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I walked over to the closet and pulled out one of the new dresses I had bought. A surprise at Sunday dinner would be perfect. Just get it all out in the open at once. I would call Luka and ask him to meet me, tell him everything. In the end, I hoped he would understand.
Just as I was about to slip into the dress, I heard keys in the door.
“Luka? Is that you?”
The door opened and I walked out of the closet, expecting to see him in his Sunday best. He left the apartment this morning in a sexy suit with a dark blue tie. I hadn't seen him ever look hotter. But as I held the dress up to myself and turned around, I stifled a scream.
My uncle was standing in the bedroom. And he had a gun pointed at my head.
22
Vienna
“What the hell are you doing here? Put that gun down!”
I looked at the man in front of me. He looked completely deranged. His usual suit was replaced with jeans and a T-shirt. His hair that was usually combed to one side was disheveled. His hands shook and his finger was on the trigger.
“I've been watching you. I knew you would side with them in the end.”
“Side with who? The Giotis? They haven't done anything wrong! What you're doing right now is wrong. Put the gun away, Roberto!” My voice wavered. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. What was he doing?
Was I going to die over this? Would I lose the new family I was building?
He shook his head and wiped sweat from his brow. “I can't do that.”
He moved toward me, and I felt the clothes against my back as I reached the corner of the closet. I didn't have any weapons, and I wasn't the type of girl to be good in a fight. I was in trouble.
“Why can't you? I'm your niece! Don't you want the bloodshed to end?”
“You can't really be with him. He's a traitor. He took your family from you. Can't you see that?”
“I guess love just creates blinders. It doesn't matter to me about the past. I'm looking forward to my future. You can have a future too, uncle. You just have to put the gun down.”
He shook his head. “You’re just like her. Running away from the family.”
“I'm not like her. I'm not trying to run away from you. I just need this to end. I've made my choice!”
“That's what she said. Right before she packed her things and got in the car with that drunk bastard that brought her here. And then she really turned her back on us by working for another family. Like they were her blood! They were not her family. We are.”
I needed time. I needed to calm him down and make my way over to the bed where the gun was hidden beneath the mattress. I needed to shoot my uncle. It was the only way I would ever get out of this alive. I had to protect myself and my baby. All of these years of pent up aggression toward my mother and wondering the truth about what happened to her had made him a crazy man.
I should have seen the signs earlier. When I first went to live with him, my grandmother was still alive. She would cook for us every night, and sitting at that table with the two of them felt like home. But every night, during prayers, my uncle would mention my mother, and it always broke my heart.
When my grandmother passed, he became more unhinged. I remembered family members coming to the house and telling him he needed to get his life together. That was when he started focusing on finding my mother’s killer. I should have noticed then. The times he would stay up all night watching Baltimore news online. How much he visited my mother’s grave. He began prepping me for Luka’s release. All the things I needed to say, to do, to make sure he fell for me.
But neither of us had planned on me falling in love with him. Or maybe I had lied to him and myself this whole time. Did I really want the truth, or did I just want a reason to be close to Luka again? I wasn’t sure. Clearly, that had fueled his insanity further. I needed to figure out a way to escape.
I refused to be his next victim.
23
Luka
As I walked up the stairs, I realized that I didn't recognize the car out front. Maybe there was a new tenant in the building. That seemed odd to me, as I hadn't seen any recent moving trucks. But I guessed one of the lofts could've been rented for a few weeks. I'd only been back less than a week myself.
In less than one month, shit had completely hit the fan. Between finding Vienna and falling back in love with her, her pregnancy, a rat, and the threat of the Agnelli family, my world was coming unhinged. And I wasn’t happy about it.
When I saw my door open, I realized my world could still explode.
