By Any Other Name (30 page)

As soon as everything came back into focus, Dante stepped away. Enzo's voice echoed around them, bitter and full of malice. "Back away from my fucking brother before I kill you."

Matty sat up, his vision blurred, warm blood pouring down the side of his face and staining his clothes. Through the haze he saw the gun, the shiny silver automatic Smith and Wesson revolver in his brother's steady hand, pointed right at Dante.

"En," Matty yelled, frantic, his voice cracking as he painfully forced it from his throat, but it was too late.
Too fucking late
. In the blink of an eye, Dante reached into his waistband, pulling his own gun and aiming.

A single gunshot tore through the night. It sounded like an explosion going off beside Matty, the street around them lighting up for a fraction of a second, as the lone bullet shattered every hope of the two families
ever
finding peace again.

Dust tickled Genna's nose, the attic smelling strongly of mothballs and mildew, the air stifling and stale from being locked up for years. Genna hadn't stepped foot in the room since her fifteenth birthday, but she had the overwhelming urge, at that moment, to head up those stairs.

It was the closest she'd ever come to seeing her mother again.

Genna tiptoed along the creaky wooden floor and pulled the string on the hanging overhead bulb. Light instantly surrounded her for a few seconds before flickering and vanishing with a loud pop.

She shrugged it off and sat down on the dirty floor, drawing her knees up to her chest as she wrapped her arms around them. Her body practically folded in on itself then, disappearing in the darkness, disintegrating into thin air, despite the heaviness in her limbs that made her feel like she was made of lead. Her mother's things surrounded her, a thick layer of dust coating it all, blankets of soil on the boxes, her old wedding dress tinged gray from neglect.

It felt like a lifetime ago that any of it had seen the light of day. A lifetime that Genna found herself longing for again, a life of simplicity, where the world made perfect sense. Things had been black and white then. Her family was everything, the good in her life, the heroes of her story, whereas the Barsantis were all that was wrong with the universe.

Sighing, Genna spread her legs out in front of her and lay back on the floor, her head landing on a pile of her mother's old summer dresses, mere rags now. She stared up at the ceiling, her hands drifting to her stomach as she lay there in silence.

What was she going to do?

What were
they
going to do?

How was she going to tell him?

Would he feel how she felt?

How the hell do I even feel
? She was in total disbelief, numbness coating her body. She felt detached from the world, like she had slipped into an alternate reality where a Galante and a Barsanti could somehow be one family.

Certainly wasn't any reality she had ever lived in before.

Terrified
, she decided.
I'm fucking terrified
.

She lay there for a while before closing her eyes, exhausted, but sleep evaded her. Eventually she heard a clatter downstairs in the house, noise she shrugged off at first as merely her imagination, until she heard doors slam and feet scurrying about. Curious, and not wanting her father to catch her up here, Genna headed out of the attic, hearing the commotion. She quietly tiptoed downstairs, finding Umberto standing in the foyer alone. His expression was grim, his face freshly battered. He'd taken a beating tonight.

Oh, God. Another fight.

She stepped right by him without speaking. He hardly looked at her, in a daze as he gazed off toward the kitchen. Genna walked that way, hearing hushed, frantic voices inside. She paused in the doorway, seeing her brother in a pair of boxer shorts, his white socks splattered with flecks of red. The rest of his clothes were in a heap on the floor, discarded, as Dante paced around them. His body trembled as he shook his hands, as if trying to get feeling back in them. "This is fucked…
I'm
fucked."

"You'll be fine, son," Primo said, pulling out a black trash bag to gather up his clothes as he motioned toward his feet. "Give me those socks."

Dante tore them off, nearly losing his balance, and tossed the socks into the bag before continuing to pace. His hands ran down his face as he muttered to himself, frenzied. "I swear I didn't mean to do it. I just…
he
drew first. The stupid fuck drew a gun on me. What else was I supposed to do?"

Genna's stomach sunk, her eyes widening in horror.

"You don't have to explain yourself," Primo said. "It was premature, yes, and you shouldn't have done it in Soho, but I'm not going to get
upset
that a Barsanti boy is dead."

Dead
. Genna gasped at the word, drawing their attention straight to her. Dante's expression flickered, whatever bit of calm he had been struggling to maintain slipping away as his face contorted, almost as if he fought back tears. Genna frantically shook her head, those words pounding through her like a jackhammer.

Barsanti boy
.
Dead
.

"Oh, God," she gasped. "What did you do?"

"Go to your room, Genevieve," Primo barked. "Now!"

She ignored him as she stepped further into the kitchen, her focus on her brother. "Dante, please… tell me."

"Genevieve!"

"Tell me!" she yelled frantically. "What did you do, Dante?"

"He drew on me," Dante said, his voice shaking. "Enzo pulled his gun. I had no choice. I
had
to shoot him."

Relief washed through Genna, so intense that her knees buckled. She had to grasp the wall to keep from hitting the floor. It wasn't Matty. Matty wasn't dead.

But that relief was short-lived. Matty may not be dead, but his brother was, killed at the hands of
her
brother. Dante—passive, protective Dante—was a murderer. The knowledge made the ground quake beneath her feet.

