Dark circles shadow the bags under Elio’s eyes. “May I ask you to unhand my nephew?” He motions toward Andrea, who hits the ground with a thud when I drop him. “Thank you.”
The ache prowling behind my ribs blisters the breath caught in my chest. “Did you know?” I ask my uncle.
He shakes his head. “No, niputi.”
I raise my gun at Elio.
Luiggi stands by my side and lifts his.
The man to Elio’s right pulls his weapon from his jeans. “Drop it, kid,” he says in Italian.
Did he put a laser on my chest?
Ziu removes his gun from his shoulder holster. “You’ll be a shot motherfucker if you don’t get that fucking laser off my nephew.”
“Drop your weapon,” the man repeats.
I grab the second gun from my waistband to aim at my unknown houseguest. Fuck him and that laser.
Elio sighs. “I’m asking you to trust me, Salvatore.”
“Trust? Where was the trust to tell me that Andrea is on your family tree? You pop up at random to reveal Bianca is your granddaughter after she goes missing? You could be working with the people who took her,” I spit.
“Who’s fucking fault is it she got taken in the first place?” the man next to Elio’s voice booms, straining the veins in his neck.
Elio pats his chest to keep him from running into my bullets. I might need a rocket launcher to take him down.
“Vince.”
“You’re Vince?” I lower my weapon.
He was shorter in my mind. Older too. The gray tugging on his black hair signals his age but doesn’t match his broad chest and wide arms.
His brows dip. “Who are you to Bianca?”
“She’s my wife,” I say.
“Aww, shit,” Andrea grumbles from the floor.
One minute, the room is quiet. The next, I’m flipped over my desk. Damn, he hits hard.
“We omitted that part,” Andrea tells me over the shouting. “Your lip is about to look like mine.”
“Now’s not the—timeeee!”
I don’t remember standing to my feet, but the punch Vince throws is unforgettable. The second hit grazes my jaw.
“You fucking bastard. Get off me!” Vince screams at someone behind him before throwing me back to the ground.
Pow.
Andrea and I peek around my desk.
Ziu is on Vince’s back with his gun pressed to his temple.
Luiggi leans against the wall, a gun in one hand, a cigarette in the other.
Drywall coats Elio’s balding head and polo. He lowers his weapon. “Enough. Bianca is the last tie I have to my beloved. I cannot lose her.”
