“Give me the gun.” Luca held out his hand for the gun hanging loosely in Paolo’s grip.
Paolo shook his head. “With all due respect, Mr. Rizzoli, you can barely stand, and you can’t even wiggle your fingers. How are you going to pull the trigger?”
Luca shook his arms, trying to restore his circulation. He could hear footsteps above them, shouts from outside. He had to get out of this damn basement. If only he could get his feet to move. “I’ll hold it in my fucking teeth if I have to. That bastard is upstairs with Gabrielle and he’s fucking obsessed with her. I can’t imagine what he’s gonna do now that she knows he’s connected to Garcia.”
He trailed off when he heard gunshots. A shout. A scream. “Fuck. That’s going to bring the cops. We have to get Gabrielle out of here. Let’s go.” Luca gritted his teeth and staggered across the carpet to the stairwell. Forcing his fingers to curve around the railing, he heaved his body up the first step. Fire screamed through his ribs and sweat trickled into his open wounds, the sting so fierce he could barely breathe. Christ. How the fuck would he make it to the top?
He felt Paolo’s shoulder under his own. Without speaking, Paolo half dragged, half carried Luca up the stairs, his slim body bending under Luca’s weight.
Good man. Paolo had really proved himself today. If Luca got out of this alive, he’d make Paolo an associate. Put him in charge of locks. The kid was strong, too. He could even be a bodyguard for Gabrielle.
Like that was going to happen.
With Paolo’s help, Luca made it up the last few stairs, fighting back a wave of dizziness when they reached the top. Goddamn drug dealers destroying his goddamn life all over again. When he got out of here he was going on a mission to clean up the damn city.
Paolo pushed open the door to the kitchen and a bullet whizzed over his shoulder thudding into the stairwell wall. “Get back, Mr. Rizzoli!”
Blocking Luca’s body with his own, Paolo lifted his gun and shot randomly through the door.
Silence.
Luca pushed open the door a crack and spotted a uniformed cop lying facedown on the floor. “Good shooting, kid.”
Paolo stared at the man in horror. “I shot a cop.” Then his face creased in a frown.“How did I shoot him in the back of the head?”
“You didn’t,” Frankie said from the kitchen doorway. “But you did hit just about everything else in the kitchen.”
“Where’s Gabrielle?” Luca didn’t have time for conversation. He needed to find Gabrielle like he needed to breathe.
“I haven’t seen her,” Frankie said. “We gotta get out of here. Sally G reported cops only a few minutes away.”
Luca shook his head. “I’m not leaving without her.”
* * *
“You killed David.” Gabrielle stared at Jeff in horror, the sickening image of David hanging from the balcony sending a wave of nausea through her gut.
“He’d already taken you,” Jeff said. “I couldn’t let him take my business away from me, too.”
As if a dam had opened, anger poured from her in violent waves that shook her to the core. He had murdered David, betrayed them both. And then he had dared comfort her when he was the reason for her pain. He had touched her with hands forever stained with David’s blood and the blood of her unborn child.
“You sick, twisted, fucking bastard,” she shouted as her vision turned red with rage. “Thank God David asked me out that day. He loved you like a brother, trusted you. And you stole his life away.”
“A brother doesn’t steal his friend’s woman,” Jeff snarled. “He doesn’t listen to him talk about her for months and then ask her out on the very day he knows his brother intends to do it. He doesn’t try to arrest his brother for making a little extra on the side. That’s not brotherhood or friendship, in any sense of the word. And he paid the price.”
“The price?” She took a small step toward the door, wary of the man who was so cavalier about the murder of his best friend. How had she never seen the monster hidden beneath his smooth charm? “Going to jail is a price. A few bruises after a fistfight is a price. You didn’t just murder him, you butchered him in the home we bought together—a home where you were always welcome as a friend.”
She took another step, her gaze shifting to his hand dangling casually over the dresser. His fingers dropping a little bit too far. No doubt about it, he had a gun in the dresser, and if she didn’t get her emotions under control and bite her tongue, he would kill her as easily as he had killed David.
“Always the fucking friend,” he muttered. “I thought when David was gone, we would finally be together. But no. You had to go and spread your legs for that fucking mobster.” His face turned ugly, the handsome features curling in a scowl. “Always interfering in my business. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hired the Albanians to give you a scare, and when I came to look after you, there he fucking was. But he got his payback. I killed his friend as a warning, and tonight I’ll finish him”
Gabrielle’s heart squeezed in her chest. She had imagined this moment over and over after David died. The satisfaction of finally having answers. The release she would get by venting her anger and pain. The relief she would feel when she pulled the trigger. But she felt none of those things, and she felt no desire to become the monster he was, and spend the life she had only begun to live again in jail. Instead, sorrow gripped her by the throat. She felt heartsick that David would have died knowing his closest friend had betrayed him, and that Jeff had let jealousy, greed, and anger destroy him in this terrible, twisted way.
“I only ever wanted to be with you,” Jeff said bitterly.
Her hands closed into fists and she forced her words out past the lump in her throat. “I was pregnant. Three months. We had planned to tell you that weekend. We were so excited. David had bought your favorite champagne. I was going to make a cake and write Uncle Jeff on it. Then he was dead, and the trauma was too much. I had a miscarriage. You took them both from me. You took everything.”
His face smoothed to an expressionless mask. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice as bland as his face. “Really, I am. But that’s what happens when you make the wrong choice. And you made another wrong choice when you chose that mobster over me.”
“No. I’m sorry.” She was only a few steps from the door now, but crossing the threshold would put her directly in his line of fire. “Even after you took everything, I found something you’ll never have. Love.”
“Love?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Look what love gave me. A friend who betrayed me. A woman who rejected me. All I’ve got now is this life I created out of the ashes. I can’t let you take this away from me, Gaby. It’s all I’ve got.”
He pulled a gun from the dresser and the world stood still.
* * *
“Now.” Frankie shouted, kicking in the door.
With the last of his strength, Luca rushed inside. He took in the scene in a heartbeat.
Jeff. Gun. Gabrielle.
He threw himself between them just as the gunshot cracked the air.
Pain seared through his chest and he crashed to the ground.
Fuck.
Not again.