Page 5 of Desperate Decisions

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure. You missed dinner.”

“Did you save anything?”

“Of course I did. Nonna would rise up from her deathbed and beat me with a wooden spoon if we let anyone go hungry in her house.”

She followed me back inside and we passed the living room, where Nonna was set up in a hospital bed, a handful of my cousins holding silent vigil.

I ate my fill of the fresh bread and the minestrone Napoletano still simmering on the stove. If I said I missed American food—particularly canned tomato soup and grilled cheese—Nonna would probably find the strength to bury me in the garden. My cousins were all excellent cooks, but I was nostalgic for the taste of home.

Anita continued to stare at me the entire time I ate until I finally got fed up and dropped my spoon. “What?”

“Where were you?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“If you’re not going to actually be here, you might as well go home.”

“It was an unplanned detour; don’t be a bitch about it. I’ll be at your beck and call the rest of the trip.”

Anita pursed her lips but didn’t argue, slipping away to take her place in the vigil.

I stayed up well into the late hours, and at least one of my cousins was always sitting at Nonna’s bedside. In the brief time I managed to fall asleep, she went, and I woke to sobbing, my cousins waking and joining us one by one.

Grief saturated the air until I was suffocated by it. I stepped outside into the light of dawn, blocking out the crying until I felt like my chest wasn’t going to cave in. The town was mostly still asleep, a sprinkling of residents meandering down the streets. If I were at home, I would go and get everyone coffee, maybe a box of donuts so the deep-fried sweetness could take the edge off, but nothing was open in this town and I wouldn’t have been able to get coffee to go even if there was.

When my guilt got the better of me, I finally went back inside and then straight into the kitchen to start pulling espresso for cappuccinos. It wasn’t one of my top skills, but I knew how to work the machine Anita had bought for Nonna when she had moved in two years ago. Anita joined me, purple shadows beneath her eyes and tears streaking her cheeks.

“How long will you stay?”

“As long as I can.”

She nodded silently and combined the espresso, hot milk, and foam, setting the two cups on the table for whoever wandered in before returning to assist me with more.

The oppressive quiet that day was only broken by crying. I did what I could to make sure everyone stayed fed and hydrated, but I hated every fucking second of being there. We’d been going through all the properties since I arrived, sorting out what to sell, and what specific cousins wanted to hang onto. Most of them had been bathed in blood at some point or another, so they wouldn’t be missed when we put them on the market. And undoubtedly the same people who had filled those homes with blood would be the ones to buy them. Over dinner, most of my cousins had made up their mind to leave and settle elsewhere after Nonna’s funeral.

I wasn’t nearly so sentimental about the legacy here. I hadn’t grown up in Italy, so most of the time it was more story than reality. Coming back was a chore, but I knew how much everything meant to my cousins and I tried not to be a massive dick about everything. I’d had plenty of practice biting my tongue while working under Bianca.

A bullet sliced through the silence and embedded itself in the wood of Nonna’s china cabinet.

About fucking time. This I knew how to deal with. This was where I fucking shone.

To their credit, none of my cousins screamed. Violence wasn’t anything new to them, but they did look pissed off that the cabinet had been damaged. I double-checked my Glock, calculated the angle and trajectory as best I could, and fired in the opposite direction. The heavy grunt let me know I’d guessed correctly, and gave me the second of delay I needed to sweep outside and make eye contact with the asshole targeting my grieving cousins. The next bullet went exactly where I needed it, and the light faded out of those eyes. Another bullet cracked into the stone near my head, far too close for comfort. The mob here was losing its fucking touch. I’d have made that shot.

I slipped into the headspace of combat: focusing my breathing, everything moving almost in slow motion as I picked out the threats and eliminated them. Only two. This time, anyway. When those two didn’t report back, they would send someone else. There was no need to scare my cousins into leaving when they had already decided to do so, but if they were dead, money would be saved from having to purchase the properties.

Pain lanced through my arm like lightning. “Son of a bitch!”

I didn’t give myself a second to check on the wound, raising my gun and firing in the direction I’d been shot from. I emptied the magazine, pissed that I hadn’t noticed another assailant after finishing off the first two. Far more bullets than were necessary peppered the third body. Stupid of me. If another was lurking, I’d be unprepared, but the fucker had shot me. I could put up with a lot of shit, but not that.

I kicked the two corpses that were near enough to do so. The third hung out of a window and I’d have to do something about that. Fuck me. My arm burned, but I’d have to get the shovel and get them out of sight before someone called the Polizia.

The tip of the metal shovel slammed into the ground next to me and I turned to see Anita standing there, a look of disgust on her face. “Get inside and clean the wound. We’ll take out the trash.” She prodded the bullet graze and I checked the urge to clock her for it. “Looks like you’re good for something after all.”

CHAPTER 3

AMARA

Was I dying?

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