“I’m not doing a fucking thing you say—”
He raises the gun. “Tell her you love her.”
Angelo turns to me. “I love you,” he says. I can hear the sincerity in his voice, despite the circumstances. “That’s the truth, Dani. Even if this fucker wasn’t making me say it, it wouldn’t change anything. I love you more than anything. And I want you to be my wife, but for real this time.”
I blink back tears, overcome with emotion, the pain of my leg wound and the stress making me feel giddy in a warped kind of way. “I love you,” I whisper. “I love you so fucking much. I want that, too.”
“Ah, enough! My heart is going to break.” Dujar tilts his head from side to side. “The question remains, however: what are we going to do with you two?”
“Let us go?” I sass, forcing a vicious grin onto my face. “You can’t really think you’re going to get away with this. Because even if you kill us, do you really think the De Maggio family is going to forget it?”
Angelo flinches, but then a smile touches his lips. I can tell he’s shocked that I’d use his name as a weapon, but also slightly impressed, too. He turns to Dujar with a withering look. “She’s right. What do you think my father is going to make of this? My men?”
“Your father is a fossil, my friend. He is not long for this world. In fact, the shock of losing his dear son in such brutally violent fashion might be enough to kill him on its own. And we’ve already established how much we can trust your men.” Dujar pauses when Artan and the other men return to the room. Artan leans across the bar and whispers something in his ear.
When Dujar leans back, he is chuckling and staring at me with a gleam in his eyes I don’t like at all. “When were you going to tell him?”
I swallow. The only good part about this fucked-up situation is that my leg wound has stopped bleeding so profusely now. But everything else is screwed, like horror-movie-level messed-up. I know what he’s referring to, as well, which just makes it all the worse.
“Well?” Dujar grins. He turns to Angelo. “My man has been following your woman for a few days, Angelo, you know, to glean any details that might make tricking her all the easier. He has just told me something very interesting. She was seen buying several pregnancy tests, and, when she emerged from the bathroom, her face was as white as a ghost. Now …”
Dujar levels the gun at me, but this time aiming it at my belly. I feel a primitive, protective urge rise up inside of me.
That’s when I spot it, mostly concealed under the bar towel: a small knife, the kind you use for cutting fruit for cocktails. “Would you be so high and mighty if I executed your child in front of you?”
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” Angelo says. His eyes keep straying towards the knife under the towel. I wonder if he sees it, too. But his voice is choked and heavy. I can tell how much the news of the pregnancy means to him by the tightness in his face. “This is getting old, Dujar.”
“But we haven’t even started yet,” Dujar protests. “Getting old, he says. Who do you think you are, Angelo? All your life, you have never had to work for anything. I grew up in the bitter cold, boy, a place that would seem like hell to you. You wouldn’t last two seconds where I’m from, and you have the gall to talk down to me? Disrespect will not be tolerated in this city as long as I run it. Men, take the bitch.”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Angelo roars, leaping to his feet.
Everything happens in a violent flurry. Three Albanians launch themselves at Angelo, whipping him with the butts of their pistols, beating him to the floor and then kicking him savagely in the head and chest and neck.
At the same time, Artan and the other Albanians drag me across the room and bend me over the couch. I scream, kicking my legs out, flailing with my arms. But they handle me like butcher’s meat.
“Angelo!” I cry. “Angelo!”
“Fucking bastards!” Angelo grunts in pain as a heavy boot takes him in the chin.
“Don’t fight,” Artan is whispering urgently in my ear. “It will be easier this way. The boss just wants to see you degraded.”
“Fuck you!” I spin my head, spitting in his face. He springs back, and I take my chance to kick hard at the Albanian behind me. Sickeningly, they have already arranged themselves in a fucking line. The man at the front has his dick out, stroking it, so that when I kick, it catches him right in the balls. He hunches over, looking like he might puke.
I scramble desperately across the room, thinking of how much I love Angelo, thinking of our child, thinking of how I need to be there for Wyatt. Somebody fires a shot and it hits the ceiling-high glass window, shattering and letting in a whoosh of ice-cold winter air.
Dujar turns to me, grinning, raising his gun like an indulgent parent. Now, now, enough of this ruckus; let’s get down to business, his smile says. But his grin drops when I grab the knife and launch myself over the bar at him. He yelps and makes to raise his gun higher, to my head.
At the same time, I slash with the knife, but I’ve never used a blade as a weapon before, and I end up doing it at an awkward angle. He parries it with his gun. A shock moves up my forearm, and my fingers loosen.
The knife clatters to the floor.
There’s a pause where we just sort of stare at the knife. Then I scream, launching myself at him, bringing both hands to his gun-holding hand to try and wrench the weapon free. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Angelo taking a knife from a boot of one of the Albanians. With a brutal, violent motion, he stabs the man through the foot, pinning it to the floor.
It is chaos in here, filled with the scent of blood and men who are dying or already dead. All I can think of, over and over again, is: I have to survive. For me. For Angelo. For our baby.
29
Angelo
All I can think about is Dani on the other side of the bar with Dujar. I know they’re fighting from the way she’s screaming, and the glasses flying everywhere, but my body and reflexes have been honed through years of fighting, so I go into autopilot.
The Albanian near me made a fatal mistake, keeping that knife in a boot-holster. After stabbing him through the foot so hard I pin him to the floor, I dislodge the blade and drag it up his leg, then slice it across his throat as I spring to my feet.
Somebody fires another gunshot, but it goes wide. Too careful, too scared of friendly fire. More bullets tear at the air around me, until one finds its mark. I roar as I feel a burning sensation in my back, but I ignore it. I cannot stop now. Not with so much hanging in the balance.
I grab the Albanian’s gun and spin, using his body as a human shield as I fire wildly. Two of my shots strike an Albanian through the neck and chest. Another clips the TV, knocking it from the wall mount. I wheel the gun around to the Albanian sneaking up on my right.
“Enough!” I roar, prodding him with the weapon. “Drop it, motherfucker.”
He does as I say. I inch toward the bar, keeping the Albanian between me and the remaining men at all times. Dujar and Dani are still wrestling over the gun. That fucking egghead Dujar isn’t strong enough to wrench it away from her.
Dani looks like a wild animal as she brings her mouth to his hand, biting down. He roars, loosening his grip, and Dani grabs the gun. She drives her knee into his balls and knocks him across the jaw with the pistol’s grip.