“This is me, assholes.” Then he turned the camera, backing closer to the furnace and heater. “This is her. Did you see me kill Joshua Sterling?” he demanded.
She just stared at the camera.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“You fucking bitch!” He waved the camera again. “Then die anyway.” He turned the phone back to his face. “This is the gun I’m about to use. Watch me.”
He raised the gun and she dove away, the shot ricocheting off the floor, then pinging loudly as it hit the metal furnace. He backed deeper into the shadows, standing right below the gasoline container he’d put on top.
“I don’t care if it’s recorded or not.” He lifted the gun, aimed it directly at her. “They’ll have to know I—”
“Billy!” she screamed, and Larry turned just as Billy reached up and knocked the open bucket right onto the madman’s head, raining gasoline all over him.
He shrieked and Sam pounced on him, ripping the gun from his hands as he writhed in pain and covered his eyes.
“Run, Sam,” Billy grunted. “Run.”
Larry thrashed and waved his hand, blinded but charging at Sam. She took one step back, her feet hitting Vivi, then lifted the gun and aimed it right at the bastard’s heart. She fired once, the recoil almost knocking her over. He growled in fury and attacked again as she fired another shot, her whole body reverberating from the explosive jolt.
He stumbled to the floor, facedown in a pool of gasoline that streamed in the direction of the pilot light.
“Get out!” Billy said.
Vivi moaned softly.
“I can’t.” Sam dropped to her knees, abandoning the gun. “I can’t leave you two.” She glanced at the liquid as it curled and meandered on a gentle slope toward the light that would ignite the fuel and explode the furnace and probably the whole house.
She had minutes, maybe less. And two half-dead people she loved very much.
“Sam…” Vivi’s voice was weak and broken.
“Sam…” Billy’s was the same. “Save her. She’s young. Please.”
She scooped her arms under Vivi and tried to deadlift her, the pain in her wounded foot like a hot iron. She barely got Vivi up, stumbling toward the steps, grunting with the effort and already slipping on the blood-slickened cement floor.
“Come on, Vivi, you can do this. You can.”
But Vivi hung in her arms. There was no way Sam could carry her up the stairs. Instead, she dug her hands under Vivi’s arms and dragged her. At the bottom of the stairs, she turned around and took one last look at Billy.
“Go,” he moaned from his trap. “Hurry, Sam.”
“Oh, Billy. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.”
“Sam, go.”
With every ounce of strength she had, she hoisted Vivi’s body up one stair, then another, then another. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could get Vivi up, then come back…
Halfway up the stairs, she took one more look at the gasoline. The stream was less than a foot from the pilot light. She had a minute, if that.
With a loud, low growl of effort, fueled by surging adrenaline, she reached the top stair just as a loud bang shook the house.
For one brutal second, she thought the furnace had exploded.
But there was no light, no fire, and not nearly enough noise. So what was that sound? A gunshot? In the house?
“Sammi!”
Relief made her dizzy. “Zach! In the basement!” She fell against the door as it whipped open, dropping right into his arms.
“She’s shot,” she said, trying to hand Vivi over to her brother. “Get her out! Get her out!”
“Jesus.” He scooped his sister up effortlessly, turning to take her into the hall.
“No, get her out! The place is about to explode!”
“Then go!” He reached for Sam’s sleeve, trying to get all three of them out, but she shook her head.
“Billy’s down there, Zach. He’s trapped behind the furnace. There’s gas everywhere and a pilot light.”
He shoved Vivi back in her arms. “Run the hell out of here. Now!”
“You can’t,” she said, stumbling back, holding on to Vivi. “There’s not enough time. There’s—”
“Go!” He pushed her toward the kitchen, hard. “I’ll get him. Get out of here!”
Clinging to Vivi with superhuman strength, she ran to the open door, barely able to get them both through. Outside she faltered and almost dropped her, then clung tighter, running as far as she possibly could, finally falling on grass and gently letting Vivi to the ground.
