Diego blows out a short breath. “Okay, so when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound good. But we had orders, Allegra.”

  Orders.

  Yeah.

  I crouch down on the kitchen tiles, woozy with despair, replaying the last week in my mind. Replaying my whole freaking life.

  Because these men that I call my friends, that I consider to be my chosen family, they will always, always choose my brother over me. And Raul…

  I lurch to my feet, hanging up on Diego mid-sentence.

  The doctor is the worst of them all.

  * * *

  Raul jogs out of the safe house in pajama pants and his white t-shirt, his dark blond hair rumpled and his eyes wide behind his glasses. He throws open the passenger door, stalling my getaway.

  The headlights are ghostly, lighting up the garage door and the basketball hoop. So long, suburbia. See you never.

  “Allegra? What the hell?”

  “Hello, liar.” I throw the car in reverse, giving Raul a rigid smile. “I just got off the phone to Diego.”

  The doctor’s shoulders slump. “I can explain.”

  “Can you?” I gun the engine, peeling back down the driveway, and Raul curses before throwing himself in the passenger seat. The door thumps closed behind him. “Oh, good. That will pass the time.”

  “All our shit is in that safe house.” The car lurches over the corner of the lawn as I spin us out onto the street in a screech of tires. The doctor winces. “And we’re supposed to be discreet.”

  I suck on my teeth as we roar forward, loud enough to wake the neighbors. “Well, I know how committed you are to discretion, Dr Ossani.”

  I’m so pissed at this man I can barely think, and if I didn’t know there was a hit out on him too, you’d better believe he’d be walking home barefoot. As it is, I want him safe behind these bulletproof windows—but silent. No, I don’t want to hear a damn peep out of him.

  But I’m quickly learning I don’t get what I want.

  “I told Santo yesterday that we needed to give you all the information. I told him I was going to tell you everything today, orders or no orders.”

  “How noble.” I flick the heaters on full, then dial the temperature way down. I’m angry enough to steam over the windows. “But tell me, Raul: why should I believe a word you say?”

  The leather seat creaks as he turns to me, reaching out to stroke my cheek. “Sweetheart—”

  I smack his hand away. Trying to drive here, asshole.

  “I bet you all had such a good laugh about it.” My voice is hollow, my stomach aching, and I don’t know if I even believe these words, only that they keep spewing out of me like toxic waste. Poisoning the air in the car and everything that’s happened between us. “Did Santo tell you to fuck me to keep me there?”

  “Allegra, no.” Raul sounds shocked, like I’m out of line for even thinking such a thing. Ugh. “He warned me to keep away from you. Come on, you know your brother would never do that. I’d never do that.”

  “I don’t know either of you.” The highway is empty, tarmac whipping beneath the car. My fingers ache from clenching the steering wheel. “Not really.”

  The doctor stifles a groan.

  “It was my idea—taking you away to the safe house. Okay?” Raul leans close as he talks, one palm spread over the dashboard. “I know you can take care of yourself, and I know it was shitty, but I panicked. Couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to you, and all I could think of was getting you safe. So now you know everything, okay, Allegra? It’s all out in the open.”

  Ha!

  “Well, that’s alright then.” My foot shoves the pedal harder against the floor, the engine roaring as lights whip past on both sides. “You got caught out and confessed the final detail. That totally counts.”

  “Allegra.” Moonlight washes over Raul’s spread hand. Those fingers have saved lives—and made me come so hard my brain short-circuited. I hate that. “Please.”

  Nope. Even if I wanted to be reasonable right now—which I definitely do not—there’s a tight ball of hurt in my chest, and it’s throbbing. Hurts every time I breathe. I can’t think like this.

  “We’re going back to the compound. I’m going to pack a bag, and you’re going to let me, and I’m getting far, far away from you assholes, hit or no hit. And if you or Santo or one of his other lackeys tries to hold me there, I’ll carve you up. Understood?”

  Raul tips his head back against the seat, misery etched on his handsome face. “Understood.”

  Good. That’s settled, then.

  I flex my aching fingers against the steering wheel, and my palms are damp.

