Page 40 of His Wicked Wants (West Coast Mobsters #6)

CHAPTER 37

NERO

In my arms, Charlotte Rochford looks up in wonder at the fireworks, entranced by the exploding lights. “Look!”

“We need to find your big sister so you can enjoy the show with her. Can you see her?” But the child is too distracted by the spreading colors in the sky to respond.

She’s not alone. Most of the faces I see around me are turned upward, watching the dazzling bursts. Like Charlotte, they are distracted, so they don’t see a quarter of the guests begin to back away, then turn and melt into the dark surrounds.

But I see them. And when I hear the underlying pops layered under the fireworks, so much closer to the ground than the show in the sky, I recognize the sound for exactly what it is and where it is coming from. Gunfire from down near the main gate.

We are under attack.

And judging by the thinned-out crowd, at least some of the people here were expecting it. Will be joining in , any second now, once they have armed themselves. Everything in me wants to run back to Gabriel, but when I turn, I can already see him being pulled toward the house by Darian, a few others with him. Gabriel doesn’t see me through the crowd—and I have a duty, too, right here in my arms.

I catch a glimpse of white. Roxy and her new husband stand near the wedding arch, also watching the fireworks with happy smiles. Gino has his arm around her and she rests her head on his shoulder, neither of them aware that their security detail has disappeared from around them.

And I’m not the only one watching them. There is one man heading swiftly toward them, and I know what the look on his face means.

I tighten my hold on Charlotte, angling her face toward the sky and away from what’s about to unfold. “Watch the pretty lights, cucciola ,” I tell her, already moving, my body positioned to shield Charlotte while closing the distance.

The man has almost reached his target. His hand reaches for the long knife with which the new couple cut their wedding cake. No guests were allowed to bring in guns or weapons of any kind, but this man—whom I recognize as one of Roxy’s occasional bodyguards—is making do with what’s to hand.

Raffi DeLuca has seen him too. He’s moving fast as an arrow, gun drawn, eyes fixed on the silent figure—but he can’t get a clear shot, and his yell of warning is drowned out by the roar of the crowd as a particularly loud bang overhead lights up the whole rose garden beneath.

At the last second I come into range. I catch the would-be killer’s wrist with my free hand, driving my fingers deep into a nerve cluster until the knife drops silently into the grass. Before he can cry out, I slam my shoulder into his sternum, sending him sprawling behind a nearby topiary. A swift stamp to the throat ensures he won’t be a further threat.

Roxy’s champagne glass shatters against the flagstones behind me as I back up. DeLuca gives me a nod as I point with meaning to the girl in my arms, and by the time I turn to face the happy couple, he’s dragged the body behind some bushes, out of sight of Charlotte Rochford, who is still happily entranced with the fireworks.

“Oh, my God,” Roxy gasps. Her breath is coming too fast. “Did he—was he—?” She stumbles over the words and takes an unsteady step backward as her head whips around. Gino moves to steady her, his own expression hardening as he processes what nearly happened to his bride.

“We need to get out of here,” I tell her. The pops that aren’t fireworks are growing closer.

“You saved me,” she says faintly. “You…”

Jack and Raffi DeLuca jog up, and I catch the tail end of their discussion, with DeLuca saying, “—into the pool house, where we can protect them.” He glances at me as I approach. “Nice work,” he says. “You armed?”

I was instructed to leave all weapons in the armory at the Retreat or in the house—no longer trusted, despite working security for tonight—but I don’t waste time pretending I followed orders. I give a short nod.

“Then keep being useful. We need to get the civilians to the pool house.”

My first instinct is to say no. I need to find Gabriel. But Charlotte is staring with apprehension at her sister Roxanne, who is hyperventilating in Gino Bernardi’s arms.

“I’m going to round up Miller and Nate,” Jack says.

“Darian was already leading them and Gabriel up to the house when I saw them,” I tell him.

The look of horror that crosses both Jack and DeLuca’s faces surprises me until DeLuca says, “The house is already under heavy fire.” Immediately the same terror seizes my heart. In my arms, Charlotte has gone quiet.

I pause, breathe, trying to think. Once Charlotte is safe, I can run for Gabriel. “Let’s get the bride and groom to safety, and then we can get to work.”

“We’ll need a lot more firepower,” DeLuca says. “Before comms cut out, I had a report that the Bernardis had shown up at the gate armed to the fucking teeth with a whole lot of PacSynners with them, too—and then a report that a group of Bernardi guests were running up to the gatehouse from inside the grounds, too.”

Treacherous fucks. The Bernardis have always been the part of La Contessa’s plans most likely to implode, so I’m not surprised. Just angry that I didn’t press Roxanne more on making sure her security team was up to the task. She insisted over and over again that they were—but I should have known better. And perhaps those little irritations in Liggari’s turf were designed to keep me occupied, keep my attention elsewhere, a combined effort with PacSyn. The fire at the Chinese restaurant. The threats at GreenSpace. The destruction of the community garden.

