AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He told us to drink and party, that soon he’d come back to heat up the place.”
I took two wide strides, and I was in her face, pulling on the hair at the nape of her head and tugging harshly. “Were those his exact words? Heat up? Is that what he said.”
“Y-yes.” She stuttered in fear. “That’s exactly the word he used.”
“GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!”
I shouted at the top of my lungs, beckoning everyone who could hear me to get the fuck out of the house.
As soon as we placed a step out of the door, a thundering explosion roared behind us while gunfire shot from the tree line ahead.
One of the women’s heads tilted back upon impact. A bullet pierced her straight through the skull, making her body fall back onto the steps. I dove into the snow, pulling the two Battaglia men flanking each of my sides down.
“Get the fuck down,” I shouted over the roaring noise of fire and destruction behind us.
The smell of smoke for the burning wood was unbearable, reaching parts of my brain that held memories from the past, almost burying me in a fear that would last a lifetime. The snow melted from beneath me, the scorching heat of the flames becoming too close for comfort. But we couldn’t move, either. The storm of bullets ahead had us caged between hell and Moretti’s fury.
It was a fucking ambush. He knew that I’d come back. I had underestimated the fucker, and that was my biggest mistake.
“Crawl to that wall. Fast but don’t get up from the fucking floor,” I ordered, both the soldati and the women following my demand without a question.
We were going to die tonight, and all I could think of was the fact that I’d never see my wife’s beautiful face again. That I wouldn’t be there to follow through with my promise. That I would let Don Battaglia down.
That last one took me by surprise, but it wasn’t the time to lie to myself. What flashed before my eyes at the very end wasn’t memories from the past, it was the unlived future. The what-ifs and possibilities that would never become reality.
I was gonna die tonight, but at least I wouldn’t go down without a fucking fight.
For a minute, the gunfire stopped, leaving the night silent with only the crackling of the fire consuming Moretti’s house. How I wished he was inside, tied to the fucking chair in his study.
“Giancarlo.” I heard him calling from the front lawn. Lifting my head slightly, I saw Moretti standing out in the open, the snow coming up to his calves. “You fucking want me? Be a man about it and come get me.”
“Take them out of here. Don Battaglia should be just on the other side of those tracks. Go to him, tell him everything is fucked. Tell him I said that Elena was the last thing on my mind before I died and took Moretti with me.”
I stood from behind the wall, hands up in the air, surrendering to the enemy.
“I’m here,” I shouted, Moretti’s attention landing on me with as much fury as the fire taking down his damn house.
“I was feeling nostalgic this Christmas Eve. It’s a special day, after all. Twenty-six years today, right?” His words hit harder than any bullet could. “I thought maybe you’d like to join them by the same means they went. Baking in Hell before Santa came.”
“That’s a lot of talk for someone with the upper hand, Moretti. What’s wrong? Left your balls in the house?”
A single shot rang through the air, the bullet grazing my arm and stinging like a bitch. I hissed with the pain but still continued my slow approach towards him.
I put my hand in my pocket, clasping the single bullet I had reserved for him. On our way over, I had carved Toni’s name into it, and one way or the other, I’d make that fucker eat it.
“This seems too impersonal, Giancarlo. I’ve raised you like a son, the least I could do was kill you with my bare hands.”
He’d always had an ego the size of the damn country, but right now, it served me pretty well. It bought me time and opportunity.
“The same hands I used to jack off over your mother’s carbonized body.” He said, laughing hysterically, his head tipping back. “I fucked her a time or two. She liked it rough even though she said she didn’t. A whore always does. It’s the pain that makes them feel at all. I loved to hear her scream.”
It wasn’t rage running through my body, it was something ten times worse than that. Something that buried my soul in demons capable of the most atrocious things imaginable. Moretti knew that. He’d played to that side of me my whole life. Sang to my impulses, knowing I’d dance to the rhythm that suited him best.
Not tonight.
If I had learned anything from my brother, it was control. It was a hard lesson. One that I hadn’t always wanted to learn, but I’d honor him tonight and think like the ruthless Don he could have become.
I breathed in until my lungs burned to expel the air, calming every urge I had to lunge forward and tackle that fucker to the ground. Instead, I stood still, taming my features into a placid, still face that gave none of my emotions away.