  * * *

  Santo is waiting for us when we roar up his driveway, arms folded as he stands at the top of the stone steps. The night sky is thick with dark clouds, and the only lights on the grounds are the electric ones in the bushes. I jerk the car, parking as messily as I possibly can, and hop out with one wheel teetering on the first step.

  “Lovely,” Santo calls, irritation snapping through his words. “How mature, Allegra.”

  God, I hate my brother sometimes.

  Raul piles out of the car behind me, still barefoot in his pajama pants and white t-shirt, and the mob boss raises an eyebrow at the state of us. Don’t know why he’d be so surprised—as if I’d let that rat bastard shower and change before driving us home.

  “Allegra,” Santo begins, winding up for a lecture, but I march past him. What’s he going to do? Have me sent away against my will? So original. “Allegra.”

  My big brother falls into step beside me, icy blue eyes checking me with equal parts anger and concern. “You are behaving like a child.”

  Am I? Sure, I’m huffing with every breath, and I’m so pissed off I can barely speak, but beneath the mood, I don’t think I’m actually out of line.

  Just in case, I force my shoulders away from my ears and speak politely. “I’m going away for a while.”

  “No,” Santo says immediately, and my temper flares back up like he just poured a liter of gasoline on the fire.

  “I’m not asking permission, asshole.”

  “You’re still not going. It’s not safe.”

  I wheel around in the center of the mansion lobby, throwing up my arms. Our words bounce off the tiles and up to the ornate ceilings, and I’m so tired and pissed off and sad.

  “It’s not safe for me here. Don’t you get that?” My cheeks are wet, and I swipe at my face, annoyed. Behind us, a small crowd shuffles into the lobby, their eyes wide. There’s Nico with a dark haired woman tucked under his arm; Diego and an exhausted Raul. A butler and a damn maid.

  No privacy in this place. Never any space to fall apart.

  “That’s why I sent you to that safe house—”

  “No, I mean it’s not safe here with you. Or with…” I can’t say Raul’s name, my throat suddenly tight, but we all hear it. The doctor’s name, weighing down my tongue.

  Santo has turned to stone, his face wiped clean of any expression. I’ve hurt him, then. It’s an olympic feat, but I can’t even be glad about it.

  I inch closer, lowering my voice so only my brother can hear. “You two, and even Nico and Diego… you break my heart when you pull shit like this. When you close ranks and leave me on the outside. So how is a broken heart safe, Santo? How is that better than a price on my head? Nico and Diego are supposed to be my friends, and you’re supposed to be my brother, and Raul—”

  I cut off, and take two slow breaths. My eyes are blurry, my words coming out in a horrible croak. “This feels worse than any stab wound, Santo.”

  The mob boss scrubs one hand down his face, then glances over my shoulder. His eyes narrow at the crowd, and the word slices through the quiet lobby. “Leave.”

  Hurried steps rush across the tiles.

  “If you really want to go,” he says slowly, “we’ll make arrangements together. Not,” he adds, one eyebrow raising when I start to argue, “because I want to control where you go. But it will be safer if you use my resources. You are still a De Rossi, Allegra.”

  Oh. My shoulders slump, and I’m dizzy with relief as I gaze at my cold, calm older brother. He’s normally so unruffled, so impossible to bother, but right now his eyes are oddly bright.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  A muscle leaps in Santo’s jaw. He nods.

  And there’s a dull sense of peace as he leads me back outside to where the others are waiting on the stone steps. Nico presses a kiss to the strange woman’s hair; Diego stares unblinking at the maid bustling past, her light blonde bob ruffled by the breeze. And the doctor… Raul watches me as we approach. The doctor stares like no one else in the whole world exists.

  “Allegra.” There’s no sound when he says my name, but I see his lips move. My stomach gives a pathetic flop.

  I look away.

  “I need one of you to bring a new vehicle around.” Santo scowls at the over-heated mess I left half on his steps, engine still ticking as it cools. “One that will bear Allegra’s terrible driving. And,” he whistles to the maid where she’s ducking through the mansion doorway. She hurries back to our group, hands clasped in front of her plain black uniform dress. “My sister will need help to pack.”

