Tia
I was out of my mind with worry. That limousine sat idling on the side of the road a half mile away from the Fete building. The driver told us that the limo was armored as well and was trying to be soothing but in a bossy way because I was having a flip out and I think he knew he had to keep us safe and stop me from doing something stupid, like running toward the building to find my husband.
I didn’t know if that was just our luck that we were in an armored car or if Tommy had planned it that way, but I was not soothed by anything. I was sick with worry and sick with the images I’d seen.
One minute, I’m trying to calm my sister-in-law down and the next minute there was this shaking boom that I felt deep in my bones.
We couldn’t get the bathroom door opened to get out but by the sounds and smells I knew there was some sort of explosion and there was also fire. The fire alarms blared a second and then everything went dark. Tess and I had debated what to do and then finally, she pushed against the door and it wouldn’t move. I pushed too but I was pretty sure there was a person against it. I’d heard a grunt.
“Dex?” I’d called out but he didn’t answer and then a waiter came in, bringing all sorts of dust and smoke with him. I couldn’t see him well as we had our phone lights on but mine dropped to the floor the wrong way so wasn’t giving off much light. He grabbed me and started pulling me out and I knew instantly that this guy wasn’t here to help.
We started to cough as that dust filled our lungs and I screamed and tried to pull away so Tessa started fighting him off. I was trying to fight him off, too, but he was big and strong and so Tess got her shoe off and hit him in the side of the head with it. He swore at her and then struggled and hit Tessa in the face with a gun. There was dim light coming in from multiple places in the bar.
He dragged me with him, something poking my ribs.
“Come or I fuckin’ shoot ya.” He pushed the gun barrel into my ribs, and my mind was filled with fear for my unborn baby while I wondered if Tommy got hurt. I couldn’t fathom anything worse than hurt; it was too frightening.
When the guy got me out of the bathroom into what was looking like a hellhole, he climbed over Dex’s prone body, pulling me along with him. I’d cried out looking around, trying to see what was around us, which was a mess. Stuff dangling from the ceiling. Smoke. A horrible burnt smell. Something by the door to the far end of the place was on fire and I could see a few people moving around and hear people who were clearly hurt.
“Tommy!” I’d screamed out and the guy who had me covered my mouth and lifted me and pulled me quickly into another room as I saw what I was pretty sure was Tommy’s shape, back behind a bunch of debris but making his way toward our direction.
There was another boom and then we were behind the closed door of a supply closet. The guy had his hand over my mouth and he had the gun in my ribs again. It was pushed to my ribs to the point of pain and I just stayed still until I heard my husband calling my name. Tommy was close.
I bit the guy’s fingers and that got me enough room briefly to scream for Tommy. The guy smacked me in the mouth and then put his hand over my mouth again.
And a few very scary moments after that, yet another gun to my head, I saw my husband kill that guy. That guy who gave us info that might’ve saved us. And Tommy killed him. Like he’d killed his father for putting a gun to me.
This guy had hit Tess in the face with a gun and dragged and threatened me and my ribs did feel bruised. He’d smacked me in the mouth, too. He’d agreed to help us and gave us info and Tommy didn’t know the guy had struck me in the face but maybe Tommy had killed him for putting the gun to my head.
He’d promised me in the dark of night after nightmares that no one would do that again. He’d had so many dreams that I imagine had to do with Tom Sr. putting that gun to my head and the pointing it at me when Tommy shot him.
And all those people hurt, on the ground, crying or not moving was streaming like a movie through my mind. Tommy put us in a car and where on earth was he now?
I kept praying he wasn’t about to be blown to smithereens by that third explosion. I couldn’t even think about him being in there with that happening, I wanted to claw my way out of that car and run and save him.
Me, saving him? It was crazy-talk but I was overcome with this urge to get to him, to drag him away from that building.
After a really long time, with no explosion sounds, thankfully, he and Nino were approaching us and I was bawling with relief, wanting to barf, wanting to shake some sense into him for leaving me sitting here for what felt like hours.
The driver stepped out and Tommy said something to him and then the driver, Tommy, and Nino all got into the car and as we pulled away, he turned towards me and I immediately crawled into his lap and threw my arms round his neck. He held me close but he was shaking.
I looked up at his face, thinking he was shaking with relief for a second but then I saw something very different from relief. It was absolute rage.
I wanted to back away; his face was that scary, but he had me by the back of the neck and he crushed his mouth to mine briefly, his whole body tight and shaking, his eyes ablaze, an inferno of anger.