She turned back to the house, vaguely aware of sirens cutting through the night like screams, getting louder with each passing second. She crawled around Vivi to hold her and still see the house, cradling her head, lifting her up to slow the flow of blood where a bullet had gone into her stomach.
“Hang on, Vivi. Help’s coming.” She stared at the back door, willing Zach to appear, praying, begging, tears streaming down her face and onto Vivi. “Come on, Zach!” she sobbed, barely aware that she’d taken Vivi’s hand and squeezed it.
The ground rumbled as a burst of white and orange mushroomed from the house, the crash deafening as windows, wood, and flames fanned twenty feet in the air.
The scream stayed in Sam’s throat as she threw herself over Vivi’s body to protect her, fire and sparks spitting all around them. She finally lifted her head, smacked by heat and smoke, her eyes burning so much she couldn’t trust what she saw.
Where was he? Where? Oh, God, please don’t take him.
There was a shadow at first, black against black, then the silhouette of a man, framed in fire, head down, back hunched, a body limp in his arms like an overgrown baby. He ran through the flames, sparks landing in his hair, glass crashing around him. Debris rolled from the house in waves, but Zach never stumbled.
He tore across the grass and collapsed in front of her, easing Billy to the ground next to Vivi.
Smoke and dirt smeared his face, his hair singed, his chest heaving with the effort of every breath.
“He’s alive.”
“So is Vivi.”
“And…” He reached over the two bodies between them and she did the same, falling to each other. “So are you, Sam.”
“I knew you’d come for me,” she whispered, the words trapped in her strangled throat, drowned out by a cruiser wailing to the scene and an officer hollering orders for fire and EMTs. “I knew you would.”
“Always, Sam, always.” He closed his hand over her face and let his forehead drop against hers. “I’ll always be at your side.” The words sounded awkward, even foreign.
Sarò sempre al tuo fianco.
Now she understood what that meant.
The worst part wasn’t when JP and Marc arrived, accompanied by Detective O’Hara and a few more cops, marching down the lime-green corridor of Mass General emergency center like a full platoon. The questioning actually got Zach’s mind off what was happening in the OR where trauma surgeons were working to remove a bullet from his sister’s body and keep her alive.
He didn’t flinch when Chessie and Nicki got there, tearful and clingy, bearing clean clothes and shoes for Sam and him. And one of his leather patches, not that he’d even missed it all these hours. A little while later, Aunt Fran and Uncle Jim came in together, launching an assembly line of family hugs.
But when Uncle Nino shuffled in, his signature pilled Polo shirt obviously hastily pulled on over pajama bottoms, his thin hair uncombed, his lined face set in an expression of pure misery, Zach almost lost it.
Sam instantly sensed his response, reaching over to slip her hand into his. “She’s going to be fine,” she whispered for the twentieth time, as if saying it made it so.
Nino came right to him, taking his face in his hands and looking up through watery eyes. “We can’t live without her, ragazzino.”
“We won’t.” He said it, even though he didn’t believe it. He’d
seen her in the ambulance, white from the loss of blood, near death.
His father. His mother. Not his sister, too.
Uncle Nino turned to Sam, reaching for her the same way, then folding her into a full embrace. “You saved her life.”
Not yet she didn’t. Zach enclosed them both in his arms, proof that he wasn’t immune to the family penchant for hugging. “She was amazing.”
Sam smiled up at him, her face still dirty and tear-stained, but her eyes clear blue, and filled with affection and gratitude.
“And the other guy?” Nino asked. “Your friend? Where is he?”
“Billy’s been treated, and some of his friends from work came to take him for the night, and his girlfriend is on her way back to take care of him. He’s going to be fine, but they’re going to run some tests over the next few weeks.”
Nino nodded and tossed a thumb toward JP, where he stood in a cluster of cops, O’Hara in the middle. “What about him?”
“JP’s good,” Zach said.
“Good?” Nino’s eyes bulged at Sam. “Did he say good? That’s like calling him a saint from this one.”
