The room quiets as my father walks up to the podium. I can’t help the grin from spreading across my face. He loves the spotlight and takes every opportunity to pretend he’s a legitimate businessman. And with his commanding presence and natural charisma, he can fool a room into believing just that.
I watch him speak and feel the usual tangle of emotions in my chest. Love and disappointment. Pride and resentment. Fear that never quite goes away, no matter how hard I try to put distance between our worlds.
From her position just below the stage, my mother watches him with that familiar expression etched with love and worry. Because in her world, you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop — or the other bullet to fire.
And it often does. You just never know when.
I slide through clusters of people, heading toward my mother and the stage when the first shot cracks the air.
Just wasn’t expecting that shot to already be chambered.
I reach my mother’s side. Then… chaos consumes the room.
Screams pierce the air, centerpiece vases shatter. Glass shards fly through the air as bodies hit the floor. More shots explode and panic bubbles in my chest as I cover my mother’s body with my own. She screams, shuddering against me. I dart my head around, a hiss of breath slipping from my lips. There are multiple gunmen in black masks by the service entrance, maybe three or four.
My father’s men are in front of the stage. They pull out their guns, searching for the source of the shots. Guests run, tripping over each other to get to the exits.
And my father?—
Three more shots fire, hitting him square in the chest. He crumples to the floor like a bag of cement.
“Dad!” The scream rips from my lungs as I grab Mom by the arm and rush for the stage, shoving through bodies, tripping over an overturned chair.
One of Dad’s security guys, Marco, grabs my mother and pulls her toward a side exit. She fights him, yelling for my dad.
“Mom,” I cry out. But she doesn’t hear me. Marco leads her through the door and they disappear. But Dad… I have to get to him, even if the bullets keep flying.
Even if it puts me in the line of fire, too.
My heels catch on something—the carpet, a purse, I don’t know—and I stumble but keep going. I can barely squeeze out a breath to call his name, my throat is so tight.
Vincenzo is already on stage and on the floor next to my father. He shouts orders and presses his hands against Dad’s wounds. His face is pale, blood stains blooming on his white dress shirt. Other men start to surround them, forming a circle around Dad.
But before I can move another inch, hands close around my waist from behind. They’re strong and unyielding. I struggle, trying to wiggle out of the vise-like grip.
Then my blood chills when a low, calm voice hisses, “Don’t fight me.”
But screw that. I keep fighting because I never cower.
Something I learned from Dad.
I use everything — my elbows, my fingernails, my knees. But his grip is too tight, and I’m trapped in it.
“Fuck you, that’s myfather—” I struggle and whip around to see the man from the bar holding me.
“And you’re no good to him dead.” He pulls me backward, toward the emergency exit. “Move.”
I claw at his arms, trying to break free. “Let mego?—”
“Your father’s men have him. You need to move. Now.”
“I’m not leaving him!”
More gunfire. A bullet shatters something over my head, maybe a chandelier. A stifled cry knots in my throat and I duck, covering my head with my arm.
“You don’t have a choice,” he says.
For one second, everything stops. His chest presses against my back, his breath hot against my ear.