“In your seatbelt, baby,” he said, his voice like scratchy gravel, and he physically set me beside him and buckled my belt. Tessa buckled up, her eyes on her brother, and then they moved to me and she and I were having what was the exact same thought. Tommy had never looked this angry. Never.
“What about ---” I started to ask about Dex, the other explosion, all of it, but Tommy’s hand hooked around my neck and he pulled me sideways and put his mouth to my temple hard and then let me go and I shut my mouth. It wasn’t the time for questions.
Tessa’s wide eyes moved to the window and I saw a nervous swallow move down her throat. Her hands were trembling. I looked at Nino and his expression was pretty similar to Tommy’s. We drove for a while and then we stopped in a warehouse parking lot.
“Stay here a minute. I’ll send Will out for you,” Tommy said.
I was about to ask where we were and where he was going, and it took a second for me to remember who Will even was, but I could tell it wasn’t a good idea to utter a word.
He got out of the car and strode, with purpose, Nino beside him, to the door. The door opened by someone inside and they disappeared inside.
Tessa and I stared at one another. I chewed on my bottom lip.
A moment later, Nino was back with Will, who I hadn’t seen at the event after we’d had our tour. He’d been behind us until we got into the bar.
He was walking with Nino toward the car and then the door was pulled open.
“Girls, follow me,” Nino said and Tessa got out first and then I followed.
***
It was like something from a movie. We walked down a long hallway, through double doors, and then we were in a loading dock area. Leo Denarda was looking very black and blue, sitting taped to a chair. His face and tuxedo shirt were bloody.
Me and Tessa stopped inside the door. There were three big men in the room that I didn’t recognize and they stood against the doors.
Tommy was standing over Leo, looking fiercely angry, looking ten times angrier than even that morning when someone tried to shoot us while we were having sex a few days after he’d rescued me from Juan Carlos Castillo in Mexico. His tux jacket was still over my shoulders. Tommy stood there, his bow tie undone, his shirtsleeves up.
“Contessa,” Tommy said angrily, “Here.”
Tessa moved with confidence toward her brother. I was a little confused for a second and then it dawned. She was facing her rapist and she wanted to strut like he hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t beaten her down.
“What did he do to you?” Tommy folded his arms and looked at his sister.
She straightened her spine, standing beside tommy, not three feet from Leo, and said, “He had me drugged and kidnapped, he mutilated my arm with an Xacto knife, he raped me, and then he sent me to an auction to be sold.”
“An eye for an eye sounds about right,” Tommy said, “You want to carve him?”
“No, but I’ll watch,” she said.
This was so calmly executed that I knew two things. One: he must have told her this would happen. He must have promised her that Leo Denarda would get what was coming to him. And two: she was definitely a Ferrano, made of the same tough stuff as her brothers. She was holding it together remarkably well.
Tommy, wearing a pair of black gloves, leaned over and used a knife to pierce Leo’s tuxedo jacket sleeve and then he ripped it away and took the knife and stabbed downwards. Leo screamed deep in his throat behind the tape over his mouth, his eyes wide, his face swollen and bloody.
Nino moved in and grabbed Leo’s wrist to steady it and Tommy curved the knife on his forearm. I felt bile rise in my throat. I heard another scream as Tommy kept carving. I couldn’t see anything but blood gushing but it seemed like he carved more than Tessa’s initials.
“How did he rape you?” Nino asked, lifting a long metal pipe up off the ground in his own gloved hands, and I heaved a little as puke rose in my throat. It was audible. I swallowed it back down and turned away and cradled myself.
“Will?” I heard Tommy’s voice, “Help my wife. Don’t let her fall.”
I felt an arm go around me. The guard who had been helping was supporting me so I wouldn’t fall.
I looked at Will’s face. He looked a little green and unsteady, too. He was young, my age or so, and he was new to the team. What a way to get initiated.
“From behind,” Tessa said and her voice cracked, “I was on a sofa on my stomach.”
“Untie him, Neen, bend the fucker over that table,” Tommy said.
I buried my face in Will’s shoulder so I wouldn’t have to look.
Oh god.
I sobbed.
“Athena!” Tommy called. I looked over my shoulder at him and saw as he was untying Leo.
“You can step outside the door for this. Tessa? Your choice.”
“I’ll stay.” Tess said.
Will helped me out and sat with me in the hall, our backs against the wall.
I heard voices. I heard my husband in an angry accusing tone but I didn’t know what he was saying. I heard Leo grunting out in pain behind his taped mouth. I heard Tess shout “fucking animal” and then Nino, “How do you like that you little motherfucker?”
I pulled my knees up and buried my face in them, forgetting that I was in a little black dress.