“He was…” Zach shook his head. “In the right place at the right time, and he saved my ass.” He thought of the moment his cousin tossed him the keys. Maybe JP had a heart, after all.
“After you saved mine.” JP shifted over to the conversation, O’Hara next to him. “Looks like Finn MacCauley wasn’t anywhere near this business. That old guy we heard was someone else.”
“Still,” O’Hara said. “You’ve done the department a great service, Mr. Angelino. All of you have. My partner’s involved in Joshua Sterling’s murder, and his participation in organized crime is going to be a huge black eye for us, long after his trial’s over and he’s in prison. But he will be there, along with Keegan Kennedy, who we are certain orchestrated the timing of Samantha’s being a witness to a crime. We’ve endured worse.” He reached out his hand to shake Zach’s. “We’re grateful to your entire family.”
“Just as long as my entire family is alive.” Zach glanced at the closed doors that led to the OR.
O’Hara put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said simply. “We’ll see you very soon, I’m sure.”
But Zach wasn’t sure of anything that moment. The whole family settled in to wait for word after the contingent of cops left.
Chessie and Nicki huddled around Aunt Fran, a trio of tissues and tears. JP and Uncle Jim stood silently next to each other, staring at a TV someone had muted long ago. Behind Uncle Nino, Marc rubbed the older man’s shoulders and stared ahead. Sam put her head on Zach’s shoulder.
The clan was quiet, scared, and united. Strangely enough, he had never felt closer to or more protected by any of them. At any moment, they could be all he had.
“Let’s get some coffee,” he whispered to Sam, taking her hand and ushering her out too fast for anyone to say they’d come along. Anyway, no one would leave that waiting room until those doors to surgery opened and a doc said what they needed to hear. And if he didn’t say what they needed to hear, they’d still want to hear it together.
Because like it or not, that’s how the Rossis rolled. And like it or not, he was one of them.
At the end of the corridor, the nurses had set up a coffee station, and he poured a cup while Sam leaned against the wall, wan and exhausted, staring into space, her bottom lip all but bloody from gnawing.
“I’m going to do it,” he said.
She focused on him, frowning. “Do what?”
“If she… makes it, I’m going to help her build that company.”
Her eyes filled. “Are you making deals with God, Zach?”
God? Shit, he’d sell his soul to Satan for his sister’s life. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “And I can do it. I know that now.” He didn’t lift the cup he’d poured, but looked at Sam. “I can do it well.”
“Yes, you can. You’d be wonderful at it. But, what…” She swallowed hard, the tears welling. “What if she doesn’t make it?”
His own tears burned. “I’ll do it anyway. For her.”
Her sob escaped as she reached for him, and he held her as she cried. “I’m so sorry, Zach. I did this. I sent her to Billy’s and got her involved and I—”
“Stop.” He pulled back and put his hand on her mouth. “She was on fire. This is what she wants, and it’s dangerous. Anyway, all of this brought you back to me, Sammi. I would never have imagined you’d want me. Never gone back to you. And now… I have you.” He pulled her closer, and kissed the top of her head.
“Yes, you do,” she assured him. “And you know, nothing would make Vivi happier. She always had this fantasy that we’d…”
He lifted her face to his, thumbed the tear streaks on her dark shadows under her eyes. “We will.”
“You’re making promises to God again, Zach.”
“I’m making promises to you.” He lowered his face and looked directly into her indigo eyes as he pulled her in for a life-sustaining kiss.
“Kill the lip lock! The surgeon’s out! He wants to talk to you, Zach.”
They both whipped around as Chessie tore down the corridor toward them. They ran around the corner to find the entire family huddled around one slight man in blue scrubs, his hair netted, his surgical mask dangling around his neck. He looked at Zach. “You’re next of kin?”
Oh, Jesus Christ, no. “We all are,” he said. “But I’m her brother.”
“Your sister is a very strong young woman. She needed a full transfusion. The bullet penetrated her abdomen and spleen, but did not hit her spinal cord. We were able to get it, and close her stomach walls with silk and stitches. After recovery, she’ll be in ICU for at least a week.”
