Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (37 page)

He simply needed
to protect Abriella.

“Ella!”

Abriella spun out
of a man’s grasp and pointed the gun again. Tommas slid an arm around her
waist, pulled her back into him, and slipped the gun from her hand at the same
time. He aimed it straight at the face of the fool who had come directly at
Abriella. Almost everyone in the restaurant stilled the moment Tommas had
control of the only weapon around.

His lover shook in
his arms, like a little leaf ready to blow away in the wind.

“It’s okay,”
Tommas whispered in her ear.

Not once did he
drop his weapon from the face of the enforcer that had checked him earlier.
Darryl was the guy’s name. He looked after Abriella for Joel, too. No doubt,
the man was close to Joel and loyal to him like nobody else.

Abriella sobbed
again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what he was gonna do, Tommy. I didn’t know,
but—”

“
Shhh
,
baby. I got you, Ella. I’m always going to have you.”

She quieted, but
her trembling continued.

“This is done,”
Tommas said loud enough for every person standing frozen around him, unsure of
what to do. “The fighting, this war, it is done. No more. Stop hurting people
for your own agenda, and stop letting others use you for the same reason. Be
better—we are better than this. No more blood, not in Chicago. I won’t allow
another drop to spill for this war.”

“Aye,” came a
quiet call from the corner.

Adriano Conti.

“Aye.”

Damian.

“Aye,” echoed Theo
DeLuca from the floor.

Tommas looked down
at Theo. The man had been helping another man flip Joel over.

“He dead?” Tommas
asked.

“Yeah,” Theo
confirmed.

Abriella made a
pained, muffled sound that caught in her throat. Tommas held her tighter,
feeling her body weaken under her own weight. She needed to get out of here.
That gunshot had been terribly loud for such a small weapon. He wanted this
meeting to stay under the radar of the cops and agents, but now it probably
wouldn’t. The restaurant was in a decent part of the city where the sound of
gunshots wasn’t common. The cops would be on their way soon.

“This is done.”
Tommas still hadn’t lowered his weapon from Darryl.

“Done,” the
enforcer said quietly, but strained.

“Play the right
cards,” Tommas told the man, “and you’ll get another day, man.”

Darryl dropped his
hands, empty with nothing to fight back, to his sides.

He was a stupid
man to do it.

Tommas would have
him killed before the night was out. Darryl had been too close to Joel, and
Tommas knew some of the stuff that had been said to Abriella by the enforcer.

“D?” Tommas
called.

“Right here,
boss,” Damian said, stepping around the men he’d brought along to the sit-down.

No one seemed to
know what to do.

“We need to fix
this and fast.”

“I’ll take her.”

“No,” Abriella
said, looking back at Tommas with wide eyes. “I don’t want to—”

Tommas, uncaring
of those watching, pressed a kiss to her trembling lips to quiet her. “Go with
Ghost. Please.”

“But,
Tommy
.”

Her tears welled,
and his heart broke.

“I’m sorry,” he
said right before Damian grabbed Abriella’s arm and pulled her away.

His lover was
dragged from the restaurant to the stunned silence of everyone else.

When the door
swung shut, Tommas said, “Is there any objections to my seat?”

No one said a
thing.

He still had that
goddamn gun, after all.

Outside, Tommas
heard the screech of tires and the faint scream of sirens.

Shit.

Shit. Shit.
Shit
.

These men couldn’t
be here. Most of them were good, honorable men for the Outfit.

“Fucking
go
,”
Tommas barked. “Get out of here!”

He didn’t have to
say it again. His mind raced to catch up with what was happening as men started
to scramble from the restaurant. Some went straight out the front, but most
went out the back. Tommas’ shoe slipped on a small puddle of blood, but he
caught himself quickly as he turned to leave as well.

The sound of the
door opening stopped him.

Behind him, Tommas
found Peter Trentini waiting. The man held his hand out.

“Give it to me,”
Peter said.

Tommas held
tighter to the gun, his one failsafe in that moment.

“Give me the gun,
Tommas. She did the right thing, didn’t she? My girl did the right thing.”

“Yeah,” Tommas
said, confused and sad at the sight of the man’s pain.

“I love my girls.
Both of them. I’d do anything for them.”

The confession
came easily for Tommas. “I love her, too.”

Peter laughed
bleakly. “I know. Joel thought I was a fool, that I didn’t know how to do
anything. He treated me like it, too. This last week and a half, Ella didn’t
come around. She’s been coming over to my wing ever since her mother was killed
just to keep me company, make sure I was fed, and give me someone to talk to. I
knew something was wrong when she stopped coming.”

Tommas sucked in a
deep breath; the air burned in his lungs.

“I logged onto the
cameras for the house using the program the tech guys put in, and watched it
all. I heard what Joel said to Ella about things.”

“What things?”

“You, how he was
going to use her to trick you into something, but he didn’t really say what,
and that he needed to make sure you didn’t find out about it. He locked her in
the wing upstairs, and took away all of her things. All week I’ve been watching
her cry in the hallways. She just wants to be happy, Tommas.”

God.

Tommas ached
inside. “I know she does.”