  The maid nods and bobs a curtsy, but I’m not looking at her. I’m biting my lip as Raul sniffs and stares out at the grounds. He’s got that empty, thousand-yard look in his eye, despair etched in the lines on his forehead.

  My chest aches. I want to go to him so badly.

  Why did I make such a scene?

  “Say your goodbyes,” Santo mutters, then strides away.

  The night air is cold, nipped with frost, and our breaths freeze in chalky plumes in front of our mouths.

  “It won’t be forever,” I say weakly, the doubt creeping in fast now. Raul looks hollowed out, the doctor’s mouth pressed in a firm line as he frowns at the shadows. Does he think I don’t want him? Surely he knows I want him, just not the lies?

  Have I overreacted? Wallowed in my hurt feelings and taken things too far?

  I am my brother’s sister, after all. The De Rossi family is known for our dramatics, and our Thanksgiving dinners are non-stop fireworks.

  But… perhaps I don’t want that anymore. Perhaps I want something steadier; steady as a doctor’s hands. I clear my throat.

  “On second thoughts…” I begin, but a loud crack rents the air. There are several loud pops, and the stone tiles rush toward my face. A heavy body covers mine, squishing my torso into the ground, and there are screams. Yells. The screech of tires.

  My cheek grinds against the frozen stone, and I’m stiff with shock. The body on top of mine is heavy, squeezing the air from my lungs, and I jab an elbow between its ribs.

  “Raul?” I wheeze, calling out as loud as I can. “Raul!” Boots thunder past my nose, and there are more gunshots. I grit my teeth, bracing my palms on the tiles.

  It takes all of my reedy strength, but I shove my human shield off to one side, grunting with the effort. Beside me, Nico has flattened his wife to the ground and kneels over her, gun jerking in his hand as he fires into the shadows. A few feet away, Diego kneels in front of the white-faced maid, blocking her with his body and speaking quickly into his phone as he draws a knife from his boot.

  “Raul!”

  He’s behind me, sprawled on his back, staring glassy-eyed at the clouds, breathing hard. Blood soaks his shoulder, the dark, sticky fluid seeping through his white t-shirt.

  “Help me!” I screech, and Diego’s already here, slinging the doctor over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. He strides inside the mansion, the maid’s wrist gripped in one meaty hand, and I follow them all, bile rising in my throat.

  The world tilts as the door slams shut, and everything is sickly and wrong.

  Raul.

  Eight

  Raul

  It’s not the first time I’ve been shot, and it won’t be the last. Call it an occupational hazard. Everyone else in this mansion understands that, with Diego ducking out immediately to go after the attacker, but from the way Allegra keeps pacing by my bedside, you’d think I was an innocent office worker caught in a crossfire.

  “How did this happen? You said the grounds were secure!” She tugs at her wild dark hair, my blood staining the front of her sweatshirt as she paces up and down. Up and down.

  No one else speaks to Santo like that and lives to tell the tale, but the mob boss sucks his teeth and ignores his baby sister. He’s in an armchair near my bedside, on the phone to security with one hand, the other holding a bandage against my wound.

  “Keep the pressure,” I force out, teeth gritted from pain.

  Santo presses harder.

  For all De Rossi’s threats to bury me alive, I can’t help but notice that he doesn’t seem to want me dead. He’s already summoned another doctor; already ruined his silk waistcoat with my blood.

  Apparently the mob boss cares.

  “I’m fine, Allegra. It didn’t hit bone.”

  “Didn’t hit bone—” she cuts herself off, shaking her head and pacing faster. If she keeps on like this, she’ll wear through the floorboards and drop to the room below.

  “It’s alright. Really. No worse than Nico’s stab wound a few weeks ago.”

  “Well, I don’t care about Nico!”

  “Charming.” The man in question shoves through the doorway, shooting Allegra a sour look, but he’s not really offended. We all know what she meant.

