Page 62 of Ruthless King

Meeting my gaze, he shakes his head before I can even ask him.

“A van is out front,” he says.

“Good.” Fabio strips his suit jacket and gently wads it around Vin’s head.

I choke down the part of me wanting to demand he let him go. Leave him in peace.

As if reading my mind, Fabio meets my gaze directly. “We have to move him quickly. We can’t take him to any hospital in the area. Not with themafiya—” He breaks off and gestures Javier over. Together they lift Vin between them. “I know a man who owes me a favor,” Fabio says as they head for the door. “He’ll get the best care, Don. I will see to that.”

He’ll see…

I can’t. The world goes dark, and I feel a bitter sense of dread. The same darkness that came over me when Olivia died.

When Safiya…

That thick, hopeless black.

The only way out is to breathe.

Suppress.

Feel nothing…

But rage.

In this moment, anger is the only cure.

Retribution—by any means necessary.

22

DON

“He’s alive.” It’s the first thing Fabio says the second he steps foot into the villa, and it doesn’t even register.

Alive.

That word lacks the connotation he thinks it has. After hours of silence, I’ve come to terms with what to expect. Hell, I’ve lived through this before. Seen the aftermath. Suffered this hell. You don’t come out of a gunshot wound to the head alive. If anything, you exist—a shell fed by a series of tubes and machinery. Breathing, but not much more than that.

So no, I can tell from his face alone that even if he has a heartbeat, Vincenzo isn’t alive.

Hope is a cruel fucking thing, gnawing away at my psyche regardless, daring me to believe—but I can’t.

I won’t.

“Donatello?”

Fabio steps closer. I haven’t moved from the position he left me in, seated on the floor of the entryway. His jaw clenches as he realizes, horror flashing in his eyes. I look down and discover why. Fuck, my hands are sticky, covered in red. So much goddamn red.

The amount only proves my point. He’s dead.

“He’s alive,” Fabio repeats, crouching to meet my gaze directly. I’ve known him for too damn long not to see the fear written across his face, contradicting the words leaving his mouth.

“Tell me the truth,” I demand. God, I don’t even recognize the sound of my voice. This cold, lifeless man. He’s a phantom I thought I’d left in the past.

“I won’t lie,” Fabio warns. “He’s in a coma. His condition is serious. There is no real prognosis.”

“Where is he?” I start to stand, but Fabio sighs.