Page 6

Another crack echoed across the space.

And suddenly I knew it was not a sound of celebration.

But a harbinger of death.

Because Dario had thrown me to the ground at what had been the feet of my father.

Only Vincenzo Cavallaro was not standing tall and proud on the day of his youngest child’s wedding.

He was lying belly down on the pristine white marble in a spreading pool of his own blood, his face tipped to mine and one eye blown out by the passage of a bullet through the back of his skull.

Chapter Two

Fiammetta

I was only able to drag my eyes away from my dead father when I heard Beppe’s vicious string of curses seconds before he dropped to his knees clutching at the right side of his chest. I watched as blood seeped out from between his fingers, spilling thickly down the front of his white dress shirt.

Above me, Dario shifted, pushing me between the shoulder blades down flat against the marble.

“Stay down,” he demanded before he moved off me as he gained his feet.

“Fiammetta,” Niccolo yelled, panic raw in his tone.

I whipped my head up and around to watch as he started to sprint to me, only to be caught by a bullet. It punched into his gut so viciously he went rocking back a step and then staggered, falling to the ground, landing half on the steps before rolling in a limp heap down the stairs. His body came to a tangled stop at the base of them, a bloody smear in his wake.

“No!” I screamed, about to get up to run to him.

Another gunshot split the air.

Ricco gave a truncated shout as he fell flat to his back with a pained grunt.

Beppe, on his other side, was face down and unmoving.

So I focused on the only man in the vicinity I loved who I knew wasn’t dead, even though turning my back on Niccolo burned in me like its own bullet wound.

“Run,” Ricco grunted when I loomed at his side, looking for something to staunch the heavily bleeding hole in his chest. “Fiammetta, you must run.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I gritted out through my teeth, finally deciding my wedding dress was the easiest substance to use for his wound.

I shuffled to my bottom so I could grip the hem of the delicate lace overlay and ripped. A huge swathe of fabric came off in my hands. I immediately folded it into a thick square before shoving Ricco’s fingers aside so I could press it to his wound.

His hiss of pain turned into a gurgling noise at the back of his throat.

“Ricco?” I asked.

He shook his head slightly and coughed, bloody spittle spewing from his lips.

Santa Madonna!

“Hit my lung,” he managed weakly, his breath already ragged and wet.

“What do I do?” I begged him to tell me, only distantly aware of the chaos going on around me.

Dario’s voice was loud in the background, directing people, and faraway sirens were growing closer.

But all my focus was on my eldest brother.

“Pen,” he whispered.