Page 94 of Into the Fire

We didn’t say a word as they held their girl. What could we fucking say? I was going to be sick. So fucking sick. All the thoughts of my Rosebud raced through my head. I’d fucking put a bullet in my head if she were gone. I couldn’t fathom my life without her. It hurt. It hurt so fucking much to even consider this could happen to her. Bianca had been so full of life like our girl. To take that out of the world. . . fuck.

“Dominic. Let’s get her out of here. We can’t stay here,” Enzo said gently.

Surprisingly, Dom agreed and placed her back onto the bed and placed his leather jacket over her body. Levin and Vincent added their jackets, Vincent’s covering her face.

We watched in silence as Dom lifted his dead wife into his arms and walked out of the room. We followed wordlessly.

My mind was racing. I couldn’t get the image of Bianca out of my head. My brain kept replacing it with my Rosebud. It fucking hurt like hot irons were burning my heart out of my chest. I suspected the guys were feeling what I was.

When we made it outside, Levin opened the trunk of the car, and Dom placed her inside before closing the lid.

We all stood in the quiet of the early morning and stared at the space Bianca’s burned body lay in.

“I’m sorry,” Fox murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “She didn’t deserve this. She was a good girl.”

“She was the best girl,” Vincent rasped, wiping at the stray tears on his face.

Fuck, my heart. Goddamnit.

“She really was,” E agreed softly.

“We’ll get them. We’ll kill them all,” Enzo’s voice was strong as he spoke, a wicked promise in his words. “We won’t stop until every Russian mob motherfucker is dead. I vow it to you, brother.”

Dom turned to look at him.

“They wanted a war,” he whispered.

Enzo nodded as he stared back at Dom. “Then a war they will get.”

Dom turned away and placed his hand over the car’s trunk, his chest moving in and out as he breathed.

It was the stance of a man who was ready to go to more than a war. He was ready to end the world in the name of the woman he’d loved and lost.

It was the same stand I’d take.

“I promise,” Dom whispered, his hand falling away from the trunk. “My final gift to you, my love. Let’s bury our girl.”

"Then we’ll bury them,” Levin finished, his face tear-stained. Vincent stood silently beside them, the tears still cascading down his cheeks.

War.

An ugly but necessary business.

But only the strong survived in our world. This was us proving it.

THIRTY

ROSALIE

The guys were broken. They didn’t need to say a word about it to me. I could see it in their eyes. The soft words. Their fierce overprotection of me since Bianca’s death.

I didn’t fight it. I let them protect me. I did as they said. I didn’t make waves. When I saw that look in their eyes that said they were dying inside, I comforted them the best way I could. Reassurance and promises only went so far. Ethan seemed to be struggling the most.

It had been a few weeks since everything happened. Fox told me everything that happened one night while we bathed together. I cried in his arms, wishing for a different outcome for a girl I didn’t even know. He’d cried too and promised he’d never let that happen to me.

This was a dark world though.

One that terrified me more each day.

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