Page 67 of His Savage Vow
I nod in resignation. “I know. I promised you revenge, and I intend to deliver it. I just have to come up with a new way to approach this…” My train of thought is interrupted when my phone dings with a new voicemail message.
“It’s Leonard,” I say to Constance as I begin to listen to his choked-up voice. It’s hard to hear but, he can’t have said…
“What is it?” Constance asks as I replay the message again just to be sure.
“Enzo…Enzo was pronounced dead at the hospital. Goddammit!” My voice cracks as hot tears spring into my eyes before I can even begin to process the news. My cousin, my best friend, and my right-hand man gunned down by these vicious bastards.
“Enzo…he was six when he swore he’d watch my back forever. And he did, right up until tonight.”
Constance puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to her as I struggle to control myself. I can barely breathe, and I spend the rest of the ride fucking seething.
When Ricky pulls into the reserved spot in the underground parking lot, he looks back at us in the rear-view mirror and clears his throat. “We’re here, Mr. Luciani. Ah…is there anything I can do, you know, to help?”
“Go call the elevator, please,” I order him as Constance hands me a tissue from her purse.
“We’ll pay them back. For Enzo, and for my father,” she says.
“You’re damned right we will,” I agree.
She hugs me close one more time before she slides across the seat and gets out. I follow her and then send a quick message to Spicy:Any updates?
I walk over to the elevator Ricky is holding open for us, and watch the bubbles appear as Spicy types his reply. He has a lot to say, apparently, or his fat fingers are having trouble typing a message on a bouncing boat. We arrive at the penthouse and go inside before my phone finallydingswith his reply.
Got some emails off a phone. The shooter at the press conference had been looking for a way to get a shot at you. That went sideways, obviously. There was another email thread about a package being delivered for you, but no specifics. You at the tower?
“A package?” I repeat aloud.
I start to type a response, but stop in the foyer as Lucaappears, greeting us with a smile. “There was an Amazon delivery for you after I got here. I left it over there on the table,” he says as he points across the kitchen towards the dining room.
Constance was looking at the message on my phone over my shoulder, and she puts it together a split second before I do. She grabs my arm and yanks me back towards the elevator. My stomach drops. A cold, instinctive click of realization, too late.
“Run!” I scream.
We’ve just made it out into the hallway by the elevator when the building explodes around us.
The heavy doors to the penthouse are blown off the hinges, one of them striking me in the back and driving me into Constance before we’re both slammed to the ground. I can’t fucking hear over the ringing in my ears.
With a monumental effort, I’m able to push myself up just enough to raise the door, and Constance crawls out from under me, coughing and choking. I follow her on my hands and knees, reaching up to slap the button on the wall that opens the elevator doors.
The last I see of my penthouse as the door slides shut are Luca and Ricky’s twisted bodies lying just inside the foyer. Constance, ghostly with plaster dust that rained down on us, scoots over to me and gathers me close, clinging to me as I blindly slap the button to take us back down to the garage.
I can taste blood and smoke. And something worse, failure.
Stunned and concussed, I do the only other thing I can think of. I hold the now sobbing women whose become the central figure in this war and my life, and I call 9-1-1.
Revenge will have to wait.
35
“You made me proud long before you ever showed up in this world, sweetheart.”
—ROBERT MONROE
Constance
The antiseptic scentof hospital air is becoming an all too familiar one as I lay in the emergency room yet again. Sharp florescent overhead lights drill into my skull like knives.
I try to sit up, but the pounding in my head sends a fresh wave of dizziness crashing through me. A nurse’s hand lands gently on my shoulder, easing me back onto the pillows. I think she’s the same one who cleaned the minor abrasions on my arm.
