I don’t mourn Vin.
I don’t weep and writhe in sadness. There is no point.
Throwing my head back, I just laugh. And laugh. Seeing my hands coated in his blood has me chuckling so hard I wind up clutching at my chest. Moisture spills from my eyes—an unavoidable, biological reaction. But they burn. Every fucking drop sears rivulets into my cheeks, branding me with the proof of my own goddamn weakness.
He’s dead only because I failed him.
What a goddamn riot.
I laugh harder and harder until I’m on my fucking knees, braying at nothing.
But then it sinks in. I’m not in a coma. This isn’t a hallucination. I never wake up. From the corner of my eye, I can see him, unmoving. So pale, his beautiful eyes closed, his nose—that signature Vanici nose—draining a trail of blood.
There’s no way to quantify the loss—everything I’ve worked toward dies with him.
But some part of me must find that so fucking hilarious. I’m still laughing as I stagger to my feet. There’s no aim in mind—just a need to keep moving. Breathing. I’ll suffocate if I stay still. So, I pace the length of the room, watching the blood spread across the floor. I can smell it, salt, and copper. Taste it on my fucking tongue.
And Vin…
I can’t look at him fully. Not yet.
I can’t fucking look. All I can do is just register the silence. That looming, oppressive goddamn silence. The absence of his voice—I’ll never hear it again. It’s the same quiet that filled the air when I found Olivia and Nico.
And no matter how hard or how loudly I laugh…it never ends. So I shout. Scream. Yell until I can’t hear a damn thing but the rushing of my own heartbeat surging through my ears like a fucking taunt. He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone…
But then it’s like my mind clears all at once, and I remember the culprit.
The animal who did this.
Mischa.
I lunge for the safe in the living room, rip it open, and practically teleport to the front door, a gun in my hand. I’m aiming it blindly, hunting for a target.
But he’s already gone. All that’s left are tire tracks ripping across the lawn and my own men scattered about. Some look wounded, but I don’t even have the sense of mind to stop. Acknowledge them. Breathe.
I keep running, chasing a specter down to the end of the driveway. A noise finally pierces the fog encasing me—a gunshot. My finger throbs, cranking on the trigger, firing at nothing.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Doggedly, I’m racing toward the boundaries of the house. A car appears in the distance, and I aim for it, feeling my heart hammer against my chest. As it comes into view, I recognize the model—one of Fabio’s.
It slows beside me, and the driver’s side window lowers.
“God, Don…” His eyes take me in, widening in horror over my hands. My fucking hands…
I don’t know what I say to him, but whatever it is makes him curse under his breath. “Let me see him,” he says in a cautious tone. Then he drives, heading toward the house.
His reaction makes the reality even more real. Inescapable. Vin.
I’m frozen solid, gun still raised, chest pounding, heart on goddamn fire. I can’t even look at the house. I can’t…
But I can’t leave Vin there, unguarded and alone. In a daze, I return to the villa, staggering into the living room to find Fabio there crouched beside the body.
I surge toward him, swatting his hands away. “Get away from him—”
“He has a pulse,” the man says gently, rising to his feet. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
“What…” He might as well have punched me. Struck dumb, I shake my head to clear it and croak, “What did you say?”
“He has a pulse,” Fabio insists. He already has a cell phone in hand, rattling off a series of orders. “Bring a van around! We don’t have time to wait for an ambulance. Now!” Turning to me, he gestures toward my chest. “Take off your shirt and apply pressure to the wound.”
Apply pressure. While I’m not a doctor, I know that pressure won’t help a gunshot to the head. It won’t…
God knows I tried with Olivia. Even if it meant holding her skull together with my bare hands, I tried. Finally, I look over and groan aloud. Blood pools around him, clashing with the color of his skin. He’s so damn pale.
“Fab…” My voice breaks several times before I finally get a coherent word out. “His head…”
“Don.” Fabio grabs me by the collar, his eyes boring into mine. “Take a walk! Take a walk, brother. I’ve got this. I’ll take care of Vin. You take care of yourself. Keep your head, Donatello!”
Keep my head. A task easier said than done. It’s spinning as more men stream into the room, led by Javier, who clutches at his shoulder. Was he hit?
Meeting my gaze, he shakes his head before I can even ask him.
“A van is out front,” he says.
“Good.” Fabio strips his suit jacket and gently wads it around Vin’s head.
I choke down the part of me wanting to demand he let him go. Leave him in peace.
As if reading my mind, Fabio meets my gaze directly. “We have to move him quickly. We can’t take him to any hospital in the area. Not with the mafiya—” He breaks off and gestures Javier over. Together they lift Vin between them. “I know a man who owes me a favor,” Fabio says as they head for the door. “He’ll get the best care, Don. I will see to that.”
He’ll see…
I can’t. The world goes dark, and I feel a bitter sense of dread. The same darkness that came over me when Olivia died.
When Safiya…
That thick, hopeless black.
The only way out is to breathe.
Suppress.
Feel nothing…
But rage.
In this moment, anger is the only cure.
Retribution—by any means necessary.
22
Don
“He’s alive.” It’s the first thing Fabio says the second he steps foot into the villa, and it doesn’t even register.
Alive.
That word lacks the connotation he thinks it has. After hours of silence, I’ve come to terms with what to expect. Hell, I’ve lived through this before. Seen the aftermath. Suffered this hell. You don’t come out of a gunshot wound to the head alive. If anything, you exist—a shell fed by a series of tubes and machinery. Breathing, but not much more than that.
So no, I can tell from his face alone that even if he has a heartbeat, Vincenzo isn’t alive.
Hope is a cruel fucking thing, gnawing away at my psyche regardless, daring me to believe—but I can’t.
I won’t.
“Donatello?”
Fabio steps closer. I haven’t moved from the position he left me in, seated on the floor of the entryway. His jaw clenches as he realizes, horror flashing in his eyes. I look down and discover why. Fuck, my hands are sticky, covered in red. So much goddamn red.
The amount only proves my point. He’s dead.
“He’s alive,” Fabio repeats, crouching to meet my gaze directly. I’ve known him for too damn long not to see the fear written across his face, contradicting the words leaving his mouth.