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Chapter One
“Death comes to each and every one of us. No one knows the time or the place, the day or year. No one can predict if an accidental death will approach or health issues will claim the lives of those we love.” The priest turned his attention to the Blazier family seated on the folding chairs directly in front of four closed caskets, placed back-to-back. “But as we’ve seen here today and in the weeks leading up to this sad occasion, death arrives in its own time. It comes with a vengeance and attacks the families least expecting its shadowed face.”
Coco bowed her head and said a prayer for the Blazier family, admitting then, if only to herself, that she was praying for herself, too. She’d known the Blazier boys for most of her life and had spent the last four years with them on a regular, almost daily, basis. Her last name might have been Baldini, but today her name was Blazier, too.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The priest continued the memorial rituals, but Coco had already slipped away from the present, reverting to the past she wouldn’t soon forget, to the days leading up to a murderous occasion, a terrifying event.
As much as she tried, she couldn’t forget the gut-wrenching sounds of repetitive gunfire, machine guns spitting out ammunition so fast she couldn’t tell where the guns had been fired. She still remembered Momma Blazier sitting in her bed, patting her pistol and pleading with Coco, “Run! Now! Don’t look back!”
Terrified, Coco had listened to her. She had gone into hiding and Momma Blazier had died in her bed, forty-eight bullets had been pumped into her body as if she’d been used for target practice. Later when the smoke cleared, the police discovered four bodies total. Two of those dead were Geraldine Blazier’s twin boys. Only eighteen years old, they were too young to even understand what had happened, why their family had been targeted for a rage killing, merciless slaughters that even adults couldn’t quite comprehend.
She shook off the unbearable memories, realizing the Blazier family had their own enemies, faced their own dangerous challenges in business. These deaths weren’t because of her father or because of some debt owed to the wrong people. A debt that hadn’t been paid, a fine no one would ever be able to settle because the tally was unknown, the amount owed was far more than the average person could even imagine.
Beside her, Brandon clutched her left hand. His shoulders sagged as he held on for dear life. She squeezed his hand in return, aware of another Blazier reaching for her, too. Liam, the quietest of the original eleven sons, had
seldom shown his emotions and perhaps wouldn’t show them much again. He leaned against her, his long slender digits stretching and searching before he entwined their fingers and released a burdened sigh.
“As a family friend and your mother’s closest confidant, I am compelled to speak on her behalf. She would want you boys to go out and right these wrongs that have been brought against your family.” Priest Bowlin stopped abruptly and looked quite shaken as if he couldn’t believe he’d said such a thing. He fumbled with his notes, and paused with his head bowed. “She would want…” He stopped again and cleared his throat, dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and acknowledged a newcomer in the distance, a man now standing by a massive oak tree, ten feet or so from where the family members were seated.
As if he’d lost his train of thought indefinitely, the priest glared at the stranger. He only finished after each of the Blazier brothers had turned to see who or what had distracted him. “Your mother, Geraldine Blazier, would want you to remember those who live by the sword, die by its blade. An eye for an eye, she would likely say.”
Brandon peered over his shoulder a final time and Coco looked, too. The stranger responsible for rattling the priest was gone.
Brandon dropped her hand and rested his fists on his knees, staring straight ahead. Liam only gripped her fingers tighter. She felt his pain and harbored it as her own as she acknowledged the sorrow in his eyes, the grief that had taken his heart and twisted it into bits.
“Your mother would seek revenge, boys.” Priest Bowlin then looked at Coco spot on. “Geraldine Blazier was your friend and confidant, too. She died protecting you but do not carry that guilt. Do not own it. If you hadn’t been by her bedside, one of her boys would’ve been and she would’ve done the exact same for any of them. She loved you, Miss Baldini.” Then, in an act that would’ve been deemed inappropriate in some situations, he scanned the Blazier men’s faces and said, “And she wanted each of you to love and protect Miss Baldini as well.”
He then shook each of their hands and went back to stand beside the coffins. Once there, he said, “We lay to rest Geraldine Blazier, sixty-five years old. We lay to rest Geraldine’s sons—Nate Blazier, thirty-five years old and Geraldine’s twin boys, Juan and Jahn Blazier, eighteen years old. May they rest in peace.”
A harp was then played and a woman sang a howling song. Coco couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. She hadn’t picked the music or recommended the vocalist. In fact, she hadn’t been a part of the arrangements at all and had been surprised when the Blaziers had saved her a seat with the family. After their mother and brothers had been killed, they seemed to shut down and everything had happened quickly. Right before the local police and detectives had arrived to investigate the murders, Brandon had sent her home. He’d asked her to stay there until one of them returned for her.
They hadn’t come. They hadn’t sent for her. They’d even turned her away at the gate when she’d gone to see them.
Four weeks had passed and arrangements had been put on hold until Dallas and Dante returned from their business trip overseas. She had grieved their mother and brothers without them, crying on her sisters’ shoulders night after night and wondering what she had done wrong, why they hadn’t wanted her near when their hearts were broken, their lives had been torn apart.
As the memorial service was brought to a close, the Blazier brothers filtered through the crowd, thanking their friends and neighbors for their support. Coco stood next to Momma Blazier’s casket. In a voice so low she was certain no one would hear her, she said, “You were a mother to me, Momma Blazier. You took me in and taught me how to be strong for my sisters, but how can I be strong now when you aren’t around? How can I be an example to them when I no longer have you to show me how to lead?” A sob broke free and she tried to stop the cry from escaping her lips as much as the tears streaming from her eyes.
She turned away and hurried down the hillside behind the cemetery, hoping no one had noticed her leave. Behind her, Kurt Blazier called out to her, “Coco? Wait!”
Afraid he would only call out in a louder voice, Coco stopped abruptly. She couldn’t face him. Somewhere deep inside, she realized the older Blazier sons weren’t so sure of their enemy, weren’t entirely positive the attack on their home had been related to their business. They had to have known there was another possibility, one they might have acknowledged right after their mother’s and brothers’ deaths.
