Page 41 of Bleed
“Michael, I’m here. It’s done.”
Nothing stirs as I step off Luna and walk up the marble stairs to the huge, mahogany double doors. There’s no alarm, no men running out, no gunshots, just perfect silence.
The door swings open quietly, too heavy and well maintained to squeak, and I step inside, finally getting reprieve from the blazing hot sun that has my scalp already bright red. Maybe that’s the rage trying to push out the top of my skull, I’m not sure.
My shoes are hushed on the burgundy rug just inside, but when I reach the white marble floor just a few paces in, they squeak ever so slightly, and I toe them off, leaving them behind. Stealth is needed in a house that they know better than I. I mean I’ve never been inside before, only passed by thousands of times.
If I knew Dani was related to them, that this was her home, things may have ended up way differently than they did. I never knew she was the sole heir to the rival family before all of this began with her return just this week. I always thought she was just a loner, a single woman out in the world like the rest of us. Maybe I never would have fallen for her in the first place. Maybe I would have offed her years ago and everybody else would still be alive.
Maybes and what ifs won’t do any good. You know you’d have loved her anyways. It’s fate.
The large entryway is flanked by stairs on either side that go up to a second floor with an elaborate overlook above. It’s empty and quiet, but I know that behind the multiple doors I can see, and ones I can’t, there’s danger inside. His people will be waiting for me.
Unsheathing my knife, I take the steps on the right side, passing portraits of the mafia family as I slowly and silently ascend. At the top of the stairs is a gold framed portrait of Dani as a small child, sitting in her father’s, Michael’s, lap. She looks sad, like she didn’t want to be there, and I know her childhood was shit, just by the way he holds her away from his body and she looks away from the camera.
“Dani.” I whisper, shaking my head. “It’s been a bad life for you. No wonder you never told me.”
The top step creaks slightly under my foot, and I pause, listening for anything happening, but when it remains peaceful, I continue on, reaching the overlooking landing, my hand on the smoothly polished banister.
A door on the right swings open slowly, a small creak breaking the utter silence, and I grip my knife tighter. A goon in black tactical gear barges from the doorway, his rifle positioned at his shoulder, his eye on the sight. Ducking down quickly, I dodge the shot that fires quietly from the weapon and throw myself to the floor, crawling across the carpet like a wild animal.
He's surprised when he goes to take another shot, and I pop up in front of him, grabbing the barrel of the gun, and slamming it backwards, shoving the end of the sight into his eye. He stumbles back, screeching in pain, and drops to his knees, fumbling the weapon and grabbing at the eyeball dangling from its destroyed socket.
His scream stops abruptly as I bring the knife across his throat, opening up a massive chasm that sprays blood everywhere. I’m bathed in the crimson flood right away, with it soaking into my shirt and pants as I kick him in the chest and make him fall to the carpeted floor, gripping at his wound, gurgling and spitting out foamy pink bubbles before he falls silent. The puddle of his blood grows around his body as he bleeds out the rest of the way, dying in seconds.
“Fucker.” I grunt, stepping over him, looking into the open door of the bedroom from which he came, seeing no one else, but knowing there will be more. “Gimme this.” I say to the corpse as I turn back around and yank the assault weapon from his dead grip, cutting the strap that’s around his body. “You won’t be needing it anymore.”
With my new gun, I make my way further down the hall, listening carefully and feeling the air for any changes. You can always feel a person before you see or hear them, if you just take the time to sense your surroundings. It’s something that Gustapo taught me when I was just a rookie. The guy whom I took the rifle from made the mistake of using his vision through a weapon to locate me. If he’d slowed down and felt for me, he probably would’ve gotten me.
The air changes, feeling heavy and full, but nothing is moving or has changed, until another door opens and out comes another man in tactical gear. With his flak vest and helmet on, the rifle won’t do much, but I can beat him down with it then use my blade.
I duck against the wall, trying to keep a slim profile while he sweeps the landing with his sights, waiting for his body to turn just enough that I can get the upper hand. It doesn’t take long with his rushed steps and obvious inexperience at close quarter combat.
His head snaps back, the goggles on his helmet flying off him, his hands reaching out blindly for me when I shove the butt of my rifle in his face, breaking his nose. The blood spurts out immediately, and there’s a wide, red break in the skin across the bridge of it. A hit like that takes your sight right away, no matter how tough you are, and he’s unable to see me as I grab him by the head and smash his throat down on my shoulder, taking him to the floor in a choking heap.
With my foot, I kick off his helmet, skittering it across the rug, and place the tip of the assault weapon to his temple. One squeeze of the trigger ends his flailing around, stopping him instantly, taking half his head along with the bullet that drives into the baseboards. The wood splinters and cracks, almost drowning out the sound of the next fucking goon coming down the hall. He’s charging at me, ignoring a stealthy approach, behaving more like a bull in a Spanish ring, his eyes on the proverbial red cape, me.
“Motherfucker.” I spit out, widening my stance, preparing for the impact while I raise the rifle.
One shot takes him down in his tracks, the bullet in his face, the only place not protected by the black Kevlar. He falls face first, landing on top of the guy with half a head.
“There, now between the two of you, you have a whole brain.” I laugh, kicking him as I step over him, making my way further down the hall, bearing left at the end and coming to the final room behind a heavy, polished door.
I can hear the sounds of medical equipment beeping and hissing through the crack in the doorway and smell the scents of disinfectant and rotting flesh permeating out into the fancy wallpapered hall.
“Michael. You must be worse off than we’ve all imagined.” I whisper as I gently push my way in.
It’s a large master suite, with dark walls and the same wine-colored carpet in the hall. A massive four-poster bed sits in the middle of the room, shrouded in darkness by the drawn heavy curtains around the picture windows. The sad sack of shit laying in the bed, half dead, connected to monitors and machines is what’s left of Dani’s father, the once most powerful man in the East Coast’s Italian mafia. Now, as he sleeps, he’s been reduced to barely skin and bones, a skeleton of the beast he once was.
I’ve never met him in person, and the shock when Dani told me he always wanted us together makes no sense, unless he knew all along who I am. He wanted his only daughter with the Reaper. But why?
“You’ve come.” He says quietly as I approach the bed, looking down at him with disdain and hatred for putting out a hit on his own daughter. I know in my heart of hearts, he’s behind everything. It’s one last hurrah from a dying man to set whatever plan he had in motion, and I’m about to find out why and how to stop whatever is left of it. I’m not losing the love of my life again, especially after just getting her back after five long, depressing years.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“Yes, I’ve come.” I say to the half deceased lump in the bed in front of me, being kept alive by the machines pushing air into him through a tube in his neck, and pumps of fluids going in his veins. “Did you have any doubt, Michael?”
