Revenge (37 page)

As the medics labored over her, she found
herself relaxing in the midst of the frenzy. It was going to be
okay; the ambulance was here. She wasn’t going to die in the dirt
on this roadside. She looked at Enrico for confirmation, trying to
give him a smile through the oxygen mask she wore. But when she saw
him wince hard with pain and struggle to take a breath, a
frightened bird beat its wings in her chest. She squeezed his hand,
but he didn’t return the pressure. He dropped hers instead, his
hand flailing at his chest. He wheezed out some words to the
medics, then two of them left her and started working on him.

“What’s wrong with him?” she cried.

“
Puntura del polmone
,” the medic said.
Lung puncture. He moved into her line of sight, cutting off her
view of Enrico. “No worry,
signora
.”

The medics wheeled her away on a gurney,
while the others were working on Enrico. She couldn’t see what they
were doing, if Enrico was all right. She got a glimpse of his face,
his eyes closed, his skin gray. She didn’t want to leave him, and
when she struggled against it, one of the medics gave her an
injection. Warmth shot through her veins, then she was drifting,
her sight crumbling at the edges.

There was something she needed to do,
something she needed to know, but the urgency and what it was
quickly faded. The ambulance doors slammed, the siren wailed, and
the gravel crunched beneath the tires. And then Kate’s world fell
silent.

Enrico woke up in a hospital room, Antonio
slumped asleep in the chair next to him. In place of the shirt and
jacket he’d given up, Antonio wore a light blue surgical scrub top,
the trousers of his dark blue suit dusty and bloody, the knees torn
from scrambling about in the rocks next to the cars.

Enrico tried to talk, but his mouth was so
dry he couldn’t get much above a whisper. He coughed to get
Antonio’s attention, then wished he hadn’t. It felt like someone
was shoving an ice pick in his left side, and he barked out a
curse. Antonio woke up then, his eyes wide. “
Signore
?”

“
Acqua
,
per favore.
”

Antonio poured him a glass and handed it to
him. Enrico was surprised it took an effort to raise the plastic
cup to his lips. The water was room temperature and flat, but it
felt good and he downed the whole glass. And then he
remembered.

“Kate, how is she?”

Antonio smiled. “She’s going to be fine. They
got the bullet and stopped the bleeding.”

“
Grazie a Dio
,” Enrico said. Then he
remembered something else. She knew. She knew who he was. Before
he’d had a chance to tell her himself, to explain.

“I have to see her.” When he tried to sit up,
pain sliced through his torso. He cursed again, then lay back,
panting, but even that hurt. Any movement involving his rib cage
hurt. Horribly. He tried again, moving in the tiniest of
increments, and found he could manage to get upright that way.
Antonio restrained him with a hand to the chest.

“I’m sorry,
signore
, but you can’t get
out of bed. Your lung was punctured.”

Enrico glared up at Antonio, but knew he was
right. His next thought was his first practical one. “How many
guards do we have here?”

“Ruggero’s with the
signora
, and there
are two other guards outside each room. We also have a man at each
exit and entrance to the floor. You’re safe.”

“Not if they really want to finish the
job.”

“The
carabinieri
have their men here
as well.”

That earned a smirk from Enrico. “Maggiore
Alfonso must want to keep my contributions to the policeman’s
fund.”

“He’s a smart man.”

“What have they been told?”

“Only that someone was shooting at us. We
didn’t speculate about who it was, though of course Fuente asked if
it was Andretti.”

“And what did you say?”

“I shrugged. What else could I do?” He
paused, then looked away from Enrico. “I’m not sure it
was
Andretti.”

“What do you mean?”

“How would he know where we were at that
exact moment? How could
anyone
know?”

“Maybe we were followed.” Antonio shook his
head. “Then what?”

Antonio rubbed his chin, his fingers rasping
across blond stubble. “There are two possibilities. One, Ruggero or
I somehow signaled the shooters. Of course, we’d have to do it
without the other one knowing. You should check our phone calls and
text messages to verify. Two, someone planted a GPS tracker on one
or both of the cars.”

“Have you searched the cars?”

“No. The
polizia
have them. And I
didn’t want to leave until I knew you were all right.”

Enrico looked at the ceiling. Could this
possibly be Franco Trucco’s work? “Can you get Ruggero for me?”

Antonio was nearly to the door when Enrico
stopped him. “Don’t tell anyone about this. We don’t want to alert
the traitor.”

“I understand,
signore.
”

While Antonio was gone, Enrico struggled
upright again. He had to get out of this damn bed and see Kate. He
had to know whether she hated him.

He turned himself to one side, inching his
legs off the mattress and over the edge of the hospital bed. He was
clutching the metal frame, his lips pressed tight together, when
Ruggero limped in. “What do you need,
signore
?” Ruggero
asked, hurrying to his side. “Lay down,” he added, when Enrico
didn’t answer.

“How’s your leg?” He held himself upright
with trembling arms.

“Fine. The bullet passed through.” Ruggero
grabbed hold of Enrico’s arms. “You must lay down,
signore
.”

He did his best to fight Ruggero, but it was
like trying to move a mountain. He could barely stay up. “I need to
see Kate.”

Ruggero’s mouth compressed into a thin line.
“The
signora
is fine.”

“She knows. She knows who I am.”

Ruggero sighed, the breath gusting out of him
wearily. “She’s asked me twice why you lied to her.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. She asked for Antonio, but I’ve
kept them apart.”

