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He lunges at me in aggression, not with precision. I hear a scream, and it’s a woman. It’s not my woman but another. Becca maybe, she shouldn’t be here. It’s time to kill this fucker. I back up a touch, and Enzo follows. Then it happens in a heartbeat of fucking time. His foot scoots my Glock and I can’t get to it, but he can without taking an eye off of me and he reaches it easily. I realize in a flash, I’m the one who’s going to die by the hands of a peon. Not sure what’s pissing me off more; that I have to leave this earth without Poppy or that it’s by an unworthy hand.

If Cady had bested me, at least Satan himself got me in the end but Enzo; he’s not even worth a breath of an angel’s sigh.

Poppy sees it and screams. Knowing I’m done, I flick my eyes beyond his shoulder to take my last look at her. Then I stand upright like a man. I may die in a misappropriated grunge match, but I’ll die like the fucking king I am. I say in a steady and strong voice.

“Look for me in the music, in the sky, and the forever. Gingersnap, Jesus. I love you.” I don’t care who knows how vulnerable I sound. “It’s been my life’s honor to be your husband.”

Poppy screams, “NO!” As Enzo raises my gun to my head. At least he learned a thing or two about dispatching an enemy and the kill shot.

“Goodbye, fucker.”

Chapter

Forty-Seven

Poppy

Tears, blood, and bullets are everywhere. I run towards the man who is my everything not knowing what I can do to stop him from really dying. Brick yells at me to stay put. A man catches me, and I pull the knife from the table and swipe at who’s holding me. I catch an arm, then a piece of his neck. I slash at everything and then he falls. I don’t know if I did it or someone else. I don’t care if he dies as long as I can get to Sal.

Enzo lifts his arm and then there’s the brutal sound of a shotgun ripping through flesh and bone and he goes down. All the power, anger, brutal viciousness just ceases to exist and ooze away from an unrecognizable crimson mass filling the tile grout with red viscidness.

There’s one more stunned pop behind me but I don’t look. I’m transfixed as I stare at the dark eyes that are my home, and his sister holding a smoking gun over the man who terrorized her while calling her mother.

Gia’s knees buckle as the shotgun falls to the ground. Sal catches her before she falls. He holds her while looking at me with his eyes full to the brim. Gia spits at Enzo’s body over Sal’s shoulder. She grabs his Glock and shoots Enzo five more times. His body bouncing with each shot.

“Easy there, Annie Oakly. He’s dead.” Gia sobs and holds her brother. She has no one else and I let her have Sal for a moment because I get him forever.

Brick yells from behind me, “Clear.”

Then I hear a voice from the balcony above, “Clear.” I look up as Johnny Grocer stands up. My heart leaps. We’re all here. We’re all here.

Brick looks at Sal. “The Dutch and Doctor Frankenfuck got away with the safe.”

“Were they here when I…”

Brick touches his throat, “No. They don’t know about the other piece of it all.”

And then the world goes out from under me as the weight of the blood loss hits me. I’m cold, and the floor bites my hip and back as I meet it.

My throat is raw and I only want water. That’s the first thing I think about as I try to roll over and find my water bottle I keep by the edge of my bed. I reach over and something plastic falls to the floor. I can’t quite understand what is happening.

And the voice is in my ear cooing sweet things in Italian. I don’t know everything he’s saying but I do understand that I’m ok. And that he loves me. He loves me so much, and he wants me to wake up.

“Sei a posto. Ti ho preso, Gingersnap. Ti ho così profondamente nella mia anima che sarai sempre al sicuro. Ti amo tanto. Riposo.”

I crack my eyes and my vision clouds with a tight smile and way too much stubble. I can’t quite open the other one. He nods slightly to me. “Trust me who ever gave you that shiner will join the others soon enough.”

And now I remember everything. My fugue state shatters around us and there’s a trail of bodies in our wake. He kisses my hand, and I tell him about the moment I became his queen, for good or ill. The moment I realized that the ends justify the means. And he is my ends. Getting back to him, protecting him, he’s all the ends I’ll ever want or need.

I wince as I raise the corners of my mouth into a smile. “You don’t have to worry about him no more.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me, and I toss another Godfather quote at him. “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” His eyes get big and round and the laugh I hear in all my dreams thunders through the room. I toss another version of one, “Leave the gun, and let me take the Cannoli.” The laugh is bigger and brighter than the sun and I can’t stand how beautiful he is.

“Rest so I can wreck you later, Gingersnap.” He kisses me lightly but makes sure to lick the seam of my lip. I moan just a little.

I hear a groan on the other side of the space. “There’s like a thousand rooms in this joint, and you couldn’t set me up in a private one?”

I move my head to the side to the sound of Lou’s voice, and I realize we’re at the Vineyard property, not a hospital. But there’s two hospital beds side by side.