  At least, I hope we all know. If I’m reading this wrong again, I’ll put my head through a wall. When I thought I’d lost her for a moment back there…

  “You’re fine, Falasca.” Allegra flaps a hand at the mobster, baring sparing him a glance. “And you got married without telling us. You can jump off a bridge for all I care.”

  You know, I don’t think that’s true. The De Rossis both like to pretend they’re above sticky things like feelings, but who’s hovering over me, pale with worry right now? Santo and Allegra, that’s who.

  “The other doctor is on his way.” Santo’s hand presses against my wound, steady and strong, as he tries to calm his sister. “And they’ve neutralized the threat. It’s nearly over, Alle. You can wait in your room if you prefer.”

  She sucks in a deep breath, hands balling into fists. “I am not leaving him!”

  Despite the pain, I fight a smile.

  “He’s fine.” Santo jerks his chin in my direction. “Do you see that smug expression? This asshole is fine.”

  Two matching pairs of icy blue eyes bore into me.

  I raise my good hand in surrender. “I’m just glad she cares.”

  Allegra huffs, while Santo’s nose wrinkles in distaste.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she snips out, marching to the doorway. “I have plenty of better places to be, Raul Ossani.”

  * * *

  Exactly three minutes pass before Allegra storms back inside. “Not. A. Word,” she warns, throwing herself down on the edge of my bed.

  I nod, stark relief and amusement warring in my chest. For a second there, I thought she’d really gone, and who could blame her? Allegra was right to be furious. Right to call us all out on our bullshit—especially me.

  I’ll never strain our connection like that again.

  “You will be fine,” the doctor says as he prods at my shoulder. His is a voice for playing dice in smoky bars. “The bullet did not hit bone, and it came out clean. Someone must help me, though, while I stitch.”

  “I’ll do it,” Allegra says quickly, scrambling into my lap. Santo curses under his breath and leaves the room, Nico swift on his heels. “Tell me what to do.”

  The old man hands her a pair of scissors. “Cut off his shirt. I need to clean the wound.”

  Allegra frowns, breathing steadily as she snips a careful line up the center of my torso.

  “I had a dream like this once,” I offer, trying to distract myself from the burning pain in my shoulder. “No old man, though.”

  “Shut up, Raul.”

  “And you weren’t half a breath away from leaving me.”

  Allegra’s face crumples, and she keeps snipping. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and I jerk back, head bumping against the wall.

  “Why on earth are you sorry?”

  “I would never have really gone. Not for long, anyway.” The mafia princess looks miserable, and her face only falls more when she peels off my ruined t-shirt and gets a proper look at my wound. “If I hadn’t thrown such a tantrum—if we’d only stayed at that stupid safe house—”

  “Hey.” I grip her thigh, squeezing as the old man tips alcohol over the wound. It stings like a motherfucker, so I focus on the glacial pool of Allegra’s eyes. They’re brimming with tears, but so beautiful. I could look at them forever, and I don’t think that’s delirium talking. “You didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It’s not your fault, sweetheart, and with those hits out on us all, it was only a matter of time.”

  “But you’re hurt.” The word scrapes out of her, like she’s wounded too. Like my pain is her pain.

  I know that feeling.

  “It’ll heal. And I’ll have a new scar to show off.”

  Allegra smacks my good shoulder, and I bark a surprised laugh. “Only to me, Raul Ossani.”

  Now that we can agree on. “Only to you.”

  The needle pricks my shoulder, the pain sharp and hot, but with the warm weight of Allegra on my thighs…

  I barely feel it.

  * * *

  “You need rest.” The old doctor stands in the doorway, bundled in his stiff black coat, leather medical bag dangling from one gnarled hand. A signet ring winks on one finger—another sign that he’s well used to the underworld. “Tell De Rossi to stop running you all like dogs.”

  I choke back a laugh. “Yes, signor.”

  The doctor grunts and shuffles through the doorway.

  Allegra chews on her bottom lip, her ass still balanced on my thighs. “I could talk to Santo if you like.”

  The door clicks shut as I stroke her cheek with my good hand. “I’m not scared of your brother, Allegra.”

 

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