“Please make her
happy.”

“I will.”

“And tell her I’m
sorry.”

Tommas didn’t get
the chance to respond. Peter had slowly moved closer to Tommas as the men
talked until he was just a foot away, and snatched the gun from his hand.
Turning fast on his heel, Peter ran for the front door. The blare of the sirens
roared directly outside the restaurant and red and blue flashed in the windows.
Peter pushed the door open and stepped outside, still holding the gun tightly
in his palm.

What was he going
to do?

“Put the gun
down!”

The shout shocked
Tommas. It came from a loud speaker somewhere outside.

Peter lifted the
weapon and wrapped his finger around the trigger.

Tommas choked.

“Tell her I’m
sorry, but Joel wouldn’t have ever seen her coming,” Peter said. “He expected
you, Tommas, or someone else, but not her.”

The gun would have
Abriella’s father’s fingerprints on it, Tommas realized. Gunpowder residue,
fresh from the weapon as it had just been shot, would be on his hands. A
murder-suicide would be the headline. A vengeful father who blamed his son,
maybe.

Peter had planned
it all.

Sometimes, allies
showed up in the most unlikely of places.

Knowing all of
that didn’t make it easier when Peter pulled the trigger, and the guns from the
police answered him back.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

“A
briella, are you
okay?”

Blinking out of
her daze, Abriella turned in the passenger seat to stare at Damian Rossi. The
tight, grim set of the man’s mouth spoke of his concern. He’d been mostly quiet
ever since he shoved her into the car except to tell her that he was taking her
home.

Where was home?

God knew the
Trentini mansion certainly hadn’t felt like home for a long, long time.

“Are you okay?”
Damian asked again.

“Do you care?”

Damian’s brow
furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I care?”

“I shot a man—it’s
over now. Why should you care how I feel about what I did?”

“Because that man
was your brother.”

Abriella glanced
back out the window, a strange mix of sadness and confusion swirling around her
heart and suffocating the very life out of each beat. She’d been so confused
when her father brought her that small clutch outside the restaurant. She
hadn’t brought a clutch along, and she hadn’t noticed her father with one in
the car on the drive to the sit-down.

When she felt
something hard in the purse during the dinner, and opened it up to find a small
gun inside, Abriella knew right then what she needed to do.

Joel had forced
her into confinement for a week and a half. He’d refused her access to her
father, to a computer, or even a phone. The only thing she was left with for
her time was herself, her thoughts, and her choices.

By the time the
sit-down arrived, she still hadn’t been able to choose.

Peter gave her
another option.

“I didn’t have a choice,”
Abriella whispered.

“To kill Joel?”

“Yeah.”

“Someone else
would have done it, I’m sure. No one is going to blame you for any wrong doing,
as far as that goes. This has been a long time coming.”

Damian was right.

Abriella knew it.

She wished that
helped the odd guilt swimming in her veins, but it really didn’t.

“He’s still your
brother,” Damian said, softer than she had ever heard him speak. “You’re
allowed to grieve for him. Or rather, what you could have had with him, Ella.”

Abriella hadn’t
thought of it that way. Maybe that was her problem; maybe that was the issue
keeping her throat thick, her heart hurting, and her mind in a hazy bubble.

“It’ll take a
while, but that feeling you’re experiencing will go away,” Damian told her
quietly.

“Will it?”

“Eventually.”   

Abriella stared down
at her clenched fists resting in her lap. “Joel wanted me to make a choice this
week. One was to be free, and the other was to free everyone else. Either way,
he was going to take something from me, Damian.”

“Tommas?”

“Yes.”

“You made the
right choice,” Damian said.

“But it wasn’t one
of Joel’s choices. That was a choice that was given to me last minute and it
was out of my brother’s control. And it hurts … in here,” Abriella said,
pointing at her heart. “Because out of Joel’s options, I didn’t know which one
to choose. I couldn’t make the choice.”

“Ella, maybe you
couldn’t choose because they weren’t really options for you. It was never a
matter of what you would do, but how you wouldn’t do it. Do you understand what
I’m saying?”

“No.”

Damian frowned.
“Maybe when you wake up tomorrow with Tommas by your side, and the freedom that
was offered in your hand, it’ll make more sense.”

God
.

Abriella hoped so.

“Damn, Tommas, it
took you long enough,” Damian growled the second he answered his ringing cell
phone.

Abriella had just
kicked off her heels and dropped the clutch she was still holding on the floor.
She spun fast on her heel at the sound of her lover’s name, wanting to know
where he was, what had happened, or … anything.

She just needed
anything
.

“Where is he?”
Abriella demanded.

Damian held a
finger high, silently asking for her to be quiet. “Yeah, man, I’ll call the
lawyer and get him down there for you.”

Oh, God.

A lawyer?

She had heard the
police sirens before Damian dragged her away and drove off, but she had
stupidly hoped that was just her mind making up things. Apparently not. This
was a problem Tommas, and the Outfit, didn’t need.

Even worse, what
about her?

She held the gun,
she shot it, and Tommas had taken it from her.

