab on to something, only for it to be a cactus. My elbow hits a boulder, and for good measure, my knee decides it wants to make its acquaintance, too.
When my body finally comes to a stop, it takes me a moment to gather my wits. Above, themenscreamin what I now realize is Spanish. I recognize the cadence of the language. Most of it is drowned out by the sound of the helicopter. And then I see it. I see it rising into the air, and I scream again. So loud, I nearly break my vocal cords. Amauri! They have Amauri. The helicopterlifts,amonstrousinsect rising above the trees, its searchlights sweep across the ravine floor where I lie broken. Shots crackthenight. It's only luck that keeps me from being riddled with bullets. I almost wish one would put me out of my misery.
When I finally open my eyes, the silenceis absolute. And my sonisgone.
Later that same night…
Blood dries fast under club lights. That's the first lie people believe about violence: that it lingers, that it stains, that it leaves some kind of mark that a mop and a rag can't erase. But the truth is, even the worst of it can be buffed away in minutes as if nothing ever happened, unless you know where, or how, to look.
By the time I arrive, the floor's already been mopped, the broken glass swept, the music back to its loud, predatory pulse. Neon breathes over polished chrome and tables, undulating across black tile as if the club was exhaling. The only thing that lingers is the chemical tang of bleach beneath cologne and spilled cocktails.
The manager stands rigid near the bar; his tie loosened, sweat painting a dark V down the center of his pressed shirt. He doesn't speak until I look at him directly.
"Two shots," he fills me in quietly, his words are rushed by apprehension. "Near the VIP stairs." He's trembling. He should be, the clusterfuck happened under his nose. Inmyclub.
"Dead?" I ask.
"One. The other critical."
I nod and move past him. The smell is still there, more than just bleach, the copper tang of blood, the oily note of gunpowder, the sour adrenaline of panic. Even under the scrub of industrialcleaner, it's unmistakable. I follow it up the stairs, past a velvet rope and security men who stiffen into statues the instant I pass.
This is my club. My pride, my flagship, my fortress.
Neutral ground.
Someone violated it anyway.
Enzo joins me at the landing, Bello Capelli right behind him, both men cut from the same cloth, impeccable, disciplined, lethal. I read the situation in the way they stand: Enzo's jacket is unbuttoned, his hand never strays far from his holster; Bello's eyes track every movement in the room, cataloguing threats, calculating trajectories.
"This wasn't random," Enzo mutters, his jaw working a piece of gum to pulp. "The shooter knew the layout. The cameras were looped for ninety seconds."
"Inside help." I rotate my head to make the stiffness there less painful.
"Or borrowed access," Bello offers in a flat voice. He's Enzo's second-in-command, and I trust both of them implicitly. They've both been with me since the beginning. Bello had been my eyes and ears while I was out after theaccident. "Either way, they were not amateurs."
We stop at the exact spot where it happened. Unless someone pointed it out, you'd never know. Fresh paint is already drying on the wall, the bullet hole perfectly patched, and a row of new glasses lines the shelf. That's how we do things here: not just clean, but immaculate, the illusion instantly restored.
