Page 24 of Bittersweet Endings (Agostino Crime Family #6)

I tapped the rim of my glass once with my ring. Then twice. Alessandro opened his mouth. I didn’t let him speak. “I trusted you,” I said, my tone a degree colder now. “I gave you one job. To protect her. Not touch her. Not make her look at you like…”

Pop.

The sound was small. Sharp. Like a cork from a wine bottle. Then the vase in the center of our table exploded. Shards of glass flew in every direction, water soaking the tablecloth and the flowers hitting my chest like dead weight.

For a beat, everything held still. Then the screaming started. Another pop . Louder this time. Then two more. Gunfire.

I was already moving, pushing Eva down behind the table, flipping it for cover. Diego had drawn his weapon before I even registered it, his eyes scanning the room. “Two shooters. Front left.”

Alessandro had Eva shielded a second later, his body coiled in front of hers like it was instinct. I didn’t like how natural it looked. But I liked the bullets flying past my head even less.

I pulled my Glock from the holster at my back, my finger steady on the trigger. Heart cold. Mind sharp. Perhaps little Peiro had found someone to pick up the contract.

I commanded Alessandro to stay with Eva as Diego and I took off.

We spread out, and within seconds, we were moving out of the restaurant towards the threat.

Our little hitmen had abandoned their posts and were running for their lives.

One shooting wildly over his shoulder. A woman in the parking lot screamed, falling backwards while holding her bleeding arm.

I slowed down, took a breath, and raised my gun. The idiot was trying to bob and weave—back and forth. As he went left, I shot right. And he moved back to that spot just as my bullet plowed into his spine.

He went down like a ton of bricks. Diego got to him first, kicking him in the face. The fucker’s body flung backwards.

“I already have a name.” I lowered my gun to his face. “But I want to hear you say it.”

When he didn’t answer right away, Diego stepped on his dick. The guy jerked and screamed but he was fading. I pulled the trigger and shot him in the leg.

“Let me put you out of your misery.” I pressed the barrel of my gun to his forehead. “Say. It.”

He licked his lips before closing his eyes. Resigned to his fate. “Peiro.”

I pulled the trigger.

“He’s got some balls, don’t he?” Diego laughed, texting for a clean-up crew to get to the restaurant.

“Apparently,” I grunted as I walked back towards the door.

I pushed inside to find Eva leaning against Alessandro. She was sobbing hysterically. Diego and I glanced at each other. This wasn’t her first gunfight. She shouldn’t have been so worked up.

I approached softly. “Eva.”

She glanced up and gave me a reaction I wasn’t ready for. Tears soaked her face, and true remorse settled in. Bone-deep sadness that sent ice straight through my veins.

“Eva, talk to me. ”

And then, she finally did. Through the broken cries, I heard the words that made my stomach drop. “Mama’s dead.”

The world stopped. “What are you talking about?”

“It was JP,” she choked out between sobs. “Carmine, he killed her.”

My heart slammed against my ribs, and I could feel the blood drain from my face. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

Eva’s voice was small now, broken. “Carmine… how did our father kill our mother?”

Several more of my men arrived, storming inside. They surrounded us, at the ready.

I had no answer for my sister, though. No explanation. Because in all the blood, all the war, all the things we had done—this was something I never saw coming.

It never should’ve gone on this long. I knew it. My men knew it. But I didn’t handle it.

People used to fear my name. Now, there was a question mark after it. The hatred I felt for myself burned an acidic hole through my skull, relentless and seething. There was only one way to silence it.

John Paul Ragetti was going to die.

“It never should’ve gone on this long,” I said to Diego.

“And now, I’m ending it. I am the new head of the west coast.” The words landed like a slap across the room.

I stepped forward, letting the weight of my presence settle over them like a noose tightening.

“This is my rightful seat. His bullshit ends now, and I will be the one to take him down.”

A younger soldato chuckled, drawing everyone’s attention off to the side.

The two closest to him visibly shrank away—they knew what was coming.

He saw it too and tried to stand taller.

When we made eye contact, he flinched. Swallowing roughly, he tried straightening his back, but his hands were shaking .

“Something funny?” I asked, getting in his face.

His voice cracked. “Yeah, it is.” His smirk widened.

“You want action now, when it should’ve been years ago.

” His jaw stuttered in his skull. “Your men have been bleeding for you for a while. But now he’s dead.

” He shook his head. “First you fuck that dirty Agostino pussy and leave us here to die. Now you want us to go to war for?—”

The bullet hit between his eyes before the last syllable fully left his mouth.

His body dropped, the wet slap of flesh against the hardwood floor echoing in the silence.

The room went deadly still. I’d taught myself not to react over the years.

But I’d also made it clear I wasn’t to be disrespected. He should have remembered that.

The two men closest to him wiped the blood from their faces with handkerchiefs, their hands steady. The rest? They stared ahead, too afraid to meet my glare.

Good.

“Anyone else have something to add?” I yelled out.

No one answered.

“Good.” I took another step forward. “Unless anyone has a better plan, we storm JP’s compound and drag him out by his fucking throat. Then I kill him with my bare hands.”

A few nods, a few murmurs of approval.

One of my captains straightened. “What do you need from us?”

I smirked. “Well, boys. Gather ?round. We’re going to set some shit on fire.”

JP was about to find out exactly what his offspring were capable of. By this time tomorrow, my father would be dead.

And I’d finally take what was mine. All of it. After I soaked these motherfuckin’ streets in blood.