After recovery. After recovery?
“She’s going to live.” It wasn’t a question. It was never a question.
“Yes, she is,” he said. “And she will walk.” The doctor smiled. “From the looks of her, she’ll run.”
Chessie whooped and Aunt Fran started crying and Nino muttered prayers. Marc and JP hugged like crazy, and Uncle Jim threw his arms around Nicki and picked her up off the floor.
The doctor walked over to Zach and held out his hand, a bloody bullet in his palm. “You want this? She’s quite a little bullet catcher, your sister.”
He smiled and nodded to JP. “Give it to the cop for ballistics. And she’s not a bullet catcher. She’s a Guardian Angelino.”
All of the noise and celebration and relief just faded into a blur as he wrapped his arms around Sammi and let the tears fall.
CHAPTER 25
Drink it down, Sammi.” Uncle Nino set the thick-rimmed juice glass brimming with near-black wine in front of her. “We’re celebrating.”
“Vivi’s recovery?” she asked. Vivi had been out of the hospital for over a month, gaining strength every day. She wasn’t skateboarding around Boston anymore, but she would be.
“Among other things,” Nino replied.
“The end of the Joshua Sterling mess?” The week before, Detective Larkin had cut a sweet deal with the DA; his prison sentence was reduced to twenty years in exchange for the names of everyone involved with Joshua Sterling’s murder, as well as the killings of Teddy Brindell and Taylor Sly.
Detective O’Hara had been far more forthcoming with information now that he’d discovered the weak link in his department. After Taylor Sly’s murder, the whole story unfolded, revealing that she had been quietly and successfully building up a newly formed Irish mob, structured like the crime organization that gripped Boston in the 1970s.
While digging into some story leads about police department corruption, Joshua Sterling had met Taylor and begun an affair with her, passionate enough for him to plan to end his own marriage. But Taylor’s reason for the affair was merely to keep Joshua quiet about her burgeoning business and the insiders in the Boston PD she already had on her payroll.
When he shared with her the revelation that his wife was the biological
daughter of Finn MacCauley, Joshua wanted to take that story public to help his career go to the next level. But Taylor was already planning to kill her lover, and he inadvertently gave her someone to blame for a high-profile murder. She hired Levon Czarnecki, and sent her lover to the cellar for a secret rendezvous with plans to set Rene up as the witness. She apparently didn’t think Marc could be manipulated, and sent men after him after she learned he had the jump drive, but obviously her own men were more than willing to betray, and kill, her.
“There’s more than that to celebrate,” Nino teased. “Isn’t there?”
“The fact that I’m starting law school tomorrow?”
Nino tsked and shook his head, as if she was being dense. “Look at that.”
She followed the thumb he pointed over his shoulder, her gaze moving through the panels of the French doors. JP and Zach stood head to head, the first of the turning leaves like a red and gold frame around them as they talked. At one point, JP put his hand on Zach’s shoulder.
“They’re mending bridges, aren’t they?” Sam mused.
“Even better,” Nino replied, his dark eyes moist. “They’re building new ones.” He lifted his glass and clunked it against hers. “You’ve changed my Zaccaria, young lady. And I’m forever grateful.”
She felt her own eyes fill, with love and gratitude and a joy that had settled around her heart and refused to leave.
“I love him,” she said simply, the truth of it making her smile.
“And he loves you,” Nino said. “So it is time.”
She looked at him. “Time?”
“To give you the letter.”
“What letter?”
“From Rossella Angelino. Zaccaria’s mother.”
She almost dropped the glass. “You have a letter from his mother?”
Nino sighed, leaning on the counter with his oversized hands. “Those kids arrived here with some clothes, some pictures, and two letters, which Rossella wrote with instructions that they were to be given to Vivianna’s and Zaccaria’s… intended.”
She smiled at the old-fashioned word, and the old-fashioned zing it sent through her. “I’m not…”