Page 270 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
This couldn’t be the end when we’d only just started our life together.
“You’re pathetic, really,” Agostino continued, and I had to wonder if thisstronzowas actually a psychopath. “You think you can rule a Family with love? This is the mafia, Salvatore. The only way to rule is through power and fear. Bambi and Jacopo didn’t fear you as much as they feared me, so they became mine.”
On the floor, Jacopo stopped crying.
“Big words for a man who lost $227 million dollars’ worth of cocaine in one night,” Dante said calmly, so coldly I almost shivered. “The refrigerated container at the Port of New Jersey? The one filled with about 140 packages of premium grade coke from the Ventura Cartel.”
Agostino went still behind me.
Dante’s lips curled like a villain’s moustache, eyes dark as tar. “Yeah, Don di Carlo, if you were going to make it out of here alive, how would you ever explain that one to the Venturas? It’s better really that I’m going to put a bullet through your brain right here.”
Agostino reanimated, his pride wounded so, like an animal, he attacked because he couldn’t flee. “Vaffanculo a chi t’è morto,” he cursed savagely before taking the gun from my mouth and aiming it at Dante. “I’m going to kill you, and your woman, then take your entire fucking empire, Salvatore.”
He fired the gun.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The first shot grazed Dante’s shoulder, and the second embedded itself in his left bicep.
My husband barely flinched, firing off his own shot as Agostino shot his third.
Only, Dante was no longer in his line of fire.
Jacopo was.
He’d surged to his feet between the two men with his gun raised. Agostino’s shot found its way through his throat.
Dante’s in his low belly.
But Jacopo didn’t go down.
His face clear and cold, eyes filled with pain that was more spiritual than physical, he fired a shot straight at Agostino.
At me.
He was a turncoat. A traitor. And it was clear that he’d never totally approved of me.
So I felt one moment of fear that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Because the bullet didn’t touch me.
It went straight through Agostino’s skull.
He collapsed to the ground behind me.
In front of me, Jaco swayed, his free hand going to the base of his throat where the wound bubbled grotesquely.
When he fell, Dante was there to catch him, lowering him to the ground gently, going to his knees beside him.
“Cazzo,Jaco,” he cursed, pressing a big hand to the wound in his neck.
I dropped to my knees and pressed both of mine to the one in his belly.
“Are you okay?” Dante demanded, his eyes wide and matte black. “Tell me,merda, are you all right!?”
