“They saw all of us,” Cristiano adds, his cold eyes meeting mine. “They know about this meeting now.”
“Which means war,” Rafiel says flatly.
But I can barely process their words. All I can see is Antonio’s blood soaking through his shirt as we get him into the car.
“Drive!” I shout at Giovanni, and we tear out of the parking lot.
Lucy is in the back seat with me and Antonio, immediately pressing her hands to his wound. Her dress is already soaked with blood, but her hands are steady.
“Stay with us, Antonio,” she says, her voice surprisingly calm. “You’re going to be okay.”
My phone rings. It’s Francesco. Fuck.
“Is my son with you?” he demands before I can even say hello.
“He’s hurt. We’re taking him to St. Mary’s now. Get there as fast as you can.”
“How bad?”
I look at Antonio’s pale face, the blood soaking through Lucy’s dress as she tries to stem the flow. “Bad. I’m sorry, Francesco. We were ambushed. Sokolis.”
“I’m on my way. Where were you ambushed? Who else was there?”
I explain about the closed restaurant and sitting down with Vincenzo, Cristiano, and Rafiel.
There’s a long pause. When Francesco speaks again, his voice is deadly calm. “Don Carlucci said nothing about this. He knewnothing about this, did he, Damiano? He will want to know why you were meeting with the other dons.”
His hard tone implies that he’d very much like an explanation as well.
“I know.”
“Then you better have a good explanation ready.” He hangs up.
Lucy looks at me, her face streaked with Antonio’s blood. “This is bad, isn’t it? Not just Antonio. Our father…”
“It will be okay,” I tell her, but I’m actually thinking,He’s going to lose his mind. I squeeze her shoulder. My other hand stays on Antonio, as if I can will him to live through touch alone.
As I look at her in the back of the speeding car, Antonio’s blood on both of us, his labored breathing filling the silence, I know with terrible certainty that tonight has changed everything.
11
Damiano
Antonio might not make it through the night. I’ll never forget Francesco’s face as they wheeled his son into surgery. The accusation in his eyes. The way he couldn’t even look at me before following the gurney through those swinging doors.
This is all your fault,his silence said.
My heart doesn’t stop pounding, even when we’re safe within the high iron gates of the Barone mansion. The house is quiet and dark as Lucy and I come into the kitchen through the garage. It seems like there’s no one else home. Antonio’s blood is still under my fingernails. Still soaked into Lucy’s dress. As I raise my hand to push it through my curls, she captures my wrist gently.
“Damiano, you’re bleeding. Let me see your injury.”
She helps me out of my jacket and rolls up the bloody sleeve of my shirt. A bullet has grazed my flesh close to my viper tattoo. So what if I’m bleeding? A bullet might have hit Lucy. She could have died.
“Fuck, I need a drink.” I pull a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, slosh a hefty serving into a tumbler, and knock half of it back. It burns down my throat like fire and ice.
“Please let me take care of you,” Lucy says, with big, worried eyes.
I take another mouthful of vodka, wishing I could forget the sight of Antonio bleeding profusely in the back of the car. It could have been Lucy, bullets tearing through her because I wasn’t able to protect her.
