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Greta inadvertently pressed down on the bullet wound in my arm, reminding me that I’d been shot—a flesh wound, fortunately. I resisted the urge to squeal and hugged her back.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” Greta barked, but the stern effect was lost when her voice cracked and she jostled us both with a wracking sob.
“I won’t,” I whispered, not bothering to mention it hadn’t exactly been my intention to do it the first time.
Instead of dragging me away, Vito got his arms around me from behind, wrapping them right around Greta and dropping his head down on mine. He didn’t speak, leaving me free to wonder again how he’d gotten here so quickly. He’d been spying on me the whole time, hadn’t he? I decided it didn’t matter at the moment and turned my head to plant a kiss on his cheek.
Now that it seemed all my family would be okay, I turned to find the one man I wanted to see most.
The man I would always want to see most.
Where was he?
Amid all the familiar and unfamiliar faces, I couldn’t find him.
I’d only just managed to take a step back when the sound of a gunshot tore through me and the strange gray world threatened to turn black.
Chapter Fifty
Raven
I was running.
My feet moved, one in front of the other, but I couldn’t feel them.
Nothing existed but for the loud crack that kept playing over and over again in my head.
I stuttered to a stop outside the open warehouse door and saw Gabe standing over Diego’s body. Blood seeped from a single bullet hole in the center of Diego’s forehead as Gabe dropped the gun from his hand and turned away.
Tears sprung to my eyes. Nico was fine.But where is he?
I whipped my head around, searching for him. It was only because the gray world had spewed back some of its color that I spotted him. He was so far away, I could only make out the general tall, broad shape of him, but it was him.
Ignoring the voices all around me, I darted after him, pounding along the gravel as fast as my legs would carry me.
Something was wrong—it had to be.
Why else would he have walked away?
My lungs had begun to burn by the time I caught up to him. I bent to catch my breath as he spun to face me.
He was bleeding. I’d been so relieved to see him alive before that I hadn’t noticed it, but he’d suffered no small number of injuries rescuing me. Gashes and narrow puncture wounds dotted his body. Blood dripped in a slow but steady stream down his fingers from a wound I couldn’t see.
“You’re hurt,” I said stupidly. Now that I’d caught up to him, I had no idea what to say. “Thank you” didn’t really seem to cut it.
“I’ll be fine, Raven. Go,” he said, nodding back toward the others.
“No.” I shook my head.
He cocked an eyebrow, but his expression was otherwise blank.
An image of Cesare flashed through my head, and I bit back the sob that tremored up my chest. Cesare was dead because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking but failing miserably.
His stone expression cracked just a little. “You don’t have to be sorry, Raven. I understand.”
I tilted my head to the right. “What are you talking about?”
