Chapter 32
**| AURORA |**
Sam looked like shit, and I didn’t even have the heart to say it. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, her skin was dry and pale, and her hair…when was the last time she had brushed? Sadness was so much unlike her. Sam has a natural radiance, one that has the ability to illuminate every facet of darkness.
I watched her enter the bedroom, completely unaware of my presence as she lazily slammed the door shut and turned…
“Jesus Christ! Are you crazy?” Sam screamed, staggering back.
“That’s debatable,” I smirked in a pathetic attempt to make her smile but later gave up. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t need to spell out the words. I could already see them etched on her face. Then, without a word, she joined me on the couch, throwing her head back to stare aimlessly at the ceiling.
I haven’t really gotten my head wrapped around the concept of ‘family’ while I was growing up. But spending time with these people…Viktor, Dominic, Sammy, Stef…the idea was abundantly clear to me. They had each others’ back, no matter what went with the whole world.
A heavy exhale fell from her lips as Sam decided to break the silence. “I should have warned Viktor the day I caught Stefan with drugs. It’s all my fault, Aurora.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I chastised. She was crucifying herself for something she had no control over. Stefan, like his other two brothers, was a stubborn idiot. “You did your best and…”
“And what?” Sam yelled, and at the same time, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “I did my best, and it almost landed my brother in a brain-dead state? Of all people, I should have known the consequences. The drugs were killing him.”
“Sammy…”
She turned her face away, wildly swiping the uncontrollable tears with the back of her hand. “You don’t understand. I am the closest person to Stef. I should have seen it coming.”
This time, she made no effort to hide her tears and sobbed.
A good friend would have consoled her, whispered soothing words, and do a million other things to make her friend stop crying, but I was none of them. Not by choice…but by default. I could not pretend to be something I was not and also because I knew how badly she needed to cry, vent, and exhaust. Sam was bottling up her feelings for months now, and finally, she was beginning to break.
“I am sorry,” I whispered, locking my fingers with hers, and did not let it go.
Sometime later, when she had finally stopped crying, either out of exhaustion or depletion of tears, we fell back on the bed. The warmth was so inviting that we were asleep in no time.
***********
“Get up, get up…”
Someone tugged my arm in the sleep…and on reflex, I almost punched the person. But he caught my hand at the nick of time.
Opening my eyes, I almost groaned at Dominic and Viktor hovering over me. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Where’s your goddamn phone?” Dominic whispered harshly while Viktor clawed at the bedside. Assholes.
“What the hell do you want?” I grumbled.
“Call Marco, now!”
That one name did the trick as I sprang up on the bed with a start. “Why, what happened?”
At the same time, Sammy stirred and roused up. She had the same look of confusion and annoyance as she squinted her eyes at her brothers. “Dominic, Viktor, what are you guys doing here?”
“Go back to sleep,” Viktor patted her back. “We just need to talk to Aurora for a sec.” He jerked his thumb as I followed them outside.
“He is not picking our calls, so we thought he might pick yours,” Dominic hurried. “Where’s your phone?”
By the time he finished his sentence, I was already dialing. “Will you tell me what’s going on?” I asked Viktor. Going by the tight expression on his face, I was under no illusion that something had happened. Something bad…otherwise, they wouldn’t bother to drag me out of bed at 4 in the morning.
“There has been a massive shootout at the club where he was supposed to meet Giovanni. The entire place is shredded with bullets, and my sources in the Ivory Tower tell me that Giovanni is dead. Someone shot a bullet through his skull.”
When the call went to voicemail for the third time, I finally disconnected. “Do you think it’s Marco?”
Viktor’s nose flared up in anger. “He was not supposed to kill him.”
My heart pounded so fast in my chest that for a second, I zoned out. It was highly unlikely of Marco to break the rules or fail to do something unless something terribly gone wrong.
I turned to Dominic. “Give me your car keys.”
“No fucking way.”
“Fine. I will find a way.”
Before he could even say a word, I was already walking away. “Aurora…”
A hand shot out and grabbed my arm, halting me. “Stay here. We don’t know who shot whom yet, and I am not taking a risk with you.”
“You don’t have to take a risk with me.” I jerked my arm away, snarling back. “I know what I am doing.”
“Goddamit, Aurora,” Viktor roared, taking both of us by surprise. Viktor rarely raised his voice because he didn’t need to. His authority was never doubted for a second, even though it was Alessandro who was the frontrunner mafia kingpin in the family. “For once, can you both do what you are told? I am sick and tired of people having their own way and leave a fucking mess that I have to clean up.”
Viktor raked a frustrated hand through his hair and over his face, trying to put a lid on that temper. His frustration level had been on a hard boil since the day Stefan was admitted to rehab, and now he was stretched as thin as a hair. And the news of Giovanni’s death has just pushed him over the edge.
Suddenly, someone cleared his throat behind us, and three of us turned around. One of Viktor’s men, Lorenzo, stood a few feet away, more out of self-preservation than respect.
“What?” Viktor barked.
“Marco’s here.”
***********
“What the fuck happened in the club? You were supposed to keep him busy and not kill him,” Viktor blasted the moment he closed the door and turned around.
We had walked straight into the study as soon as Marco appeared, and judging by the disheveled state, I wanted to ask him a thousand questions. But, unfortunately, Viktor beat me to it.
“Things got a little out of hands,” Marco muttered.
“A little…?” Viktor positively glared. “I told you to wait for backup before jumping the gun. I need the motherfucking ledger, Marco. What the hell were you thinking?”
“You weren’t fucking there, so stop yelling,” Marco snapped back because I have never seen the man getting pushed into the corner. “Giovanni is a crazy fucker, you and I know that. One moment he was snorting coke, and in the next, bullets were flying. I had barely escaped.”
“You mean, another gang war?” Dominic asked and then exchanged a look with me. “The street punks hate Giovanni.”
“I don’t know.” Marco leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t get a chance to figure out the situation.”
“The ledger is gone by now,” Dominic remarked bitterly.
Viktor paused for a second, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Chicago PD is combing the place, and it’s swarming with media maggots. But I have already alerted cops on our payroll. They have managed to extract Giovanni’s phone and laptop, so that’s our only lead at the moment. Fuck.”
I caught the sight of Marco rubbing a hand over his tired face. He looked like someone at least five years older than his age, and it made me wonder what exactly happened at the club. “I am sorry, man. I should have…”
“Go home, Marco,” Viktor tersely cut him off. “I need to get back to Stefan.”
“You said Giovanni’s phone and laptop…”
“Dominic will take care of it.”
Viktor and Dominic strode out of the study without much of a glance at either of us.
For the first time, I have seen Marco with his long, downcast silence that I could not read. And for someone like me who has known every fold of that monster’s mind better than anyone else in the world, just as I knew his weaknesses, I confess that it bothered me.
“Are you okay?” I asked slowly because, unlike Viktor or Dominic, Giovanni’s death was the least of my concerns.
Marco regarded me with a tender but sad smile, extending his palm, and beckoned me closer. And when I was sufficiently near, he pulled me into his body, kissed my neck, and ran his hands over my back again and again.
“Now I will be,” he whispered.
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