Making Angel (Mariani Crime Family Book 1) (37 page)

I stared at my father straining to hear Tech’s response.

“What? What about the guards? How could you lose all contact with my house?” Scarlet crept up Father’s face, ending in a vein that throbbed against his forehead.

Lost contact with the house?

It felt like the floor fell out from under me. I grabbed the arm of a nearby chair to steady myself. If the Pelinos were making their move…

No. They wouldn’t attack a house full of women and children. That’s against the rules. The families would wipe them out. They’d have to be crazy!

Reassuring myself, I dialed Markie’s number. It rang once, and then went to voice mail.

“You get her?” Father asked.

“No sir.”

Guards surrounding us, Father and I rushed from the hospital waiting room into the garage. Thin slits in the concrete let in traces of the midday sun and kept the place from being pitch black, but the garage was dark. It hadn’t been like that when we’d parked. Immediately, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Glass crunched under my feet and I glanced up, squinting until my eyes adjusted. The lights had been busted out.

Bones closed in on my right, his presence reassuring me I wasn’t alone. On my left, Father kept his hands firmly in his jacket pockets, stepping over the glass without breaking stride. In the dim light, I could barely make out the vicious grin spreading across his face.

A chill went up my spine. I squinted into the dark, searching for whatever had the old man smiling. Figures emerged from the shadows in front of us, and chaos erupted. Gunfire shattered the silence. I tried to duck, but someone grabbed me from behind, yanking me backwards. The hard steel of a pistol jabbed into my ribs.

No.

It wasn’t the first time I’d had a gun pointed at me—not by a long shot, thanks to Father’s drills—but this time was different. It made me desperate and angry at the distraction keeping me from Markie and the twins. I spun and threw a punch at my attacker, hearing the satisfying crunch of impact before his gun went off. Fire burned through my side as I hit the ground, drawing my weapon. Father’s guards fell in, swinging at each other. Dark-suited men jumped, kicked, and swung to the thunder of bullets bouncing off the cement walls. The fray looked like an out-of-control mosh pit. Ears ringing, I searched for Bones. His fist slammed into the face of my attacker. The attacker flew backwards and slapped against the cement floor. Bones followed and kicked him.

I raised my weapon, but couldn’t get a clean shot.

“You’re surrounded Mariani. Give up and step down, and we’ll let the kid live. All your kids.”

The familiar voice came from the shadows in front of us. I peeked around a car and squinted into the dark. Bruno’s voice came from the center of several dark shadows.

“You want me to trust a bunch of cowardly bastards who attacked a house full of women and children?” My father asked.

“We thought you were home.”

“Is that what you plan to tell the other families? That you blew up my son’s car and expected me to hide in my house?”

Bruno laughed. “You think the other families will step in? Ha! The borgatas are sick of being tied down to your rules, old man. The wolves want to be unleashed. They would have pulled you down years ago, but they’re just a bunch of bitches… not enough balls between them to attack. Well, my father’s just crazy enough to do whatever needs to be done.”

Father twitched. A little red beam raced across the shadows, ending in the center of Bruno’s forehead. Before I could register what I was seeing, a shot rang out. The Pelino heir apparent crumpled to the ground. His stunned guards took a few seconds too long to react, and the little red light traveled down the line.

Bam. Bam. Bam

Bodies fell in its wake. I aimed and fired off a shot. A bullet whizzed past my head and I ducked back behind the car.

“You cocky son of a bitch; this is my city!” Father roared. He ducked down, slammed another magazine into his Glock, and the little red beam resumed its deadly dance. I thought the old man was crazy when he’d tasked me with adding a laser sight to his Glock, but in that darkened garage he was a genius. In fact, if we made it out of the garage, I fully intended to get myself a gun just like it.

For now, my Desert Eagle would have to do. I peeked back around the car and took a few blind shots. The fighting behind us began to die down, and more of my father’s guards joined us in the frontal attack. The Pelino men started to retreat. One guard slung Bruno’s body over his shoulder before the entire group turned and ran, weaving through cars and dodging our bullets as they disappeared deeper into the darkness.

My father had lost several guards. The remainder of the force piled into one SUV, leaving the second in the garage. Bones and I followed in the Hummer. I drove while Bones fumbled with the first aid kit.

“You’re gonna need to take off your jacket so I can get a look at your side,” he said, tugging bandages out of the kit.

I stopped at a light and struggled out of the ruined coat, stinging the hell out of my side with every twist of my stomach. The bottom right quarter of my T-shirt was soaked with blood. Bones tugged it upward and swore.

“How bad is it?” I asked. The light turned green, so I focused back on the road.

“You got a chunk of meat missing; needs stitches.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, we should probably call the Pelinos and ask them to chill the hell out so I can get back to the hospital. That gash on your cheek could probably use a stitch or two as well.”

Bones pulled down his mirror and snorted. “I’ve cut myself worse shaving.”