“He’s … dead?”
Damian asked, shooting Abriella a wary look.

“What?”

Damian turned his
back to her. “So, they’re just holding you for nothing because Peter—”

Something made
Damian stop talking.

Then, Damian said,
“What do you want me to … Yeah, okay. I’ll get the lawyer down there, and I’ll
come, too.”

Once the phone
call ended, Damian spun back around to face Abriella. A solemn, dark sadness
colored the man’s features. Abriella’s stomach instantly felt heavier and
sicker than it had the entire day. Damian’s face was a mask of apology—like his
next words would cut her deep, and he didn’t want to do it.

“Ella, I have to
tell you something,” Damian said slowly.

The numbness from
earlier settled back into her nervous system again. Her body and mind wanted to
protect itself, and Abriella didn’t blame her reaction a bit. Nothing about
this day had been easy. It only seemed to get worse at every turn.

Why should this be
any different?

“Where is Tommas?”
Abriella asked.

“The police are
holding him, but they don’t have much of a reason to. The scene was pretty
clear when they went in, and I guess Peter wiped the gun down enough to erase
what was left other than his fingerprints. They’re holding Tommas because they
want to get as much information from him on what was going on in the restaurant
before the shooting, and why Joel is dead.”

Abriella didn’t
understand. “My dad? He wasn’t in the restaurant.”

“He was after,”
Damian replied gently.

Her heart clenched
painfully.

“So, he’s at the
police station, too?”

“No.”

“But—”

“He took the gun
from Tommas after the place cleared out,” Damian interrupted, stepping closer
to Abriella with his hands outstretched like she might run. “The cops were
outside, just a couple of cars at first. He pulled the gun on them.”

“No,” Abriella mumbled,
moving backwards.

“I’m sorry, Ella.”

“No. My dad wasn’t
in the restaurant, Damian. He wasn’t! He was outside waiting in the car.”

“Your dad gave you
the purse outside the restaurant. I watched him do it. The purse had the gun in
it. He planned this, Ella. He knew how this was going to end. I’m sorry.”

“You’re wrong,”
Abriella said, her voice breaking on the final word. “He wouldn’t do that to me
and Alessa.”

They had already
lost their mother.

Peter wouldn’t
leave them, too.

“He did,” Damian said.
“I’m sorry.”

No
.

Abriella’s heart
might as well have fell from her chest and shattered across the foyer of the
Trentini mansion. Her pain came rushing out of her lungs in a sob that echoed
as she tripped backwards, and caught herself on an end table.

Why her father?

She loved him.

“But …. b-but …”

Abriella couldn’t
make the words form. Her throat constricted over and over, catching her grief
and sobs as the tears stung her eyes. This was not how it was supposed to be.
She didn’t make the choice given to her so that something else—someone she
loved—could be taken away.

It wasn’t supposed
to be a give and take.

“This isn’t
right,” Abriella mumbled, staring at Damian through watery eyes.

“I … I’m so
sorry,” Damian said lamely. “I have to go and get Tommas his lawyer. I’ll have
Lily come over, maybe she can get Eve and your sister, too.”

“Just go,”
Abriella forced herself to say.

Her pain was
enough.

It was too much.

She was breaking
apart at the seams, and she didn’t want anyone else to see it. For the last
week and a half, her days and nights had been spent in a perpetual head game
that she played alone. She tried, failing miserably, to figure out what her
brother was planning, and how it all might end.

Abriella had made
the right choice.

She chose to let
Tommas win.

She still lost.

The sound of the
front door closing vaguely registered to Abriella’s overloaded senses. It was
only then that she realized Damian had left.

Her fingers
tightened and loosened around the edge of the decorative table she held onto.
Her legs acted as if they were going to give out on her at any second. When her
stomach threatened to revolt from the churning sensation tying her up in knots,
she barely managed to keep the bile down.

Abriella’s heart
and soul screamed out for people that weren’t there. People who comforted her,
who had loved her, and would always protect her.

Her mother.

Her father.

Tommas
.

She could have him
now, couldn’t she?

Freedom wasn’t
free.

This life came
with a cost.

Abriella had paid
far too much for hers.

Anger and agony
rushed Abriella’s gut in a wave of hot lava. She swept the pictures and
knickknacks from the table in one fell swoop, screaming her rage and sadness to
an empty house.

It would
always
be empty now.

The sounds of
shattering glass as the picture frames broke on the floor soothed her inner war
for a moment, but it wasn’t enough. She grabbed the first thing she could, a
painting on the wall of her great-grandfather, and ripped it down to throw it
on the floor.

This house had
been raised and kept in a swamp of lies. Manipulation, control, and shifting
power had been a game they all played. It had started a long time ago, when her
mother made an honest mistake, and then paid dearly for it.

It was over.

But it still made
Abriella so goddamn mad.

And
agonized
.

God, the pain.

She wanted to feel
better, so she grabbed the next thing on the wall and tore it down, too. She
tossed pictures from the hallway onto the floor, destroying memories that
weren’t entirely true, and pictures of men whose greed had ruined so many
lives.

This was their
fault.

They made her
choose, not just Joel.