Luciano
I was fucked.
It took bravery and courage for a man to admit that. No less, a man like me. But I knew I was fucked. I ducked behind a standing pillar. It was a part of the wall that connected the living room to the bedroom.
Raven’s bedroom.
It fucking irritated the shit out of me that a blissful place like this was blown to bits. It irritated me more that my best friend was behind this. I never in a million years would have expected that betrayal.
I never would have predicted that the boy I had eaten from the same plate several times, for over ten years, would grow up into the man who currently sprayed his bullets everywhere while I hid like a fucking coward behind walls.
Raven, Athena.. fuck Cara, had taken the only gun we had and while I understood that she did it all out of anger and perhaps love, if I dared to hope, I was without a weapon in a weapon fight. And I would not last long.
The only thing I could do right now, would be to wait for Luca to waste his bullets. I. peeked through a hole in the wall to see the bastard shoving a new magazine into his gun. He had bullets to spare. Shit!
I would not last another round of shooting. The walls were barely standing at this point. They would crash to the ground soon and it would be bye fucking bye Luciano.
And I hell as hell wasn’t ready to leave.
I had Raven to take care of. She had lost her foster father and somehow, I felt responsible for it. Perhaps if I had revealed earlier that I knew who she was, before this night, hell before things escalated to this point, then she wouldn’t have had the police and FBI on my tail.
And she wouldn’t have worked with the Castello bastard.
But it had been fun seeing her struggle to hide things from me. It had been fun seeing her sniff around my stuff, my office. At least at first it was fun. Then I grew rather damned fond of it. I liked seeing her around. I liked it when her green eyes were fierce and fixed while she snooped around me. I loved finding new reasons to have her with me, to take her to my bed and she willingly supplied those reasons.
I had another reason for allowing things to happen to this extent. I wanted to catch the mole, the bastard who constantly betrayed the mafia. Of course Giorgia wasn’t the mole. She was too damn weak livered to do something like that. But I knew it was someone connected to her.
To think I had never thought it was Luca, I chuckled darkly to myself.
Never again. When I got out of this hell, I’d take the lessons and scars burned in me. Trust was for fools. I had been a fool and I got burned real bad by my fucking best buddy.
My Fratello.
Nodding tiredly, I glanced through the hole again, pondering over what to do next. I had to think fast, the bastard was getting ready to fire again. My eyes fell on a stone before me and I furrowed my brows.
No way in hell. What happened if I missed? I’d be left opened and with a bullet lodged in my brain. But then if I remained here or tried to make a break for it, I’d have a bullet lodged in my brain anyways.
Fuck.
How was Raven holding up? She would give that Castello asshole a run for his money, I was sure. He was injured anyway. I doubted he could last long.
But then he could be brutal, could he not? And deceptive. Ah fuck. Raven wasn’t in her right mind at the moment, especially after seeing Frederick die. She would be easily tricked by him. I had to go out there. I had to save her.
If she died, if so much as her hair was hurt, I would not fucking forgive.
Anger fueled within me and I grabbed the stone. Just like the good old days, where all I had on the streets was a sling and Giorgia to protect. Things weren’t much different now, were they? I had someone I needed to protect even more. Someone I had to protect from this damned world and from herself.
I held the stone with my uninjured arm, and tested the trajectory. Setting the position I felt was best, I envisioned Luca’s position in my head and hurled the damned stone at him. I heard a crash and peeked to see him fall to the ground. If my calculations were correct, that should have met him on the chest. But if they were a tiny bit off, then it would hit his arm. Either way, I had a few seconds to make my move or I was toast..
Launching out of hiding, I raced towards him, weaving through the bodies on the floor and kicked the gun aside just before he reached for it.
“Fuck you!” He yelled, rising to his feet.
“Same to you, Fratello,” I hissed, throwing a hardened fist in his face. I watched him groan in pain and rear forward towards me, ready to throw a hit back.
But Luca had always been a wimp. A fucking wimp that all he knew was hide behind someone else or be a pushover. I made the fucking mistake of thinking I was protecting him whereas he thought I was being unfair.
Fucking hilarious.
I grabbed his hair, held his face in place and punched him ruthlessly.
“A sissy like you wants to be the Lord of the mafia,” I spat when he managed a blow to my chest and yanked himself out of my hold. “How fucking pathetic. The lord of the mafia would know better than to trust a Castello!”
“Pfft! Like you’re any better!” He spat, his spit thick and red with blood. “Your glorious assistant, the bitch you constantly dote over, betrayed you. We don’t see you harping over that shit, do we?”
“She didn’t betray me,” I replied, taking a fight stance and watching him do the same. I suppose we would be settling shit with good old combat. “It isn’t betrayal if you knew what would happen. Her reason, I could understand. Yours is what I cannot comprehend. What the hell do you want, Luca? What the hell did you want that I wouldn’t have given to you?!”
He laughed, rolled his shoulders and shook his head. “I don’t want shit from you. I don’t want you to do me a fucking favour. I want to take Luciano, for myself. All my life, all I have done, is live in your fucking shadow and I want to step out for once!”
“You could have told me, you bastard.” I yelled, “I would have let you go. Everything you wanted, Luca I called you Fratello! But you did exactly what those bastards did to me. You stabbed me in the fucking back!”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” He hissed,
“No, it doesn’t,” I replied, holding his gaze. According to mafia rules and punishment, Luca was deserving of death. I didn’t want to feel bad. He knew the rules! He knew the consequences, yet he forged ahead with his plain stupidity, thinking this was a battle he could win. Even if I died, the mafia would never fall. Blood would flow.
And fuck I didn’t want that. There was nothing to gain when blood flowed. We’d only lose capable men and all that would be left would be underlings. Besides Luca didn’t fucking stand a chance with the Castello idiot. And the Consiglieres would rather die than serve a Castello.
“You’re an idiot Luca,” I murmured, and launched towards him.
I had no idea how long we fought. Blows were thrown, groans exploded in the air and soon we were both panting, grappling with each other, trying to knock the other down. The bastard bit into my injured arm, causing me to lose hold on him and hauled me to the ground.
Then in a flurry of events, he had his gun back with him and pointed down at me.
“Who’s the idiota now, Fratello?” He grinned.
Ah shit.
This really was the end, wasn’t it? I had fought, fuck, for years I had fought to stay alive. Something this fool would not understand. Something no one would understand.
And I suppose this was time to stop fighting. I watched his finger move over to the trigger and then-
“You’re the fucking idiot, you bastard!” A familiar scream reached my ears.
The butt of a gun slammed into Luca’s head and he fell to the ground beside me , unconscious. I glanced from him to the crazy woman before me. Her eyes glaring holes into Luca.
“Right on fucking time Giorgia,” I praised.