"Why were you there?" she asked desperately, trying to make sense of it. "Why were you even in Soho tonight?"

Primo spoke up again, stepping between his children. "Genevieve, you know better than to meddle in business."

"Business?" She glared at her father. "This isn't just
business
, Dad. This is personal, and you know it! A boy is dead, and why? For what?"

"Because he's one of them," Primo growled. "And if this works out like it's supposed to, they'll
all
end up that way. I won't be satisfied until every single drop of Barsanti blood is spilled."

As soon as those words struck Genna, her hands instinctively clutched her stomach. She backed away, shaking her head as tears stung her eyes. Turning, she ran from the room, heading straight for the front door.

She couldn't be there. She couldn't be with them.

The trek to Soho felt like it took hours in the back of a cab. Genna fidgeted, repeatedly trying to call Matty but getting no answer again and again. The cabbie had to drop her off a block away from The Place, the neighborhood blocked off by police. Genna sprinted past the gathered onlookers, ducking right under the yellow crime scene tape, ignoring the protests when an officer tried to stop her.

"Matty?" she hollered, looking around desperately and freezing when she spotted him sitting along the curb across the street. His clothes were soiled, bloodstained and filthy, while dried blood caked the side of his swollen face. A medic hovered over him, trying to bandage his head. Genna started toward him when he looked up, his expression harsh. He shoved the medic away, refusing treatment, as his eyes met hers.

"Matty," she said frantically, crouching down in front of him and grasping his cheeks as she surveyed his battered face. "Oh God, look at you!"

"I'm fine." His voice was hardly a whisper as he covered her hands with his own, pulling them away from his face. "What are you doing here?"

"I know... I mean, I
heard
..." Tears spilled down her cheeks, despite how hard she fought to contain them. "Enzo."

Matty flinched at his name, his gaze darting across the street toward The Place. "They already took him away."

"Was he really...? I mean, is he...?"

She couldn't even say the word.
Dead
.

"It's not safe for you here," Matty said quietly, not answering her question, but the truth was there, swimming in his bloodshot eyes. "You need to go home."

"I can't." She shook her head. "How can you even say that? I can't be there with them. Not now. Not
after
..."

"I have to deal with this," Matty said, brushing the tears from her cheeks. "When it's over, I'll come for you, and we'll leave. We'll get the hell out of New York and never look back."

"You promise?"

"I swear it, but until then, home is the safest place for you." Before she could argue, Matty grabbed a hold of an officer as the man strode past. "I need someone to escort Miss Galante home right away. She shouldn't be out here."

The officer nodded, surveying her. "I'll handle it."

"Thank you."

Matty gazed at Genna for a moment before pulling her toward him and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "I love you."

"I love you, too," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Yeah," he mumbled, looking away from her as she stood up to follow the officer to a waiting car. "I'm sorry, too."

The Barsanti residence appeared abandoned, a shell of a once-loving household, now shrouded in shadows and doused with coldness. Matty parked right out front and sat in his car for a moment, staring at the front door. It was quiet and dark, all except for a subtle glow of light coming from a room on the second floor.

His father's study.

The police hadn't come by to make the official notification yet and probably wouldn't for a few more hours, but Matty wasn't a fool—he knew his father would know by now. Roberto likely knew the second Enzo took his last shaky breath.

Roberto hadn't gone to the hospital, though, and he hadn't shown up at the scene. That subtle glow streaming through the curtains upstairs told Matty he hadn't gone anywhere. He sat tight, and waited… and waited… and waited…

But for what?

Matty wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Pushing his apprehension aside, he climbed out of the car and headed up onto the porch, using the spare key his mother had given him to go inside. Quietly, he ascended the stairs, his feet sounding like steel against the wooden floor, the sound bouncing off the white walls, as he made his way straight to the study.

The door was wide-open. Roberto sat in his plush leather chair, his gaze trained on the top of his barren desk. He didn't look up when Matty entered, didn't speak, although the subtle slumping of his shoulders as he let out a deep breath told Matty he knew he was there.

Slowly, Matty stepped into the room, his gaze shifting from his father to the table of weapons right inside. He trailed his fingers along the long barrel of a rifle, the metal cool against his fingertips. Every muscle in his body ached, pain stabbing at his chest every time he breathed deeply, but it was nothing compared to the mental anguish going on inside of him.

Nothing compared to the fresh sting of the memory.

"They killed him." Roberto was quiet, although a restrained quiver accented his words as he fought to keep his voice steady. "He's dead."

Matty sighed, wincing at the discomfort in his chest. He fought back tears, keeping his mouth closed so not to inadvertently let a sob loose. Instead, he nodded, despite knowing his father still wasn't looking at him.

"They killed my boy," Roberto said again, his voice cracking that time, his grip slipping as grief shined through. "They took him from me."

Matty's hand skimmed overtop of a box of ammunition before his fingertips grazed the ridged grip of a pistol. He picked it up, grasping it tightly and gazing at it clenched in his hand. After a moment, he slid it into his pocket, concealing it, and grabbed the box of ammunition.