Tittle: The Mafia’s Pregnant Wife
Isabella
Damn it. Why is it taking so long? I tighten my grip on the wheel and glance at the navigation on my phone. Eight minutes left. Five, if I break a couple of traffic rules.
I push harder on the accelerator, passing a car on the right and forcing the driver to slam on his brakes. Of course, the guy honks with all his might, but I leave him behind a few seconds later, focusing on the clear road in front of me. My task is more important than any of these drivers getting to their homes in time for dinner.
God, I hope Matteo is correct. I’m not gonna lie, I’m tempted to grab my phone and ask him if he’s sure that his source can be trusted. After all, we haven’t seen the Escarras for almost a year now. Why would they
show up in Niles all of a sudden?
Probably because Gerardo got tired of playing cat and mouse. Does he think he’s strong enough to return to Chicago? Or does he expect us to forget his gruesome betrayal and deception that kept me and my brother by his side for years?
I clench my jaw, drive off the ramp at full speed, and my heart picks up its pace as I catch sight of an old grocery store in the distance. My hands are tingling with fury and excitement, and I lick my lips, sharply turning into the parking lot.
What a treat it would be to catch Gerardo here and kill him with my own hands.
I grab my gun and jump out of the car as soon as I stop it in the middle of the parking lot. My body is burning with adrenaline when I run into the store, my breathing is fast, and my heart is pounding in my chest. Where are those bastards?
A goddamn doorbell rings when I enter the store, and I clench my jaw. So much for the element of surprise. I spot a clerk cowering behind the counter and take a quick step toward him-when I realize two things at the same time. First, the guy is terrified, and his gaze darts to me in panic.
Second, he’d been looking at someone else before I entered. Shit.
I hear a step and a rustle of clothes, and without a thought, I throw myself on the floor just a second before a loud gunshot tears the quiet of the store. The fridge’s doors are still clinking when I crawl to the closest shelf to blink out of my dizziness. The sudden impact with the floor in
combination with the deafening gunshot clogs my ears, but I shake my head and push myself up to crouch on the floor.
It makes it easier to peek from behind the shelf, and I catch sight of a man gathering his bags by the counter with his gun pointed at the clerk. “Did you call the cops?”
I blink. That voice with a thick Mexican accent…
“N-No.” I can only see the clerk’s hands raised above the counter. “I swear, I didn’t-”
“Not that it matters.”
The man looks at the clerk, aims his gun, and even I startle from the sound of a gunshot-before growling under my breath and raising my own hand to aim. This fucker. But with my coordination still slow, my elbow bumps against the shelf, and the man jumps away the moment I open fire.
“You’re wrong, Hugo.” I raise my voice, pushing myself up on my feet, and step forward. “I’m not a cop.”
I keep my aim on the corner of the shelf which Hugo uses as a cover, and as soon as I hear a movement, I fire at it. The splinters of cheap wood and bags of chips blow up in every direction, and I hear a Spanish curse. Did I hit him? I hope so.
Even though I spent years fighting side by side with Hugo, I have no mercy for him now. As Gerardo’s right hand, Hugo has chosen to remain loyal to him instead of giving up to the Messinas like the wisest members of the Escarra gang did. But no, Hugo has been off our radar for as long as Gerardo has-and it means only one thing.
“Where is Gerardo?” I fire at the shelf again, walking closer. My shoulders are rigid with tension, my temples throbbing from focus as I
listen to every sound coming from the other side of the shelf. “I know he’s with you somewhere.”
I grab my gun with both hands and pause in front of the shelf to breathe out and focus-before leaping forward and blindly firing at the
aisle. It takes me a moment to figure out that it’s empty. Goddamnit. Where is-
I sharply turn around when I hear the hurried steps and the ring of the doorbell. Shit. He’s getting away! I open fire before I can think about it, but even then, it turns out to be too late. The door glass shatters, the frame creaks with misery, and Hugo’s figure gets farther away. I try to aim at him, but damn it, why is it so dark already?
I immediately take off after Hugo, the chips and shards crunching under my soles, but he fires back at me, forcing me to hide behind the wall for a moment. He’s obviously distracting me, but-
The screech of tires cuts off my thoughts, and I look through the gap in the door glass only to see Hugo jump into the car coming to a sharp stop by the curbside. Of course he has an accomplice. Of course! Cursing under my breath, I push the door open-but whoever is inside the car opens fire, shattering the window of the store.
At the same time, I hear the screech of metal against metal, and when I peek through the gap, I see the Escarras’ car-because who the hell else can it be-smash directly into mine. You bastards! A heated wave of adrenaline runs through me, and I run out of the store, ignoring the gunshots, and open fire at their car.
