Chapter 35 Rocco
The last man standing in my path barely had time to register his fate before my bullet tore through his skull. His body crumpled to the blood-streaked floor, lifeless, joining the pile of corpses around him.
The echoes of gunfire were fading now. Rafael’s men had swept through the estate, cutting down the last of the Marchesi’s soldiers like the pests they were. The battle was over.
But it didn't sit right with me.
Not with the way my chest tightened . Not with the tension building along my spine.
Then I heard it.
A scream.
Fiorella.
A gut-wrenching, tear-the-soul-out scream that sent chills down my blood.
I ran.
My boots pounded the bloody marble floors, my heart pounding more frantically than at the entire fight. I shoved past bodies, through Rafael's men, ignoring their wide-eyed stares. My own ragged breathing echoed through my ears, but all I could focus on was that scream, bitter, agonised.
I burst into the room, gun at the ready to take out whatever threat still lingered
And then I saw her.
Fiorella knelt over her father's lifeless body, her little body trembling beyond control. There was blood all over her hands, her arms, her dress.
Her face was bent over, her shoulders heaving up and down, and though she was no longer screaming, silence was worse. It was the kind of silence after something in a human soul had broken irrevocably.
I released my gun.
"Fiorella."
She did not stir.
I took a slow step toward her, my throat closing like a fist in my throat. She was nothing like the hard, unappeasable woman who had fought at my sides mere moments ago.
She was shattered.
And that did something to me.
I knelt beside her, restraining for the first time in my goddamn life. My hands twitched, wanting to reach out and touch her, to pull her into me, but I knew Fiorella D'Angelo wasn't the sort of woman you touched without permission, especially not now.
She let out a shaking breath, barely more than a whisper, but it weighed more than any bullet I'd shot tonight. "He's gone."
The words hit like a bullet to the chest.
I looked down at Don D'Angelo, the ruthless man who had held power with an iron fist, who had shaped his daughter into something as lethal as any blade. Now he lay still, pale, a relic of the power he had controlled.
I clenched my jaw, fighting the strange twinge of grief twisting inside me. He hadn't been my father, but I knew what losing one was like.
Fiorella's breath hitched, and before she could pull away, I reached out, running my fingers over her blood-stained hand. She tensed, but she didn't shove me away.
I took that as a good sign.
Without another moment's hesitation, I pulled her into my arms.
She didn't struggle.
Didn't curse me out or shove me away.
She just collapsed against me, her fingers curled around my shirt as if it was the only thing holding her to reality.
Her body trembled, but she did not cry.
I wasn't even sure Fiorella could cry.
I wrapped my arms around her tighter, shielding her from the world, from the blood, from the dying that surrounded us. My fingers curled into the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair as I leaned close..
"I'm here," I whispered, voice rough, low. "I've got you."
She lay still for a long while, then let out a shuddering breath.
I knew what this was.
Her father was dead.
And the war wasn't yet over.
If anything, it had just begun.
The air stank of blood and gunpowder, but all I could focus on was the sound of Fiorella's breathing, ragged, erratic, as though she was having to fight each breath through the pressure crushing her chest.
I looked up from where she was clinging to me and saw him.
The bastard who'd done this.
He leaned against the wall, his face a bloody pulp. Three bullets. She'd shot them straight into the centre of his head, leaving nothing but destruction. Blood splattered the wall behind his head, falling like ink on canvas, spreading to the expensive carpet beneath him.
The first bullet had killed him. The second and third had been for the rage.
For the loss.
For the absolute finality of it all.
I swallowed, gazing down at the woman in my arms.
Fiorella hadn't moved. Her breathing had steadied out, but her grip on my shirt remained tight, as if she was not going to let go. As if she didn't know what would happen if she did.
I wanted to know what she was thinking. If she was relieved that she'd killed on behalf of her father. That she'd served justice in the only manner the mafia would recognize.
Or not.
Softly, slowly, I touched her chin and tilted her face up. Her black eyes met mine, and for the first time since I met her, they were empty. No fire. No fury. A hollow space, cold and empty.
That wasn't a victorious look.
That was a look of a person who had lost more than she could handle.
"You did what had to be done," I whispered, my voice lower than I intended.
Her eyelashes danced, but she did not speak.
I lifted my hand and smoothed my thumb across her cheek, wiping away a splash of blood that wasn't hers. She did not respond. Did not draw back.
"Talk to me, Fiorella."
Her lips opened, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she simply leaned her head against my shoulder, forehead pressed into me.
I let her.
For as long as she needed to.
The war wasn't over, and soon she'd have to stand up again, to continue fighting, to hold on as the new matriarch of her family.
But for now, she wasn't a mafia heiress.
She was just a daughter who had lost her father.
And I was only a man who couldn't bear to see her shatter.
Her body shook against mine, the burden of everything finally coming crashing down on her.
Then, a single, shattered sob escaped past her lips.
I stood still.
Fiorella never cried.
Not when she was being shot at. Not when she was being killed. Not when she was being cornered with no escape. She fought, she survived, she overcame.
But now, here, in my arms, she was crying.
A soft, shattering noise, muted against my shoulder, but it knocked me flat like any bullet ever had.
I wrapped my arms around her, hard, but I didn't speak. Didn't tell her to stop. Didn't tell her to be tough.
Because for the first time since I'd known her, she wasn't trying to be.
And I didn't know how to fix it.