Cade Burns
We piled into a van, Serg and I in the front seat and Aria in the back. Another van of soldiers loaded up behind us, but most of our manpower was already there, fighting in the battle that had begun with no rhyme or reason. We knew that the big five families in the Italian mafia wanted us out, but the only one who had ever attacked us was the Ruso family. We had an unspoken agreement with the others. They stay out of our business, and we won’t interfere with theirs.
Under one name, the Irish mafia was controlled solely by me, and we were more powerful than three of the families combined. Unless they came for us united, none of them would stand a chance.
So why would they attack us now? The Commission that controlled the five families managed to keep disagreements between them at an all-time low, but they were in no position to unite against us. Yet here they were, fighting us anyways.
I received text after text from my men, giving reports on the blood bath that the scene had become. It was so thick that they could hardly tell who was fighting for which side. There was minimal gunfire, as the thickness of close-quarters fighting made it impossible to take any long shots. The police weren’t there yet, and I had a feeling they wouldn’t be coming-not when the fight happened in the central mob territories.
We were on our own, and when I got there, I would end this.
I decided to distract myself, turning toward Aria. “Why did you want to come?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I clenched my jaw. “Does it physically hurt you to answer one goddamned question every once in a while?”
She tilted her head, clearly amused by my frustration. But to my surprise, she did answer my question. “My father never let me get involved with the nitty-gritty of mafia life. He sent me away to become a nurse, so I could help him in another way. I want to see what it’s like out here.”
“You don’t even know what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you?” I asked. “We’re going into a blood bath. I assume it started as a turf skirmish.
These things always start that way. But now, it has escalated into a halfblock radius of fighting. People are getting shot and killed, and you don’t know how to defend yourself.” Her eyes widened as she realized the severity of the situation. “There’s a reason your father kept you off the front lines, and I brought you here so you can stop asking to do stupid shit. Trust that I have your best interest in mind.”
“No, you don’t,” she retorted. “You have your best interest in mind, and my well-being is the key to keeping you safe.”
She wasn’t necessarily wrong, but I didn’t acknowledge that as I looked over her expression.
She continued. “I might not have the same fighting experience as my brother, but I’m not stupid. I’m not going to get myself killed. I just want to see what I was kept from.”
I knew I’d baited her enough for the week. If we were to make this marriage work for both of us, we needed to be civil, at the very least. But that was hard when the burning frustrations from her betrayal still sent bile into my throat. Instead of the bile that I was used to experiencing, though, this time, I felt a sense of curiosity. I wanted to understand what motivated her, even though it shouldn’t have mattered to me.
I forced myself to play the adversary that I’d grown used to playing with her. “Is that why you ruined my and Matteo’s friendship? Because daddy didn’t let you get yourself killed?”
“Let me make this clear. I hate you, and I will always hate you. But telling my father about your friendship was the last thing I ever wanted to do. You left me no choice, but I regret doing it every day.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want him to be friends with you, though, so I guess it worked out in the end. One less douchebag hanging around our house.”
I turned back to the front, staring out the windshield. We were only a minute from the scene, and I wasn’t in the right headspace to fight yet.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she told me.
“That doesn’t make a difference to all the people who died because of your choice.”
She didn’t say anything more, and I took a deep breath, forcing myself into the right headspace. None of this would matter if I got myself killed. Right now was not the time to think about the betrayal from the woman next to me, and it certainly wasn’t the time to reevaluate what Serg had said about it being my fault, too.
I needed to focus.
Serg skidded to a halt a block from the scene. The battle was thick enough that nobody noticed the large vehicle. The chaos surrounding the area shocked me. We hadn’t faced a battle like this for over a year, and the last one hadn’t been so spontaneous. We’d been ready to fight.
I turned back to Aria and pointed in her face. “Don’t get out of the car.
Stay low, and wait for us to come back for you.”
To my surprise, she didn’t argue. She seemed transfixed by the scene in front of her as she stared out the front window.
“Not the organized chaos you’re used to, is it?”
Before she had the chance to reply, I shot myself from the car and made my way toward the fight. From the looks of it, we were outnumbered. Despite the chaos, I recognized each of my men as they fought through the thick of it. I glanced at Serg and gave him a nod as we both entered the fight.
Small groups of people fought in close contact every few feet. Bodies littered the ground between the fights, and I took care to step over each of them as I charged toward the thick of it. A gunshot rang out from behind, and I wondered who’d been hit as I grabbed the back of a hoody and pulled a man away from one of my panting and exhausted-looking men. He stumbled and fell back, and as he pulled himself to his feet again, I balled my fists and began swinging.
The man before me stood no chance as he tried to block and avoid my hits, but as they kept coming, he fell victim to many of them. When he hit the ground, I pulled out my gun and fired a single bullet between his eyes.
I didn’t give myself a second of rest as I turned and slammed the butt of my gun into another man, taking him to the ground and doing the same.
I felt like a tornado of speed and brutality as I came between another of my weary men and pushed him back, taking a hard hit to my jaw. It rocked me back for just a moment before I used the force of my fist to retaliate. The man in front of me took the solid hit with little reaction, so I used the pistol this time, slamming it on the top of his head.
He didn’t fall, so I dropped the gun and used one of my forearms to block his next blow. He lifted a leg and kicked me back a few steps, but I kept my balance.
I wondered how in the hell my tired men had survived this assault after fighting as long as he had. I swerved past one of his blows and put all my body weight into a combination of punches to his face. This time, he stumbled back, giving me the in I needed. I kept hitting him-kept pushing him back-until he finally fell. A shot rang out, and the man jerked in front of me, blood spewing from his lips.
I glanced toward the sound and found Serg a few feet away, already pursuing another attacker.
I didn’t know what caught my attention past him. The fight continued as it had. My men held their own against the men who outnumbered them, but toward the edge of the battle, a woman lay on the ground-one of my soldiers, I realized. She bled from what appeared to be a gunshot wound, but she still moved, pressing her palm into her side and curling her legs in pain.
It wasn’t the woman on the ground who caught my attention, though. There were so many other living people on the ground that I couldn’t focus on any one of them.
It was Aria, running low to the ground toward her, that took my breath away. My lungs constricted as I looked around, knowing that all it would take would be one stray bullet to kill her. And I knew that the moment she began moving away from the fight, someone would shoot.
Fuck.
I’d brought her here, and despite the rage that filled me as I saw her doing something so stupid and reckless, I knew I couldn’t let anything happen to her. Not only would the alliance be moot, but…
I just couldn’t stand the thought of her dying on my watch. If anyone was going to kill her for doing something stupid like this, it would be me.
I turned toward her and began running.