Chapter Thirty-nine
At the sound of gunfire, the three FBI vehicles waiting outside the Benedetti estate roared in. The first stopped to cuff the two guys at the guard station, while the other two barreled up the long drive to the Big House. Guns drawn, six agents knocked, announced themselves, and entered the quiet house. They nearly ran into Nonna, in her robe.
“Not here! By the water.” She pointed the way through the house to the back stairs.
Lead agent SA Seacrest motioned a team to search the house and led the others at a run toward the kitchen and the back lawn beyond it. “Land the bird,” she said into her comm as they went.
The sound of distant rotors cut discussion in the boathouse short.
“Go time,” Angelo said.
Maji gave Dev, Tom, and Frank each a quick glance. They were ready to move the show to where a new audience—one with access to the house’s security cameras—could see. She gave Angelo the nod and took a deep breath, willing herself to relax. “Do it.”
When Angelo’s fist connected with her nose and cheekbone, the crack sounded more inside her head than out. She pinched the throbbing bridge of her nose with one hand and wiped blood away from her mouth with the other. Swallowing blood would make her puke again, and there was no time for that.
“Shit,” Angelo said. “Did I mess up your vision?”
The eye might swell shut, but not right away. Maji shook her head and grabbed Frank by his jacket collar. “Roll, and then stand up. When you get hit, stay down.”
He nodded, and she jammed one foot by his hip, rolling herself backward and him out the door of the boathouse. She let him fly, rolling herself into a low crouch that Tom could clear easily. At the crack of the rifle, she stood and ran out the door after Frank.
As Maji checked Frank’s pulse—which was strong, but dangerously high—Angelo came backing out of the door, his hands raised. A bullet to the vest knocked him backward, and she sprang toward him, leaping over Frank’s prone form.
As Maji tackled Angelo, more pops sounded from inside the boathouse. She felt a sting on her shoulder, one of Tom’s precise shots just grazing her. Then the ground rose up to smack Angelo, and her ribs crunched into his shoulder. Maji stayed on top of him, a human shield, while pulling her gun back out of the waistband holster. As she fired blindly through the door, the engine of the big boat roared to life. She hoped Dev and Tom made it to their Coast Guard capture without any interference. Sirko’s crew had provided enough surprises already.
Overhead, the rotor noise grew quickly louder.
“Why am I still here, Rios?” Angelo asked as Maji rolled him onto his back and made a show of checking his vitals.
“Don’t worry—a good soldier always has a Plan B.” She found his jugular and took a slow breath to steady her hand before inserting the tiny needle.
“Ow,” he said, his beautiful brown eyes widening. Then he smiled crookedly. “Tell Ma and Rose I love them.”
Maji nodded, too choked up to reply.
“Now, you gotta sell it.” His voice weakened, even as he clung to consciousness.
“Stick to your own lane,” she replied.
“You are my lane.”
“Not anymore.”
His face struggled to smile, as he slid into oblivion. “Fuck you.”
“I love you, too,” she told him, fighting against the tears. Maji left her gun on the ground, covered in her fingerprints, and stood. She faced into the churning air and the grit stirred up by the helicopter with FBI on its side. Waving her arms, she yelled, “Medic! Medic!” into the dying sound of the slowing rotor.
The SWAT team deployed rapidly, covering the boathouse even as their medic helped Maji get Angelo onto a backboard and loaded into the chopper. She accepted a hand up into the bird, and as they took off she looked down at the scene. Two agents were cuffing Frank, now sitting up. Toward the house, two agents flanked Gino, who walked with his hands cuffed behind him. She pulled the headset on and spoke to the agent watching her. “The VA hospital. They’re standing by for us.”
Rose peered through the glass in the door to Angelo’s room in the ICU. The sight of Angelo in the hospital bed, hooked to monitors and a drip line, pale and intubated, reminded her of Grandpa Stephano in his last days. But he wasn’t dying, dammit. They just had to control the bleeding in his brain, keep him stable.
“ID, ma’am?” the deputy by the door said.
Rose frowned. “Oh, I…I don’t have my purse.”
The door cracked inward a few inches, and Maji’s voice rasped, “She’s family.”
The deputy nodded and pushed the door farther open, allowing Rose to walk through.
The fluorescent lights overhead were mercifully dimmed, and the curtain between the beds was pulled back. The near bed was empty, its bedding rumpled. Maji limped away from Angelo’s bedside toward her. Rose felt torn between embracing her and rushing past her to Angelo. His eyes were closed, a ventilator tube taped in place in his mouth. She stepped toward Maji, reaching for her. “Ri.”
