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My eyes met his cold blue ones that looked sadder than usual. “If he dies… I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much, Luca.”
Luca curved his arm around me and rested my head on his hard chest. “It’s okay, baby. Close your eyes. It will all be over soon.”
“No, it won’t. Those men will come back for me. This is only the beginning. Isn’t it?”
He nodded. “They will return. Next time, they’ll have more resources.” Luca swiped a tear from beneath my eye. “We’ll be ready.”
I glanced around the room. A worried Sonny shoved a hand through his blond hair, biting the inside of his cheek. Drake had tears in his eyes as he watched Pops operate. When he caught me looking, he turned his head and wiped at his eyes.
Arlo waited outside the plastic curtain, his arms crossed with his back to us. His gaze hadn’t shifted from Marcello, not once. Bastian and Damian leaned into each other, speaking in hushed tones. Their faces were as cold and emotionless as marble. Like Luca, I couldn’t get a read on them. None of the Salvatores wore their emotions. They had learned from an early age how to bottle them up.
I recognized a few of The Devil’s Knights sitting at a table pushed into the corner of the room. Cole Marshall, the tallest of the bunch, had white-blond hair styled off his forehead. He wore hunter green fatigues and a fitted shirt that made his big biceps look more prominent.
Callum Cormac sat beside Cole, his head lowered to his lap as he loosened on his tie. Finn was on his right, the youngest of the Cormac boys. He had the same blond hair and sun-kissed skin as his brothers.
I closed my eyes, attempting to block out the beeping monitor. To forget about the man who held me at knifepoint. The bullet lodged into Marcello’s liver.
My grandfather yelled, “We’re losing him.”
With those words, I moved toward the curtain, following the sound of his voice. Luca shouted my name, but I couldn’t make out the rest of the words over the ringing in my ears. My pulse thumped in my neck, pounding hard and fast.
I stopped beside Arlo. He stood painfully still, his eyes on his son. Lights flashed before my eyes, Marcello’s name a whisper on my lips. More sounds penetrated the air, voices reaching a higher octave.
Machines screeched. Pops yelled something, and as his face came into focus, someone moved behind me, crushing me against a hard chest.
I squirmed, a scream ripping from my lips as someone jammed a needle into my arm. “No,” I slurred.
“He’s gone,” someone said from a distance.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Before I could process the words, I lost my footing… and the room spun around me.
My father crossed his arms over his chest, watching the medical team work on my brother. We were the same height, six foot three inches, and had the same black hair and rugged features. In so many ways, we were the same.
He hadn’t spoken a word since Carl started operating on Marcello. Cold and calculated, Arlo Salvatore was a man with no emotions. I learned everything from him. How to fight, how to lead, how to kill, and how to shut out the world. Not once did his veneer slip to let me know what he was thinking.
Most people hated my father because he was ruthless, fearless, and downright terrifying, but they also respected him. I’d known from an early age he was preparing me for the harshness of the world. Every scar was a lesson, a reminder of how tough I needed to become to survive. The scar on my shoulder was from his belt buckle and served as a lesson in obedience. On my back, I had a long, jagged scar that was a lesson for selfishness. I remembered each one when I looked in the mirror.
When Marcello was born, I was eighteen months old. I didn’t remember holding him, but I had seen the pictures of my mom placing Marcello in my arms. I sat on the couch beside my parents with that crazed look in my eyes.
Even back then, I knew I wasn’t normal.
My cold blue eyes had a hollow look to them. And if you stared for too long, they turned a shade of blue so dark they appeared black. My mother’s friends would tell me I was adorable and would be as handsome as my father.
But I knew what hid inside me.
The darkness.
The anger.
Marcello was different, untainted by evil. When we were kids, he stole all of my parents’ attention. I’d hated him so much I wanted him gone. I had dreamed of all the ways I would kill him to have my parents to myself. And when I was five years old, I tried to get rid of him.
I slipped through the halls of my estate, careful not to make a sound. Gripping the Spider-Man pillow in my tiny hands, I held it against my chest. There wasn’t a single bit of hesitation in my footsteps. My breathing was even and controlled. I committed to my mission, and nothing would stop me.
