Page 77

TJ’s on me before I can process what’s happening. Two hundred pounds of muscle and instinct slamming into my side, driving me into the pavement. My head cracks against concrete as gravel bites into my palms. Through the ringing in my ears, Raffy’s words cut sharp and clear:
“First fucking warning, Gianelli. Give me my niece, or I’ll turn everything you love into ash and bone.”
The phone skitters across asphalt as TJ’s weight crushes the air from my lungs. His arm clamps around my skull, shielding itwith his own flesh—exactly how my father trained him from the day he joined our family. The loyal bastard would take a bullet to the brain before he’d let one scratch my suit. Not just duty. Not even gratitude. Protecting me is carved into his DNA now.
Despite the ringing in my ears and the weight on my chest, only one thought pounds through my skull.
Alessa. Alessa. Alessa.
“Get the fuck off me,” I growl, shoving against TJ’s solid mass. Christ, the man’s built like a brick shithouse. He exhales sharply, his heart hammering against mine, but he rolls off after a beat.
TJ’s on his feet in seconds, eyes scanning the area with lethal precision, barking orders into his earpiece.
“Boss, we gotta move. These fuckers always plant a second one to catch first responders—”
I cut him off by standing, ignoring the throb in my skull and the ground that still feels unsteady beneath me. My once-pristine suit is covered in dust and grime as I survey the carnage around us.
The crowd is pure chaos—people screaming, sobbing into phones, begging for help. Bodies lie scattered on the pavement, some moving, some not. Sirens wail in the distance, promising help that will come too late for some.
My eyes snap to the post where Raffy stood grinning seconds ago. Gone. Like the devil after making his deal.
Rage rushes through me like wildfire, scorching everything in its path. I don’t think—I just move, instinct overriding logic.
I sprint toward the church.
“Call Gabriella! Tell her to be at the safehouse in five minutes!”
“SIR—”
I don’t hear the rest as I shoulder through the panicked crowd and leap over chunks of debris. Smoke pours from the entrance—ground zero for the blast. It tells me everything I need to know.
The bomb was strategically placed. Small enough to leave the structure standing, but powerful enough to create maximum carnage. Pews are splintered into jagged spears. Pillars are fractured, with cracks snaking through the stone. Sacred statues lie in pieces on the floor, as broken as the bodies around them. Groans and muffled cries fill the smoky air, punctuated by sobs and prayers.
My vision tunnels when I spot a small green figure crumpled near our pew. The reverend lies a few feet away, face-down on the marble floor.
I can’t breathe as memories flood my mind—memories I’ve spent decades trying to bury. Glass and wood crunch under my shoes as I sprint toward the altar, not giving a fuck if there’s another bomb waiting to finish the job.
My knees hit the floor beside Alessa, and I barely register the glass shards cutting through my pants and into my skin.
“Fuck,” I hiss, hands frantically running over her body, searching for wounds or breaks that might explain why she’s not moving. Finding nothing obvious, I press trembling fingers to her neck, desperate for a pulse. It’s there—faint and thready, but there. She’s alive. She’s fucking alive.
“Alessa,” I whisper, my voice raw as I gently turn her shoulders. My calloused hands cup her soft cheek, giving it a light shake. “Alessa, can you hear me?”
When she doesn’t respond, I pull her against my chest, one arm cradling her head while the other wraps around her back. I can feel her shallow breath against my neck—barely there, but fighting. Her body is limp, completely surrendered to my hold. All that fire and defiance gone, replaced by this fragile stillness that scares me more than any gun ever could.
“Stay with me,” I growl against her hair, the words more command than plea. “Don’t you fucking dare check out on me now.”
In my line of work, death is a business partner. I’ve handed it out more times than I can count. I’ve stood over bodies, watching the light fade from eyes that begged for mercy I never gave. Most of the time, it’s just another day at the office.
But when death comes for someone I care about—that’s when everything changes.
Suddenly, I’m not seeing Alessa. I’m seeing my mother on a cold metal slab, her face pale and waxy, the hole between her eyesturning her into someone I barely recognize. I was nine when they took her from me.
And when death came knocking again, it was for my father. I was fifteen, still wet behind the ears, brought along on my first job. I remember him grinning at me in the car, all pride and big plans.‘It’s going to be your first real taste of our world, son,’he said as we drove to meet an Irish crew in Boston. ‘We’ll be quick. I’ll show you how real men put the fear of God in their enemies.’
He had no clue the mick bastard we were meeting had already sold him out—Someone fed him to the wolves—and it sure as hell wasn’t a stranger. We never figured out who, but it had to be one of the families. Someone let that fucker know we were coming.
I remember walking into that alley, TJ and me right behind him. I couldn’t find the excitement my father wanted me to feel. Instead, my gut twisted with something that felt a lot like dread.