Long Live the King (An Italian Mafia Romance Duet #2) (24 page)

If life were perfect, there’s no way the last light before we reach our destination would turn red. It’d stay green, and Alannah and I would just roll right into the protection of the underground garage. Even if we weren’t protected by the concrete structure, if the Denali followed us underground, then I’d know we were being followed, and I could act accordingly. If we had any luck at all, the stupid light would just stay green for another ten seconds so we could go through it. But there just isn’t enough luck in the world.

The light turns red too early for me to keep going, and I slow the car to a stop. I look in the rearview mirror to check for the Denali, but to my surprise, it’s gone. I even adjust the mirror to try to get a better look of the view behind us, but there aren’t any cars there now.

“What’s the matter? You see something?” I hear Alannah ask with worry coating her words.

“It’s nothing,” I reply with another sigh of relief as I turn to face the front. When I turn my head, out of my peripheral vision, I see red. The Denali is right next to us.

My head snaps over to see who the driver is, and my heart sinks as I recognize him.

His name is Giovanni Cirillo, and he’s here for me.

The bald driver has his head turned in our direction, and all I can do is watch as his hand comes into view holding a pistol. The light just couldn’t have been green for five more seconds.

“Get down!” I scream, as I grab Alannah and pull her down just as the popping begins. Glass shatters and catapults, landing on our backs and heads as I unbuckle Alannah’s seatbelt and push her down into the lowest part of the car. I roll myself up into a ball as I lay on the floor and the bullets buzz by, piercing metal only inches away from and Alannah. It seems like it lasts forever, the deafening blare of gunfire and whizzing bullets mixed with Alannah’s panicked screams.

In the middle of it all, I realize how close the bullets are to hitting her—to hitting our child—and my blood boils with rage. I don’t know who the fuck this bitch thinks he’s shooting at, but he obviously has me confused with some
stronzo
who would duck and hide while watching the mother of his child being shot to death.

You better remember it forever. I’m Dominic Collazo.

While protecting my head, I reach under my seat and grab my nine millimeter, and I waste no time chambering a round. I lift my hand and start pulling the trigger, completely disregarding aim. As Giovanni stops shooting, I get up to a seated position and start popping off rounds as fast as my finger can possibly pull the trigger. Giovanni responds by stepping on the gas as my bullets pierce his door and shatter his windshield, I hear screeching tires and a roaring engine. My heart hammers in my chest and I can feel my blood surging through my veins.

“Alannah!” I scream after I fire my last round. I pull her up from the floor and start to look her over. “Are you hit? Are you hit?”

“I don’t know,” she responds. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Oh my god.”

I inspect her body from top to bottom, ignoring the shattered glass on my head and the blood rolling down my arm.

“You’re bleeding!” Alannah screams, reaching for me, but I smack her hand away.

“I have to make sure you’re okay!
Both
of you!” I snap, totally focused on her and the growing fetus in her belly. Once I see she isn’t hit, I can think clearer. “Okay, now we need to go.”

Ignoring the bullet holes and blood from a wound I can’t see, I reposition myself in the driver’s seat and look to drive away from the scene of the crime, but before I can release the clutch and step on the gas, I see something ahead of us that makes me stop.

“Shit. Get out, now!” I scream as my eyes catche the image of the red Denali speeding towards us.

I hear Alannah screaming, but her body is still moving. She gets out of the car as fast as she can, and I climb out on her side behind her, just as the Denali hits the Challenger head on with a violent crash that sounds like a bomb just went off. Giovanni looks dazed for a second, but quickly shakes it off and searches the street for something—for me. When he relocates me, he wastes no time aiming his gun again.

I’m out of ammo, and my other guns are in the car the Denali has all but crushed. There’s nothing left to do now but try to protect Alannah and the baby. I grab her by the hand and force her to run inside a department store directly behind us as the gunfire starts up again. The glass of the store’s door explodes as we run towards the back. It’s like a warzone all around us as clothes jump and fly off the racks from the jolt of bullets zipping through them and I push Alannah from behind. But before we can reach the back door, I hear one last pop from behind us, followed by a searing pain in my left leg.

I collapse onto the floor, screaming at the top of my lungs as the blood quickly makes its presence known and soaks my pants. I’m hit.

The shooting stops, Giovanni apparently out of bullets for the moment, as Alannah turns around.

“Dominic!” she screams, reaching for the wound in my left hamstring. “No! No, no, no! Oh my god!”

“We gotta go,” is all I say in response, sucking down the pain and forcing myself to stand. Blood oozes out of the wound, and although the pain is unbearable, I turn Alannah around and begin pushing her forward again. I limp along behind her, but I fight through the pain to get Alannah and our unborn child to safety.

We make our way to the back of the store and push out of an exit, which opens up into an alley connected to another road littered with cars. I push Alannah towards them.

“Keep going,” I yell, but she tries to stop so she can focus on my wounds.

“What about your leg? You’ve been shot twice, Dominic, let me help you.”

“No! I’ll deal with it once you’re safe. Now go!” I bark, and she knows I’m not fucking around. She relents and turns on her heel, throwing one of my arms over her shoulder, and helping me run. We’re a team, and there’s no way Alannah would let herself be the damsel in distress. She’s my queen.

We’re in this. Together.

We manage to make it down the alley and onto the street where cars drive past us like we’re not even there, just as I hear the door of the department store being slammed open. Giovanni has a look of pure determination on his face as he scans the alley, looking to finish me off. But he won’t get the chance.

I manage to flag down a cab who stops directly in front of us, and Alannah has to basically push me into it as I lose strength by the second. Blood pours from my leg as Alannah climbs in after me, basically crawling on top of me so she can close the door.

