Page 1 of Thorns of Death

PROLOGUE

ENRICO

Past

Iwatched the life ending right in front of my eyes.

I’d seen it so many times before, you’d think I’d be numb to it by now. Yet right now, it touched me down to my soul. To my bones. And fear settled there.

A fear that I’d lose another person I loved. First it was my mother. Then my father. Now my brother.

Panic momentarily froze me in place and suffocated me, slowly but surely.

“It was an ambush. They had twenty men waiting for us,” my uncle shouted.

I ran to the car decorated with bullet holes and ripped the door open, pulling out my brother’s slumped body. He was the same size as me. Except his face, so similar to mine, was now deathly pale.

His body lay sprawled on the grass as it quickly turned crimson. With the vineyards affording us shelter, I ripped open my brother’s shirt and listened for a heartbeat.

The world moved in slow motion yet still too fast while I waited for signs of life. When it didn’t come, I rushed to perform CPR.

One. Two. Three. Breathe.

One. Two. Three. Breathe.

Repeat. Fucking repeat. As many times as it required to bring him back to life. I felt again for a pulse, and it was there, so faint and unsteady that I almost missed it.

I inhaled a relieved breath.

My ears buzzed with adrenaline. My heart thundered with fear.

Manuel and another shadow lingered behind me, blocking us from view.

“He won’t make it.” I recognized Kingston’s voice. “That slash in his abdomen and bullet in his chest… You shouldn’t try to save him. It’s too late.”

I shook my head, my hands bloodied. Soon they’d be soaked in it.

My brother lay on the soft ground like a broken leaf. My men’s voices grew nearer, and Manuel barked orders as he sent all the guards to the front gate of the property. They’d ensure nobody else was killed tonight.

I grabbed my brother’s cold hand. “Don’t you fucking die,” I shouted. If I had any say in it, he’d stay alive. For thefamiglia. “Wake the fuck up!”

His eyelids peeled open. “You know what to do.” His words were breathy, each a futile struggle.

Those were his last words, and my heart bled as I watched the light in his eyes extinguish. But the fucking world continued to turn. The waves continued hitting the shore, seagulls sounded high in the sky, celebrating their freedom.

Somehow, I fucking knew we’d end up here. His impulsiveness, his sense of entitlement and invincibility… they were his damnation all along. I just hoped it’d strike much later in life.

“You know what he means, don’t you,nipote?” Manuel usually used that word,nephew, when things were bad or when he wanted to annoy me. The latter wasn’t the case this time. As his hand came to rest on my shoulder, my heart twisted.

I knew what he meant. The burden became mine, and it turned my heart to stone.

Maybe it was that day I lost myself, and I became one and the same with the thorns of death.

ONE

ISLA

Present