Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (25 page)

“Yeah,” Alessa
said softly. “We know, Dad.”

Tommas’ chest
suddenly felt like someone had placed a heavy weight down on it. He slipped
away from the guests and the party, making a beeline straight for the back of
the restaurant. Taking Joel out was one thing, but Sara Trentini was quite
another. She was an innocent, and nothing more.

It would still be
a clean hit.

Joel would still
die, likely.

Tommas would still
get both the boss’s seat, and his lover.

But at what price?

Her trust?

Her mother?

Her happiness?

Tommas couldn’t do
that.

He just pushed the
back exit door open as the cell phone in his pocket dinged. That was Nate’s
sign. His first text was to say he had the hit in progress because he had Joel
in a good spot. The second would be to say the job was done.

Pulling the phone
out, Tommas dialed his enforcer’s number. He put the phone to his ear, rested
his forehead to the outside brick wall, and listened to it ring.

Over and over.

It kept ringing.

Tommas knew it
wasn’t Nate’s fault.

The man was just
doing what he’d been told.

Finally, the call
picked up. It was the answering machine. Tommas’ heart dropped. This was not
what he wanted to happen. This was not how it was supposed to go down. There
was a very good chance his lover’s mother was inside the same vehicle as Joel
that was about to be lit up in a random drive-by shooting.

One that he’d
ordered.

One that he
planned to make sure this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.

No mistakes.

Good, clean, and
over before anyone knew what happened.

How would he tell
Abriella?

How could he
apologize for this?

“Nate’s phone, get
it out and I’ll get back to you,” the enforcer’s answering machine said.

Abriella pushed
open the exit door at the same time the message finished and a beep sounded.
Tommas met his girl’s concerned gaze. She must have seen him rush out of the
restaurant, and when she got the chance without being noticed, followed him.

I’m sorry
, he
wanted to say.

I love you, Ella.

“Don’t do it,”
Tommas said into the phone, hoping Nate would see the message and take it
before doing the hit. It wasn’t likely. “Nate, call it off, man. Please.”

Abriella’s brow
furrowed as she held the door open. “Tommy?”

 He hung up the
phone, ignored Abriella’s outstretched hand reaching for him, and dialed the
phone again.

The enforcer still
didn’t pick up.

“Tommas, what’s
wrong?” Abriella asked gently.

I’m so sorry,
baby.

He met her gaze,
unsure and cold in his heart.

Colder than he’d
ever been. Frozen like ice because he was about to lose the one thing he wanted
more than anything else in the world all because of one mistake.

Abriella wouldn’t
understand.

This wouldn’t be
forgiven.

CHAPTER TWELVE

S
omething awful and
terrible welled in Abriella’s stomach as she watched Tommas’ face fall from the
usual confident mask he wore to the expression of a heartbroken, guilty man.

“Tommy?” she asked
in a whisper. “What happened?”

His mouth opened
to speak as he glanced down at his phone and then back at her. No words came
out. He didn’t even look like he was breathing. His hand clenched so tightly
around his phone that his knuckles had turned an ashy white from the pressure. He
shoved the phone into his jacket pocket.

The sickness
rolling in Abriella’s middle only got worse and picked up speed until bile was
rising in her throat.

“I fucked up,” he
finally said.

His words came out
so quiet that she barely heard them.

“I’m sure whatever
it is can be fixed, right?” she asked.

Tommas shook his
head. “No, baby. Not this time.”

Abriella swallowed
hard, her chest tightening in reaction to his agonized tone. Tommas rarely
showed emotion for anyone outside of the people he cared for. That list was
short. She knew that without a doubt, she was at the top. His family and very
few friends came after her. Even still, Tommas was the kind of man who could
hide whatever he needed to when the situation called for it.

Why couldn’t he do
that now?

“I need you to
tell me what happened, Tommas,” Abriella said softly.

“I’m so sorry,”
was all he managed to say.

Abriella’s heart
cracked.