“
Mille grazie.
”

“It’s your place to tell her, not ours.” When
he tried to stand up again, Ruggero frowned. “You must stay in
bed.”

Enrico ignored him and pressed forward. When
he met resistance, he mustered up his sternest glare. “I am your
capo
still, am I not?” There was a pause, then Ruggero’s
grip shifted to one of assistance rather than restraint. Enrico
started to lower himself onto his feet when a sharp rap on the
half-open door caught their attention.

A tall, thin, dark-haired man in a white coat
and glasses stood there with Enrico’s medical chart in his hand. It
was Enrico’s personal physician, Dottor Beltrami. He looked at
Enrico and shook his head. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to see Kate.”

“I must tell you something about her
condition. She didn’t want you to know. I think you should.”

Panic sliced through Enrico. “Tell me.”

“She’s pregnant.”

Enrico’s brows shot up. Pregnant? Was the
baby his? He remembered her hesitation that first time, the fact
that they hadn’t used condoms the first night. She said she’d been
on birth control pills before then. The child had to be his.

Warmth spread through him. He was going to be
a father in truth, not just in name, after all this time. He smiled
at Ruggero and Beltrami. “I assume the child is all right?”

“We believe so. She doesn’t show any signs of
a miscarriage. The hospital is of course keeping a close watch on
her.”

“I have to see her.” Enrico gingerly slid off
the bed. He tried to take a step and wobbled. Ruggero grabbed his
arm to steady him.

“You aren’t supposed to be on your feet.
You’re still heavily medicated, and you could tear your stitches if
you move around too much,” Beltrami said.

Enrico growled in frustration. He wasn’t sure
he could cross the floor of his own room, much less make it to
hers. “Wheelchair, then?”

Beltrami sighed. “You won’t listen, will
you?”

“No.”

“I’ll get a nurse. Sit down.”

Ruggero helped him to the chair beside the
bed. Enrico turned to him and whispered. “Antonio thinks a GPS
tracker was used on the cars.”

“It’s possible.”

“Find out if that’s the case and who planted
it. If it’s Trucco, he needs to be dealt with, immediately.”

The guard nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

A nurse came in with a wheelchair, followed
by Beltrami. She frowned at Enrico and at the doctor, but helped
him into the chair. They started down the hallway, IV stand in tow,
and Enrico thought about Kate and the baby. She didn’t want him to
know about the pregnancy. Which could mean only one thing: she
hated him, and she intended to leave him. Maybe she even meant to
abort the child.

His gut cramped and a shudder racked his
body. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to persuade her to
forgive him. Or at least to spare their child. If needed, he would
raise it on his own. He would do whatever it took to keep his child
safe.

When he got the reports from his men, Carlo
cursed God for denying him yet again. Enrico Lucchesi was like the
proverbial cockroach: damned difficult to kill.

Carlo relished the image of stomping on
Lucchesi. How he’d love to see him dead. But so far that had not
come to pass, despite Domenico’s assistance.

Even worse, Franco Trucco had come to see him
the day before. And what he’d told Carlo made him burn even
hotter.

Lucchesi had lied all along. He had sullied
his marriage to Toni before it had even begun. Thank God his
daughter had been spared the humiliation.

But her honor would be avenged. It was the
least he could do to make up for marrying her to a Lucchesi, for
consigning her to life as a housewife, when she should have been
his heir, when she should have been running the Andretti
cosca
instead. If only he hadn’t given in to her pleas to
save her twin…. But what was done was done. All he had left to give
her was vengeance.

What was the best way to draw out Lucchesi’s
suffering? Killing him was not enough anymore. He wanted to pummel
Lucchesi, to strip him of everything before he died.

Before the last day of his life, Lucchesi
would lose the ones he loved. Perhaps the bastard son first? The
boy might be Lucchesi’s blood, but the two must be estranged if the
son worked for Interpol. Losing a son he wasn’t close to? Not a
good first blow.

No, the first blow would be Rinaldo’s death,
and Carlo would make it painful. Trucco had made clear that Rinaldo
was aware of Enrico’s bastard, that he’d started making the
payments to keep Enrico’s secret. Rinaldo had known the marriage
and the truce were founded on a lie.

What if Rinaldo lost a finger or two before
he died? That would be the perfect payback. Anger still gripped
Carlo whenever he noted Dario’s missing finger, the void a constant
reminder of when Rinaldo thought he’d had the upper hand.

Oh yes. Carlo smiled to himself. He’d enjoy
wrapping Rinaldo’s fingers up in a box and sending them to
Lucchesi.

And then… then it would be time to get more
direct. To rob Lucchesi of what he loved most. The woman. She was
the key to his suffering. Lucchesi would do anything for the
American. She too would learn the meaning of pain. But not before
they’d had some fun together. He’d earned a little indulgence.

The boy would be the final blow. The final
nail in the coffin, the end of Rinaldo and Enrico Lucchesi’s line.
The ultimate grind of his heel before Carlo finished Enrico
himself.

But before all that, Carlo would have his day
in court. Benedetto had agreed to his petition to hear his case
against Lucchesi before La Provincia. Lucchesi would squirm then,
the little cockroach, and Carlo would enjoy making him crawl before
all of La Provincia. Maybe he would even finally overcome his exile
and earn a seat on the council.