Page 55 of Charming Villain

Before I can beg him to hold on, to stay awake, the motel door slams open again, throwing a chaotic swirl of flashing lights into the room. Uniformed officers flood inside, guns drawn. Their shouts merge into a wall of noise that makes my head spin. They see the carnage—my father sprawled on the floor, bleeding; the bullet holes riddling the walls; Luciano sagging against me, both of us covered in blood.

“Drop the weapon! Hands in the air!” The orders crash into each other, and I don’t even know who they’re aimed at. Adrenaline surges, prying a ragged scream from my throat.

“I—He’s—hurt—” I start, pointing frantically at Luciano’s wound, but their attention locks onto him first. An officer seizes him by the arm, yanking him off me. Luciano sways, face twisting in pain, and collapses to his knees. The officer shouts something, but all I register is Luciano’s low groan as he grips his stomach.

My mind blanks in raw panic. I fling myself forward, desperate to get to him, to press my hands back over the bleeding. “No! Let me help him!” My voice cracks in anguish. “He’s been shot—please!”

More officers pour in; two of them grab my arms, pinning them behind my back. I fight, kicking at their legs, clawing at their vests in a blind, feral attempt to reach him. “Stop—don’t—” I sob, tears streaming, struggling with every ounce of strength I can muster. I have to get to him. He’s the only anchor I have left in this nightmare.

“Ma’am, calm down!” One of them shouts, wrestling me back. I hear the radio crackle—backup, ambulance, immediate medical. The words blur together under the thundering of my pulse.

Through the blur of flashing red and blue, I see Luciano slump onto the stained carpet. The air leaves my lungs in a silent wail. One of the officers eases him onto his back, yelling for a medic. Blood is pooling beneath him. Oh God, he’s going to bleed out right here in this grimy motel room, and I can’t even hold his hand.

“Luciano!” I scream, twisting in the cop’s iron grip. “Look at me! Please!”

He doesn’t respond. His eyes flicker shut, lashes dark against ashen cheeks. My stomach lurches as if I’m falling off a cliff. The world tilts, every siren wail and shouted command muffling under the roar of my own panic.

“No—no, no, no,” I babble. “You can’t leave me, not like this.” But the police keep me pinned, dragging me backward. I can barely see over their shoulders as another officer checks his pulse, then barks something about pressure on the wound.

I watch Luciano’s head roll to the side, limp as a ragdoll. His lips part in a shallow gasp, and then he goes terrifyingly still.

The officer holding me yells again, telling me to calm down, but there is no calm, not when everything I have left is hanging by a thread. I thrash and scream, nails scraping the officer’s arm, not caring if I draw blood. All I see is the growing crimson stain on Luciano’s shirt and the slack angle of his neck.

“Luciano! Please—wake up! Wake up!”

But he doesn’t move. His eyes don’t open.

And as the police wrestle me out of the room, my vision tunnels to the sight of his body lying motionless in a smear of blood. A scream dies in my throat, replaced by a hollow, endless ache. Everything goes dark at the edges, and I realize I’m seconds from collapsing, too.

The last thing I remember is the desperate thought:I ran from him, and now I’m losing him forever.

Then the world goes black.

Chapter31

Luciano

Iwake to the steady, low beeping of a heart monitor and a harsh fluorescent light piercing the darkness behind my eyelids. My body feels like lead pressed against unforgiving sheets. A dull, throbbing ache radiates through my stomach, pulsing with each breath. The dryness in my mouth suggests I haven’t had water in too long.

For a moment, I can’t remember where I am—or why. My mind is a swirl of images: blood pooling on a thin carpet, a battered motel lamp spitting sparks into the darkness, Gianna’s terrified eyes. That last memory cuts through the fog, and suddenly, my pulse hammers in my ears. I surge upright—too fast—wincing as pain rips through my abdomen.

“Easy,” a voice says, tense but steady. “Don’t tear your stitches.”

I blink away the burn of the overhead light and focus on the figure standing at the window. Dante is watching me with an expression I’ve only seen on him a handful of times in my life—a cross between profound relief and barely contained exasperation. He crosses the room in a few long strides, stepping into the glow of the overhead lamp. The lines on his face look like he’s aged weeks in the span of days.

“Dante,” I rasp, my throat so dry it comes out as a croak. I glance around, the hospital environment snapping into sharper focus: bland walls, scuffed linoleum, a door half-cracked open to a hallway that smells of bleach and disinfectant. An IV bag hangs near my bed, lines trailing into my arm. A blood pressure cuff is fastened around my bicep. Monitors beep in a soft chorus.

My eyes drift to the window where night presses against the glass. If it’s night again, how long have I been asleep? The last I remember, the sun was rising. Fear coils in my gut like a viper. “How…” My voice falters as a fresh throb hits my side. “How long have I been here?”

Dante takes a seat by the bed. “You’ve been in and out for nearly a week,” he responds. “They did emergency surgery on you in some backwater hospital near Great Bend, patched you up enough so you wouldn’t bleed out. Once you were stable enough for transport, I had you moved here so you’d be closer to the family.”

My heartbeat picks up again. A week. A week of blackness. A week in which Gianna might have?—

“Gianna,” I choke out, the single syllable jolting my adrenaline. “Where is she? Is she—?” The question claws at my throat, fear gripping me so hard my vision blurs for a second.

Dante’s jaw tenses. He glances down at his hands, then back at me. “She’s alive,” he says. But the way he says it makes my stomach twist. “Look, we’ll get there in a second. You need to understand everything that happened.”

“No,” I snap, a trace of desperation creeping into my tone. “I need to see her.”

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