They seemed to be everywhere and came in all at the same time.
Amelia managed to get me over to the corner, and I cowered behind the vase, fearing for my life, wanting desperately to do something, anything, but I didn’t know how.
Amelia, on the other hand, whipped out a gun and went into what I would assume was her cop mode, from her previous life. She took down three guys without blinking, then sent some kicks and punches to two others.
By then, Luc and Maurice were at her side.
Saul grabbed me and heaved me over his shoulder, but someone shot him in the leg and sent him down.
“Fuck!” he growled and moved with me to the other corner and shielded me as he fired back at the guys who were coming after us. “Doll, stay down,” he yelled.
I wished I could have kept my head down. Upstairs, I heard Raphael crying.
“The baby,” I wailed.
“Donny and Louis have him. Keep. Down.”
I stayed down. I did, but I kept watch, feeling completely useless.
Two men came at us, but then I saw Jude. He came out of nowhere and took them out before they could take another step.
Jesus. There were so many bodies on the ground. And blood everywhere.
“Come on, Doll.” Saul grabbed my arm but kept his shield up on me with his body. We made it to the corridor near the grand staircase, but there were three guys there.
Guns were pointed at us.
“Give us the girl,” one of them said.
“How about I give you my ass instead?” Saul smiled, revealing his frightful gold teeth. He shot one in the head but in return got another bullet. I didn’t see where it hit him, but he dropped to his knees. I bent down, crying and screaming, trying to help him, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t do anything.
One of the guys came at me and backhanded me across my face. Pain shot through my body, and my head felt broken, my vision blurred, and sparks of white light rippled behind my eyelids. I fell right next to Saul, who tried to help me, but another bullet took him out.
“Gone through a lot of trouble to get you, Angel Doll,” the guy sneered.
He raised his hand again, but a bullet smacked right between his eyes. I looked to see where it came from. It was Donny.
The other guy was just about to shoot back, but the front door burst open, and all I heard was bullets. They pierced the guy, messing him up like a rag doll. One to his head, a couple to the chest and stomach.
He dropped dead before me.
I looked to the door and saw Claudius standing there looking like the angel of death in his black clothes and hair whipping out against the gust of wind that blew around him from outside.
Numbness took me, although there was a tingling in my chest that made my heart hurt. Dizziness shook my brain from where I’d been struck, and the pressure that built in my chest made me forget to breathe.
Through all that, I was just so happy to see him.
He was at my side in a flash.
***
Claudius and I sat up in the bedroom. He’d cleaned me up, and I’d lost count of how many times he’d checked me over to make sure I was okay. Even after a doctor came to look at me. The same doctor who’d come with the paramedics to take Saul away.
Saul didn’t die.
Thank God, he didn’t die. I didn’t know how I would live with myself if he’d died trying to save me.
Claudius and I had sat up here in silence the whole time. Me allowing him to do what he thought he needed to do to see that I was okay.
Emotionally, I was drained, freaked out, and wiped out. Physically, I was the same, and I had a black eye. No one had ever hit me before.
Claudius moved to the bowl of cold water and soaked the cloth in it again. He came back and placed the cloth over my eye. Not quite looking at me. Guilt was all over him. It rolled off him in waves so strong it was stifling.
We sat like that for five minutes before he moved to get up again, but I caught his wrists and tugged him back.
“I’m okay,” I said breathlessly. My voice held a shudder to it that I couldn’t control.
It was the first words I’d said in just over an hour.
His gaze locked onto mine, and he sat back down. His hair drifted over his eye and hung past his chin. He had wounds too. Bruises all over his face. A gash on his cheek and a big blue mark on his right temple.
I took the cloth from him and got up this time, making my way over to the bowl.
I dipped the cloth in and went back to him, placing it on the worst mark on his face. The bruise on his right temple, which I could feel a lump under.
He closed his eyes and pressed his face against the palm of my hand, lingering there like I offered him some comfort.
“I need to get you far away from here.” He spoke on the edge of a ragged breath, opened his eyes, and lifted his head. “Far, far away.”
“Luc told me I was the most important thing in your world.” I looked at him, really looked at him so he could see how serious I was.
“You are,” he said with complete conviction.
“Then you’ll know how I feel when I tell you I won’t be going anywhere without you, because you are the most important thing in my world too.”
He stood up just as I was about to reach for him.
“It’s not the same thing, Ava. It’s not. Look what happened today. You were lucky. We were lucky. Saul could be dead, and my family could have been killed. Raphael’s three years old, and because of me, mobsters broke in and shot up his house. They came for you. They came for you again because of me. My plan went to hell.” He shook his head. “I need you far from here.”
“Claudius. Do you seriously expect me to just sit around and do as I’m told?” I stood up too, balling my fists.
“It’s not about that.”
“Like fuck it isn’t. You think I should feel what you tell me to feel and do what you tell me to do. Then you shut me out and shut me down. What actually happened today? Tell me! I deserve to know. Tell me exactly how your plan went to hell. I’d love to know because it’s not like you’re some kind of amateur out for revenge. Did you even see him? Goliath? And yes, I know he’s here.”
His shoulders stiffened, and he tensed his jaw.
“I nearly had him. I had that bastard right where I wanted him, and someone sucker-punched me with a fucking bat.” He laughed off key with cold sarcasm. “The thing is, I swore the person who hit me was Alex or Jude. I don’t know. And Jude’s downstairs. He helped you all. So, it’s Alex?”
He let out a ragged sigh and grabbed the sides of his head in frustration.
I stepped forward and touched the edge of his chin. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that happens. You can’t, and definitely not when someone else is double-crossing you. Can’t you see that, Claudius?”
He shook his head, not answering. “I have to go speak to Luc. I have to… I’ll check back on you in a little while.”
