I felt sweat pour down my face, felt my veins pop until they nearly burst from my flesh. Restrained and helpless, I watched Darius grab my mother by the arm and force her toward the center of the floor.
Medusa continued to growl and then started to bark, mad as hell but still obeying the command I’d issued.
“Darius, name your price. I’ll give you whatever you want. Break my spine and make me your new nightstand—”
He continued to grip my mother by the arm, and he sneered at me. “Not enough money in the world, Constantine—”
It happened so fast, I almost missed it.
My mother pulled out a steak knife that she must have grabbed from the table she’d been backed into and stabbed it right into his neck. Stabbed it so deep that the hilt of the knife almost got lost in his flesh. And then she stabbed him again ... and again.
Darius stumbled for a moment, unable to process the shock of what had happened.
The gunman turned his rifle toward them, but there was no way to shoot my mother without also shooting Darius because they were so tangled together.
And my mom was still going for it, stabbing him over and over. Her eyes were maniacal, and she looked like a bloodthirsty wolf that finallycaught its prey in a blizzard and ripped it to shreds. “You touch my son and think you’ll get away with it, you son of a bitch!”
Darius finally elbowed her hard in the face, and she hit the floor, the knife still lodged in his neck. He reached for it, and in his insanity, he yanked it out, another squirt of blood spraying like a geyser into the sky. He dropped to one knee, staring at me with a veil across his gaze, like he was already halfway gone.
That was when Rocco and Cosa Nostra leaped into action. Tommaso and the others fired at the gunmen with their handguns, and Rocco picked up a chair and slammed it down hard onto the gunman who had his rifle against me again.
Rocco knocked him out cold before he took the gun and did exactly as I’d asked and shielded Aurelia with his body before he shoved her under the table. Gunfire erupted throughout the terrace, and people ran for their lives. Cosa Nostra tried to tackle Darius’s men even though they were outnumbered.
I wasn’t taking any chances this time, so I ran to Darius to finish the job.
But right when I got there, Medusa jumped on him—and literally ripped out his throat.
He barely screamed before his windpipe was gone, and he was done. When she pulled away, her white teeth were covered in blood, her fur soaked in it. Even the bow tie that had been white was now bloodred. She growled at his body as if what she’d done wasn’t quite enough.
I went to my mother, who hadn’t moved since she’d hit the floor. “Ma.” Her eyes were closed when I found her, and I gathered her in my arms and sat her up against me.
The movement made her stir, and she sucked in a deep breath and released a gasp.
I felt the back of her head, and my hand came away with blood on it.
She let me support her as she stared at Darius before her, a massacred corpse now.
“Ma, are you okay?”
“Yeah ... yeah ... I’m fine.” She suddenly left my arms, crawled across the floor, picked up the knife Darius had yanked out, and started stabbing him in the chest with it—over and over—a mother unleashing a catharsis of grief.
I let her be. She deserved to do whatever the fuck she wanted to his body after what he’d done to Edric.
The gunfire receded, and it seemed as if Rocco and Cosa Nostra had either taken them all out or run them off.
I moved to the table where Rocco had shoved Aurelia and lifted the tablecloth to find her, clearly in shock, judging by how snow white her face was. She trembled from head to toe, and when her eyes found mine, she immediately started to sob.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay.” I pulled her into my arms under the table and clutched her tight. “He’s dead. Everything is okay ... it’s okay.”
Her hand moved to her stomach like she needed to make sure our baby was all right, that a stray bullet or a knife hadn’t come close.
I felt her hyperventilating against me, afraid not for me or for herself, but for the person we both already loved with our full hearts.
“Everything is okay,” I repeated. “Everything is okay.”
“Your mom?” she asked through her tears.
“She’s fine.” I could hear her continue to stab Darius through the tablecloth.
