Chapter 6

Elena Vitiello POV

The sickening smell of burnt meat woke me up.

It took a few sluggish seconds for my brain to register the horror of it.

That smell was coming from me.

From my own left shoulder.

My eyes cracked open, fighting the heaviness of anesthesia.

The hospital room was white, sterile, and biting cold.

It was the private clinic the Outfit used for bullet wounds and stabbings, not for burns caused by fireworks wielded by jealous, petty girls.

I tried to sit up.

A sharp, searing agony ripped through my upper arm and neck, stealing the breath from my lungs.

I gasped, falling back against the stiff pillows as the room spun.

"Careful, Miss Vitiello."

The doctor was standing by the monitors, his back to me.

"Second-degree burns," he said, not bothering to look up from his clipboard. "We had to perform a debridement. The skin grafts will scar."

Scar.

I looked at the thick bandage covering my shoulder.

I was marked.

The door creaked open.

I didn't need to look to know who it was.

The air in the room shifted, becoming heavy with guilt and the acrid scent of stale smoke.

Luca and Matteo walked in.

They looked like wrecks.

Their tuxedos were disheveled, their ties gone, their eyes bloodshot and wide with panic.

But they weren't injured.

Because they hadn't been the target.

"El," Luca breathed, taking a hesitant step toward the bed.

He reached for my hand.

I pulled it away instinctively.

The movement sent a shockwave of pain through my shoulder, but I would have ripped my stitches open before letting him touch me.

He flinched as if I'd slapped him.

"We brought you something," Matteo said, his voice rough.

He held out a folded piece of paper.

It was pink stationery.

It smelled like cheap vanilla perfume.

"It's from Sofia," Matteo said. "She wrote it in the waiting room. She's devastated, Elena. She hasn't stopped crying."

"Crying," I repeated.

My voice sounded like shards of glass grinding together.

"It was an accident," Luca said quickly, desperation leaking into his tone. "The tube malfunctioned. The kickback... it scared her. She didn't mean to aim it at you."

"If I shot her in the chest," I asked, staring blankly at the ceiling, "would an apology stop the bleeding?"

"That's different," Luca snapped. "Don't talk like that."

"Why?" I looked at him, my eyes dry and cold. "Because she's fragile? And I'm just the Vitiello furniture you can burn?"

"She's innocent," Luca insisted. "She's terrified you're going to retaliate."

"She should be."

The voice didn't come from me.

It came from the doorway.

My father, the Underboss of the Chicago Outfit, filled the frame.

He was wearing his long trench coat, his face a mask of unforgiving granite.

Luca and Matteo snapped to attention, their spines straightening out of deep-seated instinct.

"Sir," Matteo said, his voice trembling.

My father didn't look at them.

He looked at me.

He looked at the bandages.

Then, slowly, he looked at the boys.

"You had one job," my father said. His voice was quiet. Lethal. "Taste her food. Watch her back. Take the bullet."

"It happened fast," Luca stammered.

"You were protecting a rat while my daughter burned," my father said.

He walked into the room and stood at the foot of my bed.

"Hand over your guns."

"Sir?" Matteo paled.

"Badges. Guns. Now."

They hesitated for a fraction of a second, then placed their Glocks on the bedside table with shaking hands.

"You are suspended," my father said. "You are stripped of your rank. You are not Soldiers. You are liabilities."

He turned to his personal guard standing in the hall.

"Find the girl. Sofia Ricci."

"No!" Luca stepped forward, forgetting himself. "Sir, please. It was an accident!"

"Correct the mistake," my father said to the guard.

Correction.

In our world, that meant a beating.

Or worse.

"She didn't mean it!" Matteo pleaded.

"Get out," my father said.

He didn't yell.

He didn't have to.

Luca looked at me, his eyes begging me to intervene.

To save her.

I turned my head and looked out the window at the gray Chicago skyline.

I let the silence hang them.