“Hey, that guys bleeding all over my cab!” the driver screams as he turns in his seat to look at me.

“Shut the fuck up and step on the gas!” I yell at the top of my lungs, just as the sound of gunfire starts up again, and the glass next to the cab driver shatters completely.

“Oh shit!” the old, gray-haired man screams as he realizes the danger he’s in and slams his foot on the gas pedal. The tires screech underneath us as the cab speeds away, and the bald hitman finally gives up. I look behind us to see him standing in the spot the cab just vacated, his gun hanging at his side in disappointment.

“What the hell was that?” the old driver screams, his adrenaline obviously heightened from the gunfire.

I ignore him, though. Alannah repositions herself in her seat so she can inspect me, and I can tell from the terrified look on her face that she can now clearly see the wounds in my leg and shoulder. I’m losing a lot of blood, and she has to put pressure on my leg wound to slow the bleeding, because my skin is starting to look paler than usual, and I feel lightheaded.

“We have to get you to a hospital,” she tells me, but I shake my head.

“There’s no way we’re going to a hospital. They’d be expecting that.”

“Who the hell was that, Dominic?”

“That was Giovanni Cirillo,” I say, as I feel my eyes start to flutter. “Victor’s hitman. The Commission must’ve given Victor the greenlight to have me whacked. Looks like the war is really on now.”

Dominic

“R
oom three-twelve. Shit, there it is up there. You gonna be able to make it up the stairs?”

“Don’t got a choice, do I? Let’s go.”

Alannah pays the cab driver and makes her way around to my side of the car. She opens my door for me and helps me to stand up, which is unbelievably difficult with this bullet stuck in the back of my leg, but I manage with her help. I thank the driver again—our third one since all the shooting earlier today—and the two of us head for the dreaded stairs.

We switched cabs because we didn’t want the one that picked us up to be the one that dropped us off, just in case Victor and Giovanni got the idea to start asking cab companies about us. Better safe than sorry. We came to a place that we didn’t think people would expect us to stay, somewhere completely out of the city and with a level of luxury far lower than that of River City or any of the casinos I own. We’re in room three-twelve of King’s Court Motel, some half-decent place on the side of the road as you exit the city heading up towards Wisconsin. After all that has happened, we need to lay low, and going back to any of the places I own would be a death trap, plus I don’t make moves without knowing what’s going on.

While, it’s obviously fair to assume that Victor got permission from the Commission to have me whacked, I don’t know that for sure, and I don’t know why. I could also assume it’s because we owe him money and never paid, but it was Jimmy who started all that and he should’ve been the one to have to pay, so I’d expect the Commission to put a contract on Jimmy before me. But Victor has a lot of pull when it comes to New York, so he could’ve placed the blame anywhere, and the Commission would go along with it. So, I’m in the dark for the time being. The most important thing right now is catching my bearings, getting some rest, and protecting my woman and my baby. After I lock all those things in, then I’ll start to think about my next move. So for now, I just focus on struggling up these fucking stairs.

Alannah has an arm around my waist while mine is draped over her neck, holding on for dear life, but each step feels like a giant knife being twisted in the hamstring of my left leg. Couple that with the sharp, burning sensation in my left shoulder from the bullet lodged there, and my entire left side feels like it’s being stabbed with syringes that have fire inside of them. I wouldn’t be able to do it without Alannah here to help me, but with her, I manage to make it up the first flight, only to stare up at the second flight with nothing but discouragement.

By the time we’re up to the third floor, I have sweat pouring down my smooth face, and my formerly-nice shirt has been soaked through with blood and perspiration. Even Alannah is sweating and breathing like she just sprinted a mile, but she’s as determined as ever to get to the room. We hobble across the concrete balcony to room three-twelve, and I standby, trying to maintain my balance on one leg while Alannah uses the key—shaped like a crown—to open the door. I push away the desire to laugh at the fact that this motel is still using actual keys on their doors, and throw my arm around Alannah again as we complete our struggle and make it to the bed. I let myself collapse onto the mattress while Alannah closes and locks the door behind us. We made it. Finally.

While I lay on the bed, Alannah walks around the room, doing her best inspection before finally sitting down beside me. First, she looks at my shoulder, wincing at the sight of the blood with tears in her eyes, because my pain is her pain. I watch her as she inspects me, thinking about what set of her nursing skills she can use to fix me up, and I feel nothing but pride and love for her.

This woman is incredible. I watch in pure adoration as she starts to unbutton my shirt so she can get a better look at the wound to my shoulder. She looks so concerned, and I can’t help but marvel at her level of commitment and love for me. Since we met, she’s seen some pretty terrible shit. She’s been kidnapped twice and shot at twice, yet here she is, concerned about
my
wounds, caring for me when she should be thinking about herself. She’s an angel, and I’m truly the luckiest son of a bitch in the world for having her. I need this woman in my life like I need air to breathe, like I need my heart to beat in order to live. She’s everything to me, and now she has my child growing inside of her, so now she’s everything to me
and
my child.
Our
child. I’m truly astonished by her very existence.

“This one isn’t so bad,” she says just after removing my shirt and investigating the wound on my shoulder. “It’s a graze, albeit a deep one. Let’s have a look at the one in your leg. Gotta take these pants off.”

I’d like to make a joke at that statement, but when Alannah starts unbuckling my pants, the pain of the hole in my leg shoots out in all directions, ending at my toes and reaching all the way up to neck. I struggle to choke down a scream, biting down on my lip as she slides the pants all the way off and forces me to turn over so she can get a better look.

“Shit, this one
is
bad,” I hear her say once I’m settled and burying my face in a pillow to keep her from seeing me grimace. “The bullet’s still in there. I’m gonna have to get it out, Dominic.”