All I could do was nod, but I got some respite when he pressed his lips to my forehead and planted a kiss there. I looked up and brushed my nose against his. It made him lower his head further and cover my mouth with his for a lingering kiss.
I was just about to get lost in it, in him, when he pulled away.
He pulled away and walked away from me, going through the door and closing it behind him.
My lips still burned from the heat of his kiss and all that I felt for him.
What was I going to do?
What the hell was I really going to do?
I couldn’t just run away from the situation, run away from him.
I was inclined to blame myself too. This time for allowing my heart to guide my actions.
Coincidence had reunited us with my enquiry for the building on the east side for the new restaurant. But my heart did the rest. I decided that I wanted him. All of him, and everything that made him, him. Claudius. The mafia boss.
I decided that he was what I wanted. I’d never blamed him for the past. I’d simply wanted to understand what happened, and that led me here. Here. To this point, where loving him was making me crazy and the thought of being without him felt like it would kill me.
The door opened again, and I thought it was Claudius because there was no knock first, but it was Jude.
A soft smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and like Alex, his eyes brightened as his smile did.
“Claudius sent me to stay with you. I hope that’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t okay, and I wanted to argue, but there was no point. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to take out my anger on him. It wasn’t his fault that the situation was how it was.
“It’s fine. I’m not much in the talking mood though, so don’t expect much out of me.”
He smirked. “Don’t worry. I doubt we’d have much to talk about.”
He locked the door and positioned himself against the pillar that led out to the balcony.
“I’m sorry. That was rude. Today was just exhausting.” I wasn’t normally like this.
“Today sucked. That’s what.”
I thought of what Claudius had said. That he thought the person who’d hit him was either Jude or Alex. Jude stood before me, so it must have been Alex. Showed what a poor judge of character I was.
I’d seen Alex only this morning and thought I’d sensed no ill-will in him.
I didn’t, and it surprised me that he could have betrayed Claudius. I guess that was how it worked though. It wouldn’t be betrayal otherwise, if the person doing the betraying wasn’t someone you trusted first.
“Yeah, it really sucked a big one.”
“You’re not used to this. I get it. My older brother was killed in the street right in front of my eyes. He got caught in the crossfire in a gang war. He was the best guy I knew. Took care of Alex and me after our deadbeat mother left us for dead. He took care of us like we belonged to him.”
“I’m sorry. Loss is always hard.” I looked him over and got the oddest feeling. I couldn’t put my finger on what the feeling was, or why I felt it.
It could have been his body language. His eyes didn’t match the melancholic emotion he was going for in talking about his brother.
“He’s why I wear the cross. He’s why I joined the business. Maybe Alex too. Things were different back then. We were ruthless. None of this cleanup shit or cleanup the business crap. How can mobsters be clean, right? I didn’t know how it would work, but Raphael made it work. Our old boss. I suppose it was easy to accept it when you’re rich and not aim for more and risk it all. It’s playing it safe. Easier when you own Chicago. And with guys like Claudius, Lucian, and Henry, how could a guy like me ever work his way up the food chain?”
His conversation had taken on an angle I wasn’t sure of.
“Aren’t you part of The Four?”
The corners of his lips turned up, and he came closer to me. He reached out and touched my shoulder, then dropped his hand to his side.
“Yes, but that’s just a fancy title for a slave. The Four. We’re just boys running around and playing the game of follow the leader. I’m what you call an observer. I watch and wait for opportunities to come my way. Then I try to eliminate whoever I can in whatever way I can in the time I have. Henry first. He was the love child. The example of a man who could live the vanilla life with the wife and the kids and be part of the business. He just did the books. That’s it, but he was part of the trio. Claudius, Lucian, and Henry. One down, two to go.”
My breath stilled, and I backed up my thoughts of cursing myself on having bad judgement of character.
“What are you saying to me?”
“I’m saying that my way was a slow-as-fuck way to climb up, but it kind of worked. When done properly, time is irrelevant. By day, I was a member of the infamous Four, living it large with the Rossis. By night, I worked for the Manellos. They pay a lot for a guy like me who could work both sides and for so long. They always wanted the power the Rossis had, and I just had to find opportunities to take down the leads. The people in the way. Henry’s death caused a ripple effect and sowed the seed. He was the first one of them to die.”
“You… you were responsible for Henry’s death?”
He smiled a maddening smile, and it was in that moment that I saw his true colors.
“Yeah, I was. I was the one who helped Victor Pertrinkov get to Henry and his family. And hey, presto, look at us again. You and me.”
“What do you mean… again?”
I started to shake, and my knees turned to water.
“I was the one who told Goliath where Marissa was staying. The safe house. While he got her, I grabbed you. I was the one who grabbed you.”
I went to scream and call for help, but my throat closed up and the room moved.
What the hell?
“Shhhhh, don’t worry, Angel Doll. It’s just a little something I put on you to get you out of the house,” he said in a sing-song voice. He’d touched my shoulder moments ago. What did he put on me? “Can’t scream, can’t shout for dear old Claudius. You see, that bomb was supposed to kill him too. Him and Marissa. That was what I wanted, but that’s the kind of shit that happens to you when you’re a grunt. See, if it had been me in charge back then, I would have seen shit clearer that day. Because anyone who knows him can tell straight away that you were the twin he loved the most. Not his wife.”
My legs gave, and he caught me. The room spun, and my arms felt like I had weights attached to my fingers.
“I guess I’m the Trojan horse.” He laughed. “Dressed up like a blessing of a gift in disguise.”
I was a fool not to be suspicious. Through all this, Claudius had never sent any of his men to watch me. Never.
It was always Luc, or one of Luc’s guys.
Now I knew why.
Claudius had never trusted his own men.
The window opened, and another man stepped through it before I blacked out.