Chapter 8 - FIVE BULLETS
Dante reached the SUV and forgot how to breathe.
Blood covered Clara’s white uniform.
Too much.
Far too much.
“Clara.”
He dropped to his knees.
Rosa was screaming behind her.
“She covered me. Dante, she covered me.”
Nico and two guards dragged open the damaged rear door.
Dante reached for Clara.
Her eyes opened halfway.
“Your mother…”
“She’s alive.”
That was what mattered to her.
Even now.
“She’s alive, Clara.”
Her lips moved.
“Good.”
Then her eyes closed.
“No.”
Dante caught her face.
“Clara.”
Nothing.
“Open your eyes.”
The ambulance arrived within minutes.
To Dante it felt like years.
Paramedics pushed him back.
He refused until Nico physically took his shoulder.
“They need room.”
Dante stared at his oldest friend.
“She can’t die.”
Nico had seen Dante furious.
Bleeding.
Arrested.
Shot at.
Never like this.
“She’s not dead.”
Dante looked toward the ambulance.
“You don’t know that.”
Neither did he.
At the hospital, Clara disappeared through double doors.
Rosa was treated for cuts and bruising.
One fractured rib.
Nothing life-threatening.
She asked about Clara every thirty seconds.
No one had answers.
The trauma surgeon finally appeared almost an hour later.
“Mr. Marino?”
Dante stood.
“How is she?”
“Critical.”
His world narrowed.
The surgeon continued.
“She sustained five gunshot wounds.”
Rosa began crying.
Dante did not move.
“One damaged her right lung. Another caused significant abdominal bleeding. Two passed through soft tissue. One fractured her shoulder.”
“Can you save her?”
“We’re operating now.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
The surgeon looked directly at him.
“We are doing everything we can.”
Dante hated that sentence.
He had heard it before.
Gabriel.
His father.
Rosa.
Doing everything we can was what doctors said when control had disappeared.
The surgeon returned to the operating room.
Dante sat.
For twenty minutes he stared at his hands.
Clara’s blood remained beneath his fingernails.
Rosa reached toward him.
“Dante.”
He did not answer.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“This is not your fault.”
His laugh was bitter.
“She was in that car because of us.”
“She was in that car because she loves me.”
That made it worse.
Dante stood abruptly.
“I should have gone.”
“You would have been shot too.”
“Good.”
Rosa’s face hardened.
“Don’t say that.”
“She took five bullets.”
“And you think making me lose my son would improve this?”
Dante turned away.
Nico approached.
“We have the shooter.”
Dante’s entire body became still.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
She knew that tone.
Clara would have recognized it too.
Dante walked toward the exit.
Rosa called after him.
“Dante.”
He stopped.
“Don’t.”
He looked back.
“That man shot Clara five times.”
“And what would she tell you to do?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“She isn’t here to tell me.”
“Then you know exactly what she would say.”
Dante looked toward the surgical doors.
Evidence.
Law.
Make him live long enough to see he failed.
He hated Clara for being in his head.
He loved her for it.
The realization struck him harder than anything else that day.
He loved her.
Not almost.
Not eventually.
Now.
He returned to his chair.
“Give the shooter to the police.”
Nico nodded.
“And tell Julian I want federal protection on him.”
Nico raised an eyebrow.
“Protection?”
“No one kills him before he talks.”
That was the first choice Dante made because of Clara.
It would not be the last.
The surgery lasted seven hours.
Dante did not leave.
Matteo arrived.
Julian arrived.
Half the Marino organization called.
Dante answered none of them.
At 6:13 p.m., the surgeon returned.
Dante stood so fast the chair fell.
“She survived.”
Rosa began sobbing.
Dante closed his eyes.
The surgeon continued.
“She is extremely unstable. The next twenty-four hours are critical. We repaired the abdominal bleeding and treated the lung injury.”
“Can I see her?”
“For a minute.”
Clara looked impossibly small beneath the machines.
Dante stood beside her bed.
He had never understood people who spoke to unconscious patients.
Now he understood perfectly.
“You are the most difficult woman I’ve ever met.”
The ventilator moved.
“You ignored every rule.”
Machines beeped.
“You insulted me in my own house.”
His voice broke.
“And you made my mother laugh.”
He took Clara’s hand carefully.
“I don’t know when that became the best sound in the world.”
His thumb moved across her fingers.
“You don’t get to leave now.”
He lowered his head.
“I haven’t even told you.”
The words almost disappeared.
“I love you.”
Nothing changed.
No miracle.
No opening eyes.
Only the steady machines.
Dante stayed.
The shooter talked the following morning.
His name was Marcus Vale.
Former military contractor.
No direct criminal record.
He had been paid two hundred thousand dollars.
The order came through encrypted accounts.
Carlo was connected.
But again, someone above Carlo had approved it.
Then came the shock.
The payment authorization had used credentials belonging to Salvatore Marino.
Dante’s dead father.
Matteo stared at Julian.
“That’s impossible.”
Julian shook his head.
“Not if someone maintained the account after his death.”
“Who had access?” Dante asked.
Nico answered.
“Three people.”
“Names.”
“Your father.”
“He’s dead.”
“Carlo.”
“Expected.”
Nico hesitated.
“And Rosa.”
Everyone looked toward the hospital room.
Dante’s expression became lethal.
“No.”
Julian spoke carefully.
“Could someone have used her credentials?”
“She had a stroke.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Dante turned.
“My mother did not order an attack on herself.”
“No one believes that.”
Matteo paced.
“Then someone used her identity.”
Nico’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“What?”
Dante asked.
Nico looked at him.
“The federal team searched Carlo’s townhouse.”
“And?”
“They found records.”
“What records?”
“Old ledgers.”
Dante felt something cold move through him.
Nico continued.
“They include payments from the year Gabriel died.”
Rosa had fallen asleep.
Dante left Matteo with her.
He went with Nico and Julian to the federal building.
The ledger was almost thirty years old.
Numbers.
Initials.
Dates.
Thomas Hughes’s handwriting appeared in several places.
Clara’s father.
The final page had a note.
G. MARINO — INTERNAL APPROVAL.
Dante stared.
“What does that mean?”
The federal agent slid another document toward him.
A bank transfer.
Two men had received money before Gabriel’s death.
The authorization code belonged to Salvatore’s private office.
But the initials approving it were not Salvatore’s.
C.M.
Carlo Marino.
Dante leaned back.
His uncle had ordered Gabriel’s murder.
The agent continued.
“We believe Gabriel discovered Carlo was stealing from the organization.”
Matteo’s earlier words echoed.
Some kid standing beside your coffin wondering which lie was worth killing for.
Dante felt nothing.
Then everything.
Carlo had killed Gabriel.
Framed another family.
Helped shape Dante into the weapon Salvatore wanted.
Later, he had tried to weaken Rosa.
Then kill her.
Then frame Clara’s father.
Then kill Clara.
Dante stood.
“Where is Carlo?”
“His bail has been revoked.”
“Where is he?”
“We can’t locate him.”
Dante’s eyes became cold.
Nico received a call.
He listened.
Then looked at Dante.
“Carlo disappeared thirty minutes ago.”
Dante turned toward the hospital windows.
Somewhere in that building lay his mother.
And Clara.
Both alive.
For now.
Then Nico added, “There’s something else.”
Dante looked back.
May you like
“Carlo’s last phone signal came from this hospital.”
Dante was already running before Nico finished the sentence.