My fury rises.

Jack is already backing away. “I’ll head to the Retreat to pick up some weapons to hand out, and then I’ll get up to the house and see what I can do,” he says. “In the meantime, you two need to get our guests to safety.”

DeLuca rounds up Gino and Roxanne, the wedding planner Bettina, the celebrant, and a few other innocents—and then Leo Bernardi arrives, thank God. He can take these people to safety, leaving me free to get to Gabriel. Roxy, having recovered from her panic, now looks wild.

“Charlie!” she calls out. “Give me Charlie!” Charlotte has started to cry, reaching out her arms to her sister. But I turn away when Roxy tries to snatch the child from me.

“Let me keep the little one for now,” I tell her. “We need to run and hide and you will be weighed down. I will protect the child with my life.”

“Please,” she whispers. “Please keep her safe—if anything happened to her, I’d?—”

“Nothing will happen to her. You have my word.”

“I gotta go, babe,” Gino says. He’s been conferring with Leo, and he reaches out now to ruffle Charlotte’s head. “You okay, kid? Yeah, you’re okay.” He smiles at Roxy. “You will be, too, babe.”

“How many?” DeLuca asks the Lion, who motions us closer.

“About a quarter of the assholes who stood there witnessing the wedding,” he growls, and I wrap my hand around Charlotte’s ears as best I can, and not out of concern for the language. Because I remember being her age. I remember how much I picked up from adult chatter. And I remember how helpless I felt. “They’ve been turned—or maybe they were never on board from the start. Either way, they’re working with the splinter group now. And Pac-fucking-Syn, too. Those motherfuckers—” He breaks off. “Look, I gotta get out there with Gino and start evening the odds. Can you two?—”

“Go,” DeLuca tells him briefly. “We’ve got this.”

The Bernardi brothers run off together, and for the first time I believe that Roxy actually has some genuine feeling for her new husband, based on the terrified moan she gives as he leaves.

But if there’s anyone we need in the battle right now, it’s Leo Bernardi.

DeLuca is already motioning our small group to follow him. “Move it, people. We need to go now .”

Roxy doesn’t move, and for a moment, I wonder if she’ll refuse his help. “Where are we going?”

“Pool house,” he says, and grabs her hand to pull her along with him, motioning to the other guests to follow. And it turns out that Roxy’s self-preservation instincts are strong enough to override her dislike of Raffi DeLuca, as she lets him pull her forward.

I run along behind the last of them, pressing Charlotte’s face into my shoulder as the screams and yells begin to swell around the grounds. The fireworks are still going and the sound of the gunfire along with them.

We make it to the pool house, where Roxy and Charlotte are tearfully reunited, and where Pedretti and his Esposito boyfriend, Bricker, have already deposited another small group of innocents—the few Bernardi wives and girlfriends who attended—with the same thought about the defensiveness of the structure.

We get the civilians holed up in the pool house, the cement and steel walls offering excellent protection, bullet-resistant glass in the windows, and as long as the door holds, they should be safe.

There. My duty has been discharged. And now—“I need to go,” I tell DeLuca. “Gabriel and Darian and the others went to the house to hide. If they’re in danger?—”

“They’ll be safe in the panic rooms,” Pedretti assures me.

“But if they didn’t make it to?—”

“They will have. But we’re going to clear out the house together, all of us, and make sure everyone we love is safe. You run off alone, you’re helping no one.” There’s something about Pedretti’s quiet resolve that calms me, too. Lets my mind sharpen, move away from panic.

Panic. I haven’t felt panic since the night La Contessa’s men plucked me off the streets. That night I was terrified for myself. Tonight, though…

Running footsteps make all of us turn, raise our weapons—even Bricker is armed, I note—but it’s only Jack. He looks grim. “There’s a whole damn army of PacSyn spread throughout the grounds,” he says. “Retreat’s cut off.”

“There are just too many of these bastards,” Bricker is saying, frustrated. “I’ve been trying to call my crew for backup, but my damn phone is down. Anyone got cell service?”

We all check our phones. Heads shake, and my panic inches up again. “They are blocking cell reception. They thought of everything,” I say through gritted teeth. “We need to get to the house?—”

“First things first,” Pedretti says. “Who’s staying here to protect the guests?”

Neither Raffi nor I respond. Both of us have priorities beyond the guests. And yet…I cannot leave a child to the mercy of these animals.

But neither can I leave Gabriel. I won’t— can’t leave him there alone…

My panic is rising and I’m backing away slowly, but before I can turn and run toward the house, something catches my attention. We all hear it: the footsteps of more than one man, running fast toward the pool house.

As one unit, we all raise our weapons and ready ourselves for attack.