Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Because I’m starting to feel something for my wife.
Which is a massive fucking problem.
“The place is in good shape,” I tell Ethan as he finishes closing up the restaurant. I’m on my nightly rounds of my businesses, and maybe I’m lingering at Cucina longer than I need to because I like being in the place where I first met her. It’s silly and sentimental.
“We’ve been busy lately,” he admits. My manager’s a decent guy, a low-level associate in the Famiglia. Nobody worth thinking about, but he’s dependable enough. “Lots of guys from the organization coming and going.”
That makes sense. The rumors about the feud with my father are going wild, and it seems like half the soldiers and lieutenants want to make sure they’re in both our good graces. Which means they eat in my restaurants and drink in my clubs.
I finish up and head into the main room. Emily’s friend Rachel is cleaning up at the bar and half the lights are off when the front window explodes in a raging storm of shattered glass and bullets.
There’s a scream and the sound of impacts against the wall behind me as I throw myself to the floor. It happens so fast I can barely believe it, but the place is suddenly hell, shrapnel flying all over the place, some of it cutting my hands and face as I cover myself. The noise of the gunfire is deafening, like whoever’s attacking is standing right on the sidewalk, and when I lift my head, all I glimpse is the outline of a truck and nothing more. The shooting feels like it continues forever, the screaming so loud and so pained that it’s like the voice is right in my ear, but finally the bullets stop.
I’m on my feet a second later, gun drawn. If I were smart, I’d stay the fuck down, but I’m working on adrenaline. I crunch over glass and skid on blood—whose blood is that?—before I reach the front door and kick it open.
The truck’s peeling out. There’s no license plate, because of course not, and nothing to distinguish it from a million trucks just like it all over Chicago. It fishtails, kicking up smoke, as it leaps forward and skids around a turn, flying down the street and disappearing around the block.
I stand for a second, catching my breath.
“Help,” someone shouts from inside. A woman’s voice.
I barrel back inside. I don’t know for sure who the fuck just attacked my restaurant, but I have more than a few guesses. Whoever it was, they knew I was in here, knew I was fucking alone, or else why bother shooting the place up? I own a dozen restaurants just like this one all over town. Which means someone’s following me.
“Please, help.” That voice again. I recognize it now, even laced in pain.
It’s Rachel, sprawled over the bar.
The scene hits me hard. The front room is a fucking mess of torn-apart tables and splintered wood. The walls are riddled with holes.
And blood’s on the floor. Rachel’s blood, and a lot of it.
“Hold still,” I bark at her, rushing over and helping her down to the floor, cradling her in my lap. “Ethan, call an ambulance! Call them the fuck now!” I don’t know if he can hear me. My head’s a pounding wreck as I check Rachel over for wounds.
Two gunshots. One in the arm, the other in the chest. Not her heart, thank god, or else she’d be dead. But I need to stop the bleeding.
I rip off my shirt and use the fabric to plug the hole. It doesn’t do much, and the girl’s face is pale, her lips moving. “Help,” she whispers. “Please, help.” She’s barely moving, and that’s a bad sign.
This can’t be happening. This is Emily’s friend, someone she’s close to, and she got shot because of my fucking war with Santoro. I never wanted this to get anywhere near my wife, and now a person she cares about is bleeding out in my fucking lap. This is a nightmare, an absolute nightmare, and a mixture of rage and horror ring through my body.
“Ethan!” I shout, and the manager appears with his phone in his hand, already talking to the emergency dispatcher.
I’m going to kill Santoro. I’m going to hunt him down and murder him with my bare hands for hurting this girl. If she dies and Emily ends up crying at her funeral, I am going to tear this goddamn city to shreds hunting down every last member of the Santoro organization, and I am going to make sure they suffer.
“I got you,” I whisper to her quietly. I ask her questions, lame stuff, about movies and TV shows, shit to keep her talking. Her answers get weaker and weaker as time rolls past.
The ambulance takes forever. It’s probably less than ten minutes, but it’s an eternity. I keep whispering to Rachel, speaking to her in a low voice, keeping her cradled in my arms. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I got you. When this is over, you’re coming over to my house. You can have dinner with me and Emily. Did you know we got married?” I maintain pressure on the wound. I do everything I fucking can, but she’s so pale, so damn clammy, and her eyes keep fluttering open and closed.