“Yeah? They probably have classes to teach you how to do that...”

“All right, wiseass, let me get that bleeding stopped.”

Bones rolled up the bottom of my shirt and taped it to my chest. Then he doctored my side while I drove. “Not bad for your first gunfight,” he said, admiring the wound.

I nodded. “Bruno’s dead.” My father’s bullet had splattered Bruno’s brains all over his men. No surviving that.

“He was stupid to goad the old man… and standing out in the open like that? Why? Almost like he wanted to die.”

I considered Bones’s words as my adrenaline rush faded, sapping my strength and leaving behind a bone-deep weariness. Bruno was free of our fathers’ war now. He wouldn’t have to take any more lives or watch the people around him suffer. Maybe Bruno had wanted to end it all. If I didn’t have Markie, Bones, and my younger siblings to think of, I might have been tempted to do the same.

The street in front of my father’s house was lined with cop cars and ambulances. Father’s SUV parked behind a police cruiser and Bones and I pulled up behind them. What was left of the old man’s guards surrounded us as we made our way past the cruisers and into the mayhem.

The mansion looked like a war zone. Bodies were strewn from the broken security gate to the front door that hung from its top hinges. Authorities clearly hadn’t been there long, because they were still checking for pulses and bagging and tagging the dead. A fallen man moaned and writhed on the ground. The guards around us tensed, but an EMT hurried over to deal with the wounded. I scanned the faces of the fallen as we passed; some I recognized, and some I didn’t. I knew I should feel sorrow for those who’d given their lives to protect my family, but all I felt was outrage. How many men had we lost? How many had the Pelinos sacrificed? How many more would it take?

Where are Markie and the twins?

My father saw my blood-soaked shirt and hurried over to check out my wound.

“I’m fine,” I said, waving him off. “It grazed me. We’ll deal with it later.”

“You should let me have a look at that,” one of the EMTs said.

“Not now,” I replied, walking past him.

Renzo and his team met us in the driveway. “Sir, I’m glad to see you’re okay.”

“Where’s my family?” Father asked.

Renzo’s gray T-shirt was darkened with sweat in several areas and he held a semi-automatic in his hands. “Rachele’s inside. They’re loading her onto a stretcher. She’s been shot in the leg. We can’t find the twins anywhere, sir.”

“Did he get them? Did that bastard get my children?”

Renzo shifted his weight and continued, “We don’t think so. Rachele said—”

“Dom!” Rachele’s high-pitched voice strained.

Renzo snapped his mouth shut, bowed his head, and stepped to the side, revealing the gurney that rolled my stepmother out of the house and toward us. One EMT navigated the route while a second held a mass of white cloth to Rachele’s leg, applying pressure as they walked.

Rachele broke into tears and stretched out her hands.

Father rushed to her side. The gurney stopped and Rachele leaned against him, sobbing harder. The old man’s jaw clenched as he stroked her hair. “I’m sorry you had to go through this. They’ll pay for what they did.”

“She’s lost a lot of blood, and we need to get her to the hospital,” the EMT pushing the gurney said.

Father nodded, and the gurney started rolling forward again. He stayed beside Rachele, and she clung to him.

“I’m coming with you,” he told Rachele.

“No. Please… our babies. Those bastards didn’t find them.”

“What about Markie?” I asked.

“She’s with them. I hope she knows what she’s doing. She better keep them safe.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “She’ll protect them.” I was certain of it.

Father continued to stroke Rachele’s hair. “Shh. Relax, we’ll find them, but I’m not leaving you again. I can do what I need to do from the hospital.”

Rachele ignored him, focusing on me. “Find them,” she commanded.

It was the closest I’d ever felt to my stepmother, because, for once, our goals aligned. “I will. I promise.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes, releasing my father’s arm as the EMTs loaded her into the ambulance.

Father pulled me aside. “Get that wound looked at, and then get to Tech’s office. I’ll message him on the way. I want you both staring at that goddamn screen until you find the twins.”

I nodded.

“Good. I don’t know who to trust right now, Angel, but I know I can trust you. You do whatever you need to do, you hear me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Excuse me, sir, but we need to go,” an EMT said, leaning out of the back of the ambulance.

“Right.” Father got the attention of another EMT who was checking the vitals of a fallen guard. “See to my boy’s side,” he demanded, pointing at me.

As the EMT walked my direction, Father climbed back into the ambulance. They closed the doors and he and Rachele rolled away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Angel

I
FIRST MET Tech over Skype when I was eight years old and trying to network my father’s computer to the new security system. Tech walked me through a compatibility issue, and then showed me how to program the outside lights so we could turn them on remotely. He was the smartest person I’d ever talked to. Over the years, we worked on several more projects together, and I gained an awestruck respect for him. Although I’d never met him in person, Tech was my idol. In seventh grade, I faked poor eyesight so I could get glasses like his. The glasses had long since gone in the trash, but my hero-worship for Tech was still going strong.