Of course, a few bullets do nothing to stop them. Too angry to be rational, I keep firing at the car until I run out of bullets. Fuck! With maybe just a couple of bullet holes, the car drives away as if nothing happened, and I scream out loud in frustration before running to my car. It won’t be too hard to catch up with them, right? It-
But as soon as I turn around in the parking lot and drive onto the road, the goddamn car refuses to pick up speed! I don’t know if it’s some kind of a security lock or if the Mexicans managed to hit something actually important, but the whole car starts vibrating when I push the accelerator.
Goddamnit!
I hit the wheel a few times, accidentally scaring a bicyclist on the side of the road, before breathing out and looking up at the road ahead.
Even if I don’t know where they are now, the whole situation was worth it because it gave me a priceless piece of information.
“Gerardo is back in Chicago,” I say as soon as Giovanni picks up his phone, and even though I can’t see him, I can imagine him freezing for a moment before blinking out of it with a frown.
“What?”
That’s my brother for you. So predictable.
“How do you know?” I can hear the disbelief in his voice, and I can’t blame him. It is a rather sudden and unpleasant surprise.
“Hugo almost shot me ten minutes ago.”
Giovanni curses under his breath, and it seems that Alina is somewhere nearby because I can hear her worried voice in the background, and Giovanni clears his throat and replies, “No, everything’s alright. Don’t worry. So what are you gonna do now?”
My thoughts have already drifted away to the Escarras, so it takes me a moment to understand that the last question is directed at me.
“Heading back to the warehouse.” “Isn’t it too late?”
I glance at the clock. Damn it. It’s almost ten o’clock, and Riccardo and Paolo have probably left already-but I don’t want to lose time.
“Maybe. If no one is there, I’ll call Riccardo.”
Giovanni hums, and I hear a rustle of something and Benito’s unintelligible blabbering. Isn’t it too late for him to be awake?
“Have you told Matteo?”
The blabbering quickly descends into crying, and I hear Alina murmur something. Shit. My call didn’t wake Benito up, did it? I’d hate to be such a bad aunt.
“I will, but hey, it sounds like you’re busy.” “Yeah, let’s talk later.”
With that, Giovanni hangs up, and I swallow the bitter taste of regret, focusing on the road again. Goddamnit. I still can’t get used to it. My brother is a father-and perhaps it’s not the best idea to call him so late. I can’t help but sigh and shake my head, reprimanding myself. But given how many things have changed over the last year, you can’t blame me for holding on to some of the old habits.
Can you imagine that a little bit over a year ago Giovanni and I called ourselves a part of the Escarra gang? We were the ones who would pick Hugo up from the store and put our lives on the line for Gerardo.
Because we trusted him with our lives. Because he’s our uncle.
Well, technically, he isn’t an uncle but something more complicated whatever you call your mom’s cousin. But Giovanni and I started calling him our uncle when we moved in with the Escarras, and Gerardo went along with it. I guess he’d go along with anything that would make it seem like he actually cared about us.
Of course, it was all just a lie. Giovanni and I have always been just tools in his and his father’s big plans.
You see, our mom was a loyal cook-and, as it turned out later, a lover-of Cassio Messina, the previous don of the biggest and strongest Mafia family in Chicago. Except for the two of them, nobody knew that Cassio was our father, and even though he could’ve easily kicked us out, Cassio allowed us to live in his mansion and play with his sons, Riccardo and Paolo.
But, I guess, when our similarity to Cassio started to become more obvious, Mom sent us to her father’s family-the Escarras from Tijuana. At the time, nobody knew about them, but Grandpa Nicolas and Gerardo were determined to gain a decent place in the hierarchy of Chicago’s underworld. And they did. By threatening to kill us to get information from Mom, organizing an explosion in Cassio’s favorite restaurant, killing him and everyone else in that place, and then killing Mom to make sure she wouldn’t escape to the Messinas.
We have one hell of a family, huh?
But instead of admitting to their own wicked ways, Nicolas and Gerardo lied to us for years, blaming the Messinas for Mom’s death and
setting us against Riccardo. And if Giovanni hadn’t met Alina, we would’ve probably never found out the truth. Of course, uncovering the skeletons in our family’s closet wasn’t a part of our plan when my brother went after
Alina Pushkova. In fact, our very plan was to get to Riccardo through her.
Instead of going along with the plan, though, Giovanni fell for Alina. Alina stopped him from killing Riccardo and convinced him to listen to the Messinas’ story, and together they found out the truth about Mom’s death. It should’ve been easy to kill Gerardo after that, right?
Well, the bastard managed to escape with a handful of his people and went back to Tijuana we assume, to gather more people before
coming back to Chicago.
In the meantime, the Messinas and the Russian Bratva have worked together to clear the Escarras’ territories and restore peace in Chicago’s underworld. And now, even though I’m driving through the neighborhoods that used to belong to the Escarras, I catch sight of the Bratva’s patrol close to their border.
Two of them turn their heads to follow my car, and I can’t help but wonder if they recognize it, or if they’re taken aback by the dent in my door. I glance at the side mirror and curse under my breath. I gotta tell Matteo, maybe he’ll arrange for someone to fix it in a couple of days.