It wasn’t from her
own unknown pain, caused by something she didn’t understand, but because of the
wetness gathering in her lover’s eyes. Tommas never cried. Not once had
Abriella ever been privy to him in that kind of state.

It ached.

It made her sick.

It was all wrong.

“Don’t do that,”
Abriella said, stepping closer to him. She immediately reached for his face and
wiped the wetness away. The moment she touched his tears, Tommas tried to jerk
away from her like he’d only realized at that moment he was crying. Abriella
refused to let him go. She held him tighter, letting her fingernails dig into
his jaw and forcing him to stare her in the eyes. “Don’t do that, please. It
can be fixed, right? Whatever happened, you can fix it. You always make it
better, Tommy.”

He shook his head
again, a ragged exhale escaping his lips. “I don’t think so.”

“Nothing is
unfixable—”

“This wasn’t
supposed to happen,” Tommas interrupted. “I had it all accounted for, Ella.
Every. Fucking. Step. This was the end, baby. Of everything. Done. No more
fighting. No more bloodshed. No more war. Just you and me like it was always
supposed to be. I had his every move down!”

Abriella flinched
at the sudden rage in his tone. “Joel?”

Tommas nodded.
“I’ve worked for two weeks to make sure this went down perfectly. I didn’t want
mistakes. I needed it to be clean. It should have been good. Just him, he’d be
the last one to go in this fucking war. That’s all we needed, Ella. I am so
sorry.”

A painful, swift
fissure began to tear over Abriella’s heart and soul. It was nothing like
anything she had felt before. Abriella was not a stupid woman. She had never
been a fool to the games of the men surrounding her.

She knew how they
played.

She could play
them, too.

Never once had she
thought Tommas would back off from Joel. Abriella knew that her lover would
make a move eventually, one that would permanently end the fighting and the
bloodshed.

“Was it going down
today?” she asked. “Whatever you were going to do to Joel, was it going to
happen today?”

“Yes,” Tommas
admitted.

Abriella
physically recoiled at what that might mean. Her father’s words about her
mother staying behind and likely coming with Joel in his vehicle rang heavily
in the back of her mind. Her stomach twisted in sickness and disbelief. A
numbness settled in her limbs.

Tommas grabbed
hard to Abriella’s wrists, keeping her locked in place. “I didn’t know about
Sara until five minutes ago, baby. I swear to God, Ella, I didn’t. I never
would have—”

“Stop,” she
breathed.

Abriella needed
space. She needed to take in more air than her lungs were giving. Her body was
cemented in place, but her mind felt a million miles away.

Nothing was right.

Everything seemed
foul and bad.

“I tried,” Tommas
mumbled, holding onto her tight enough for it to hurt. Abriella didn’t mind. It
kept her from falling on the ground. “I tried to stop it the moment I thought
there was chance someone else might be with him. It’s not for sure, Ella. He
might be alone.”

“But he might not
be.”

“He might not be.”

“My mom …”

“I tried,” Tommas
repeated weakly.

Abriella couldn’t
control the reaction. It bubbled up too fast for her to try and stop it. She
jerked away from Tommas and spun on her heel in just enough time to bend over
and spill the contents of her stomach on the ground. In her heartache and pain,
she gagged on vomit and the sudden flood of tears.

No.

No, no,
no
.

This was not how
it was supposed to be.

Her fingernails
cut into her palms, making her skin break and bleed. She shook with the force
of her sobs as familiar, strong arms circled her middle and held strong.

Tommas pressed his
face to the middle of her back and whispered his apologies over and over. Abriella
believed him. Every word he spoke was coated heavily in his pain and his honest
grief for her agony. She had seen the regret in his tears and the confusion in
his earlier words.

She knew he hadn’t
meant for this to happen.

It didn’t help.

She wanted it to.

God, she needed it
to.

“I’m sorry,”
Tommas said, holding her tighter. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wanted it to be over.
I need it to be over for you and for me. Please, Ella, please don’t hate me for
this. I love you more than anything. Don’t you understand? I’d rather be dead
than without you. I tried to fix it.
Please, Ella
.”

