Amadeo must feel me yield because he tucks me closer and tells me it’ll be all right. He looks down at me, and I meet his eyes for an instant before turning my face back into his chest and burying it there.
“Get them all in the back of the truck,” Bastian says. “You know where to take them. No one touches them without my order. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” a soldier answers.
Amadeo begins the climb up the stairs. I open my eyes briefly to see Bastian following, eyes locked on me, so I close mine again, breath heaving as years-old tears stream like never before.
2
AMADEO
“I’ll get the kit,” Bastian says as I carry Vittoria through the dark house, past the open door of her bedroom and to my own. Adrenaline sends blood pounding through me.
We knew something was wrong the minute we drove through the still-guarded gates of the Naples house. Bastian commented on how dark the house was as the thought formed in my own mind. I’d been thinking about Sonny’s strange mention of one of our houses being attacked. About rats. Was it his warning? Had he already ordered the attack while we were at the Ravello house talking? While he was visiting and making nice with mom? When we walked through the front doors, we saw right away that less soldiers were inside than should have been. The house was dark. Too dark. And the stink of cigarettes, aggression, and fear permeated from the basement.
But those soldiers down there, they were ours.
We were attacked from within, and Vittoria was their target. I failed to protect her as I promised I would.
Bastian draws the blankets back, and I lay her on the bed. The jacket falls open, and I see the sudden panic in her eyes as she looks up at me. But her eyes are unfocused, so it’s not me she sees. She tries to claw at me again, making that strange keening sound like a wounded animal cornered but still fighting.
“It’s me, Vittoria. It’s Amadeo,” I tell her, seeing the print of my own hand on her pale cheek, feeling the guilt of having injured her. I did it to draw her out of her head, but still, I hurt her.
“Those men would have done worse,” Bastian says when he sees what I’m looking at. He sets the black duffel on the foot of the bed. He’s washed his hands and discarded his bloodied T-shirt for a clean one, but he missed a smear of blood on his jaw. Unzipping the duffel, he takes one of the syringes out. There are half a dozen because we’d prepared for taking her. The instant Vittoria sees it, her strength renews and she redoubles her fight.
“No one is going to hurt you, but we need to get the glass out,” I tell her, folding her arms across her chest and pressing them down. Wide, wild eyes stare up at me. She’s shaking her head, and I’m not sure she hears me as she struggles, her eyes darting from me to Bastian to the syringe.
“Her neck,” Bastian says calmly once he’s pushed the air from the barrel.
“No! No!”
I keep a tight hold of her and turn her face away while Bastian finds the injection site and pushes the needle in.
Vittoria whines, but I keep her steady until he’s done.
Her gaze moves to Bastian, then to me, and I can see her struggling to keep her eyes open as her arms fall to her sides when I release them.
I cup her face with both hands, brushing her hair back. “Vittoria. I promise you no one will hurt you again. I swear it.” I say it with a ferocity that burns in my gut as she struggles to focus. “Close your eyes and sleep. We need to get you cleaned up. It’s better this way. Trust me.”
She makes a sound, still fighting the drug, but it won’t take long to do its work, and within moments, she’s still.
“Jesus.” Bastian sets the syringe aside and pushes his hand through his hair. He exhales, tension evident on his face. “I’m going to fucking kill those men.”
He paces the room, processing, expression grave every time it lands on the now-unconscious Vittoria.
I turn back to her. She’s bruised and cut, and it’s my fault. I left her unprotected. I thought I was in control, but I was not, and she paid the price for my failure.
Were we in time? Or did they hurt her more deeply and take the thing that would break her?
“I told her she had my protection,” I say.
Bastian presses a hand to my shoulder. “Our protection, brother.”
I think of Hannah. Hannah at the mercy of Lucien Russo.
A girl at the mercy of a man.
I brush hair from Vittoria’s forehead, my fingers coming away bloody.
A woman at the mercy of a dozen men.
“Go wash the blood off your hands, Amadeo,” Bastian tells me.
I don’t move. I don’t want to leave her.
“I’ll be with her. Go.”
I go into the bathroom and close the door behind me. After stripping off and trashing my ruined shirt, I wash my hands, which are sticky with blood up to my elbows. A glance at my reflection tells me I’d better wash my face, too, and I do, then look at myself.
This was Sonny. I have no doubt. But our soldiers betrayed us. Men who are supposedly loyal to my brother and me. How many more traitors lie within?
I dry my hands and face. There’s more blood to wash off, but I’ll do it after I’m done cleaning her. I return to the bedroom to find Bastian looking her over, already having started.
She’s cut up badly at her hands and knees, her feet. Her forehead where they must have pushed her face down. Shards are stuck to her stomach, thighs and chest, too, but those don’t look as bad.
“They’re mostly shallow. It looks worse than it is,” Bastian says as we get to work picking the glass out with tweezers and depositing the shards into a bowl.
“That’s not the damage I’m worried about,” I say.
“We were in time,” he says without looking at me.
“You don’t know that.” Silence settles between us. “She was under my protection.”
“Our protection. And in case you’ve forgotten, we’re at war, brother. Have been since the day grandfather died. Hell, since Geno Russo walked into our kitchen when we were just kids. This is a reminder. She’ll be fine. She’s strong like a fucking dandelion. They will sprout up after the earth is razed to rubble.”
It’s quiet for a long time, and I can’t help looking at Vittoria’s face as she sleeps. I hope it’s a dreamless sleep. I remember the nightmare she’d had the night I’d watched her. She’d fought so hard that I could see it in the muted movements of her body.
“Let’s roll her over.”
We roll her gently onto her stomach but don’t find much glass here. A few cuts but the worst are the bruises in the shape of fingers digging into her hips.
“I’m going to fucking kill them with my bare hands,” Bastian says.
“You’re going to have to get in line.”
Once she’s on her back again, Bastian pulls her legs apart. I am relieved not to see any bruising, blood, or anything that might suggest they’d gotten as far as that. But we won’t know for sure until she wakes up.
“It looks like we were in time to stop that at least,” Bastian says.
I breathe a sigh. It’s been a long fucking day. Bastian and I clean her with wet, soapy cloths, and I slip one of my shirts on her.