Page 114 of The Temptation

The air crackles with urgency. No one hesitates. The men scatter without comment, executing orders with practised precision. Boots hammer against the tarmac, voices rise, sharp and purposeful.

And through it all, Dante’s hands don’t stop—even as he fights to save his best friend’s life—he remains the Don. Calm in chaos. Commanding even in heartbreak.

Someone’s voice, sharp and panicked, is barking into a phone, relaying Romeo’s condition to the paramedics, but it all begins to fade into background noise.

I have nothing left. The fight drains from my body like the last flicker of light. I curl into Dominic’s warmth, which seems like the only steady thing in a world that’s currently falling apart.

My fists unclench.

My breathing slows.

I close my eyes against the pain, against the image of Romeo lying motionless just a few feet away.

And I silently beg the darkness to take me too.

If he’s not coming back, I don’t want to wake up either.

Chapter 27

Dante

“Amore mio(My love),” I breathe down the line as soon as my wife answers my call.

“Dante, where are you? Is everything okay?”

“I’m sorry to wake?—”

“You didn’t wake me,” Arabella responds, cutting me off. “You know what I’m like. I couldn’t go back to sleep when you left. I’ve been pinging off the walls. Something has happened. I heard you mention Lucia’s name on the phone.”

“She’s coming home,Bellezza(Beauty). Dominic is on his way there with her now.”

“Lu-Lu’s coming home?” she breathes, her voice cracking as she speaks.

“She is.”

“And what about Giuseppe and his men?”

I clear my throat. “They’ve been taken care of. She’s safe now.”

I’ve even gone as far as contacting Roberto to intercept the plane when it touches down in Italy. The bodies and the pilot will all disappear. I don’t want any more backlash fromthis. I want time to enjoy my little girl and my wife without all the uncertainty and tension that’s been hanging over my head for the past few months.

“Oh, Dante,” she cries down the line.

“I have to warn you, Arabella, she’s not in a good way.”

“Oh, no. Is she hurt?”

I close my eyes as images of Romeo’s lifeless body flicker through my mind. “She’s heartbroken.”

“Heartbroken? Why?”

“When she left the airstrip, I was on my hands and knees trying to resuscitate Romeo.”

I hear her audibly gasp down the line. “Romeo is dead?”

“He was when I got to him. I managed to get his heart beating again. We were in the middle of nowhere, so we had to lift him into the back of the car. I continued to work on him as we drove to meet the ambulance halfway. He flatlined a second time before we arrived at the hospital. He’s in surgery now. He’s lost a lot of blood.” I tilt my head towards the ceiling as I struggle to keep it together. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it,tesoro(Sweetheart).”

We don’t usually involve ambulances or hospitals in theFamigliabecause it comes with questions and too much attention. The feds are already breathing down our necks, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Romeo wouldn’t have made it otherwise, and that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.