She still believed
him.

She still loved him.

Abriella just
couldn’t bring forth enough emotion through the haze of her grief and numbness
to tell him. Wiping the sickness from the mouth with the sleeve of her dress,
Abriella stood. She turned to face her lover, wiped the mess of tears from his face,
and took a breath.

“Stop,” she said
quietly.

Tommas sucked in a
hard breath. “Okay.”

“I can’t … I can’t
do this right now. And neither can you. Stop it, Tommas.”

His shoulders
stiffened and his back straightened. “You’re right.”

“This is not about
us today. That party in there is not about the Outfit. It is the one day my
sister has to feel happy and good about her baby. I can’t take that away from
her.”

He reached out to
stroke her cheek, but Abriella moved out of his way. She couldn’t let him touch
her. If she did, then the sudden, strange calmness she had managed to gain
would shatter again. She would break and crumble. Her heart would tear back
open.

She needed to be
okay for just a little while longer.

For her father.

For Alessa.

For herself.

“Ella—”

Abriella held out
a hand. “Don’t.”

Tommas cringed
like she had slapped him. “I’m sorry.”

“I … I need to go
back to my sister,” she said.

A buzz in Tommas’
pocket broke their staring contest.

Tommas dropped his
gaze, but didn’t reach for the device.

Another
splintering crack settled across Abriella’s heart.

“Answer it,
Tommas,” Abriella said.

He didn’t.

“I don’t need to,”
he said softly.

“Why not?”

Tommas didn’t answer.
Abriella didn’t need him to. She knew what the call likely meant. The job was
done.

Without a word,
Abriella spun on her heel, opened the restaurant door, and left Tommas behind.

Control
.

She needed to keep
it.

If only for a few
more minutes … 

Abriella ignored
the enforcer sitting outside of her brother’s hospital room. She knocked on the
door a second before pushing it open. Joel sat on the edge of his bed, dressed
in casual clothes with a black leather bag resting on the floor between his feet.

Setting the water
bottle in his hand on the bedside table, Joel turned to Abriella with a blank
expression. “Managed to make your way over, did you?”

Abriella didn’t
bother giving him a response to that statement. Joel didn’t deserve it,
frankly. He’d been in the hospital for nearly a week since the shooting that
took their mother’s life, caused Darryl to wreck the car he was driving, and
almost took Joel’s life as well.

The problem was,
Joel showed no emotion.

He didn’t ask
about their mother after being told she had been killed by a gunshot to the
head. He didn’t seem to care at all that her life had been forfeited for his.
Joel never had cared a damn ounce for the woman who gave him his very breath.

Abriella hurt
every day. Her grief was constant and near unbearable. Sometimes, she found
herself staring at a wall, unable to breathe or think, and an awful lump had
welled in her throat. She found her father alone and crying more times than she
cared to count. She’d comforted her sister in Alessa’s pain.

All the while, she
planned her mother’s funeral. She made the arrangements necessary with the
undertaker, the church, and the graveyard. She designed the headstone of a
marble angel resting in a deep sleep with her mother’s name engraved on the
front. She picked the plot, wrote the check, and chose which dress would be the
final one her mother ever wore.

Abriella never
cried. She choked on her agony, swallowed it back, and kept moving because she
didn’t have a fucking choice.

Who helped her?

No one.

So no, Abriella
had no fucks to give for Joel or the broken rib he suffered, the concussion he
had, or the bullet he took to the left side that narrowly missed his heart.

She cared
nothing
for him.

Abriella would
give anything she had, everything that was hers, if she could turn back time
and make her brother die instead of their mother.

Whatever God would
take, she would hand over.

“Darryl is outside
with the car,” Abriella finally said. “If you’re ready, then he is.”

“Why are you here
then?” Joel asked.

Abriella didn’t
want to answer him. Joel deserved no explanations as to what she had been doing
this last week while he took his little time out from the rest of the world.