Page 25 of Blood and Penance (The Puglisi Crime Family #1)
Chapter Twenty-Four
Phoenix
I’ve been pacing the hall of some kind of medical clinic.
I should have known the Puglisi’s wouldn’t have used a real hospital.
While it pissed me off that Seraphina is being cared for by anyone connected to the Puglisi family, it has state-of-the-art equipment, and I trust Gianni’s judgment that this is the best place for my sister to be right now.
And Dr. Ramirez, the surgeon working on Seraphina, is also supposed to be one of the top surgeons in the country and seemed genuinely concerned about her care.
Why he’s on the Puglisi payroll, I have no idea.
“What did Ramirez say?” Sergio asks.
Seraphina had been shot twice and has lost a lot of blood.
However, by the marks marring her skin she put up one hell of a fight to keep my son safe.
While I’m fucking furious that she’s had any contact with Sergio because she knows how dangerous he is, I lay what happened at the feet of Giovanni Puglisi, and this bastard waiting on an answer he'll never get from me.
I stop pacing and glare at him with disgust. The mere thought of his question has me contemplating his murder, especially knowing that he’s the reason Seraphina’s hurt and my son is with his crazy ass grandfather.
But no matter how much I’d love to kill him, I wouldn’t be able to get close to him because of the two gigantic goons standing on his left and his right, looking at my every move.
Like I might attack their boss at any moment. If they weren’t here, I would.
Sergio’s shirtless, only wearing black slacks and dress shoes.
His chest and arms are covered in very intricate tattoos, including the Puglisi name tattooed across his chest. It’s the same black and white tattoo Gianni has across his.
From what Gianni told me, all the members of the Puglisi family get this tattoo when they kill their first man.
It commemorates the event as well as show their loyalty to the Family like taking a life in the name of Giovanni Puglisi isn’t enough.
I remember the day Gianni had gotten his like it was yesterday.
He had just turned sixteen, and we were going to skip school that day to hang out the entire day together.
However, he didn’t show up at our favorite spot when he was supposed to.
I stayed there all day waiting for him. The longer I waited the more worried I became.
When he showed up sometime right after nightfall, I knew something was wrong.
He had a very hard time coming to terms with what he had done for his father that day.
He cried the entire time he told me what he had been forced to do by Giovanni.
He didn’t even know the man’s name, but he’d been forced to cut his tongue out of his mouth because he was a rat, then put a bullet in his head.
And that’s when I knew I’d always hate Giovanni Puglisi.
He only cared about himself. I refuse to let Giancarlo anywhere near him and suffer the fate his father had to live through.
Sergio’s been patched up from where Gianni shot him in both shoulders. Stark white bandages, against his inked skin, are soaked through with blood. I wish Gianni had aimed a little lower so I wouldn’t be having this conversation with him.
I hate him.
“This is your fault,” I sneer. “And you have the fucking nerve to ask me what the doctor said. Why are you even here, Sergio? Get the hell out of here!”
With a long, slow breath, he extends his legs, the muscles relaxing, his head lolling back against the cool white plaster of the wall as he stares up at the ceiling. “I’m not going anywhere, Phoenix.”
“Nobody wants you here!”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says so calmly it gets under my skin. “I’m not leaving until I know she’s okay.”
“Well, it’s none of your fucking business if she’s okay. You’re the reason she’s even here, asshole!!”
His head turns to me, and he glares. “You don’t think, I know that!
” he says, his pale skin turning red. “If I could go back and undo what the fuck I did, I would. He told me she wouldn’t be harmed, and I fucking believed him.
I always fucking believe him,” he mumbles to himself, but I heard him loud and clear.
“You’re old enough to know you shouldn’t trust a fucking snake, Sergio.
They always bite. And that’s what your father is, a fucking snake.
You should have learned a long time ago the type of man he is.
Now look what’s happened.” He doesn’t say anything, but he continues to stare at me with so much hate.
“I swear on my life, if anything happens to my child or my sister, nobody will be able to save you from me. I will finish what Gianni started. And trust me, I don’t have any allegiance to you. I will kill you.”
He stares at me for a moment, and the anger dissipates from his eyes. “You don’t have to worry about that. If she doesn’t make it, I’ll kill myself.”
His comment leaves me speechless as a wave of shock washes over me. And I can see in the intensity of his gaze, that he means every word. Before I can ask him any questions about their relationship and how long it had been going on, gunfire erupts outside the building, causing me to jump.
Fear takes over my entire body, and it’s like I can’t move as shouts and more gunfire erupt outside the building.
Sergio jumps to his feet and grabs me by the arm. “Take her.” He pushes me toward one of his men. “Don’t let anything touch her.”
The man nods, then drags me to a room not too far from where we were sitting.
He opens the door, then pushes me in, causing me to stumble.
When he closes the door, he locks it. He frantically looks around the room.
It has stainless steel shelving with labeled bins and boxes sitting on them as well as medical supplies, including glove boxes, sterile gauze, bins of syringes, and IV bags.
There’s also a linen cart full of gowns, sheets, and medical pads.
“Hide,” he orders as he pulls out his gun, backing away from the door.
“Where the hell do you think, I’m going to hide,” I whisper yell as gunfire continues to sound outside the room.
However, it sounds closer than it did before. They've made it inside the building.
“Fuck if I know lady." He glares at me over his shoulder. “Just get somewhere and hide.”
“Give me a gun."
He arches his brow.
“Give me a fucking gun!” I scream. “I need to protect myself.”
He reaches down, and pulls a gun from an ankle holster, then hands it to me. “Don’t shoot me or yourself.”
I roll my eyes, before looking around the room, trying to find a place to hide. But there’s no time. Voices filter through the door. The doorknob rattles, and Sergio’s man, aims his gun.
The door is too thick for either of us to shoot through it. So, the only choice we have is to wait to see if they can get in here.
Somebody gives the order from outside the door to shoot the lock. And within seconds of the order, a gun goes off then, the door is kicked in. Sergio’s man fires off a few rounds along with me, before he falls to the floor. I shoot until the gun clicks, but nobody comes through the door.
“Fuck!” I yell as I toss the gun to the floor.
A dark chuckle sends a shiver down my spine. My eyes narrow on no other than Matteo Mancchione, Lio’s right-hand man as his frame fills the threshold. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. D’Amico.”
“You son of a bitch!” I step back until my back collides with the shelving behind me. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.”
He steps over the bodies of the men laying in front of the door. “No, you shouldn’t have. But we wouldn’t be here if you had done what the fuck you were supposed to do,” he sneers. “Now you have to face the consequences of trying to kill the boss.”
He grabs me by the arm, then drags me out of the room. Shell casings, bodies, and blood decorate the hallway. My eyes land on Sergio. I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive when we walk past, but he’s not moving and he’s covered in blood.
“I’ll tell Lio, you’re the one who helped me.”
He looks over at me, and a wide grin crosses his face. “And do you think he’ll believe you?”
By the way he looks at me and the confidence in his voice, I already know the answer. Lio won’t believe a word out of my mouth especially when it comes to Matteo. He looks at him like he’s a brother even though he’s just as power-hungry and ruthless as Lio, if not more.
Matteo’s dark chuckle bounces off the wall as he yanks me harder toward the exit.
At least Giancarlo will be spared having to deal with Lio or watching him take out his anger on me.
I pray that Gianni keeps him safe and raises him outside of this world because once I’m in Lio’s hands, I’m not getting away from him unless it’s in a body bag.