Maji stopped her hand before it made contact, limping over to the empty bed and leaning back on the edge. Rose gasped at the sight of her face, the left eye swollen nearly shut, the skin red, and the bridge of her nose bandaged.
“I’m fine.” Maji turned her face away, so only the undamaged side showed.
“The hell you are.” Rose stepped closer and slid her hand onto the back of Maji’s neck, just under the braid.
Maji stiffened but didn’t pull away. “Where’s Jackie?”
“Still unconscious. Too much sedative.”
The door shushed open, and a man’s voice said, “Sergeant, I have the—”
Rose turned and looked at him, pulling her hand back to her side. A man in scrubs looked at her, then over to Maji.
Maji nodded, and he continued. “The papers for you to sign.”
She held out her hand for the clipboard, face blank.
He stopped short of her. “Let’s get that leg elevated again, okay?” His tone suggested it wasn’t really a request.
Maji glared at him, but scooched back on the mattress and turned herself, swinging her legs up. Rose noticed for the first time that one pant leg was cut up the back from cuff to knee, an Ace bandage wrapped around the ankle. Maji hit the control buttons on the bedside table, and the back of the bed tilted her upright. She put her hand out for the clipboard, took it, skimmed through a few pages, signed it, and handed it back.
He took it back from her. “Ma’am.” Then he simply turned and left.
Rose looked a question to Maji.
“They need to induce a coma. Until Jackie gets here, I have to sign off on his care. He gave me power of attorney.”
“When?”
“Couple years ago. He has mine.” She smiled grimly and moved her legs farther over, making room for Rose. “Sit. We need to talk before they come question me.”
Rose perched on the edge of the bed, her hands in her lap. “How can I help?”
Maji leaned forward and took one of her hands. “I’m sorry. But I need to know who came to the house, what they asked you, and what you told them.”
“Two FBI agents came. I didn’t have much to tell them, but I begged a ride here.” Rose had been desperate to see Angelo, and Maji as well. “Hannah gave me a message, though. She says your vacation is nearly over. And the firewall was never down. Does that make some kind of sense to you?”
Maji’s eyes moved to the wall, then back to her. “Yeah. Thanks.” She tilted her head toward the other side of the curtain. “Go talk to Ang, huh? Can’t hurt.”
Maji woke to the sound of Sander’s raised voice. “I don’t care about your list. Let me the fuck in!”
She made it to the door and cracked it enough to be heard. “He’s family, too.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Ricky or Gino finally deigned to visit, she planned to withhold that line.
Sander looked like hell, and he didn’t bother to hide his impression of her. “Jesus H. Christ on a raft.” He looked past her. “I need to see him.”
“You flew back? Just like that?” She held her ground.
“No. We rerouted to Newfoundland, and I got a charter back.”
“We?”
“Me and couple of the guys, for security. Papa went on to Austria. But I couldn’t leave Angelo behind.”
Maji moved aside, and he slipped past the curtain to Angelo’s bedside. Looking at him holding Angelo’s limp hand, stroking his forehead, she almost felt sorry for Sander. “Stay as long you want.”
“Rose says he’s in a coma. We can fly him to somewhere better, make sure the surgery is a success.”
“There isn’t going to be a surgery. He’s lost the part of his brain that controls autonomic functions. The machines are breathing for him, but he’s gone.”
“But…”
“I didn’t know how to tell her. She loved him so much.”
Sander was on his feet and holding her before she could wipe the tears. “It’s not your fault.”
Maji pulled back and blew her nose on a pocketful of damp tissues. “I tackled him, when the bullets were flying. He hit his head, and I didn’t even know it. I let him down.”
“So did I. But then, he loved you. He needed me—but he didn’t love me.”
Maji hopped to the chair by the sink and lowered herself into it. “Yes, he did. When I got to town, he was all about the money. Cagey about how he was going to get rich, but clear on that part.”
“Okay. So?”
“So he changed a couple weeks in. He was still obsessed with that thing you two were cooking up. But he was all about proving his value, so you’d ask him to move to Vienna with you. The way he looked when you finally did—I’ve never seen him look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Happy. Dude, he was in the closet since high school. He found guys to break a sweat with, sure, but he was never happy. Then you offered him a real life. Changed everything.”
Sander sat and took off his glasses, putting his palms against his eyelids. “I am a curse on the men who love me,” he said in Russian.
“Well, he didn’t feel like that,” Maji replied in English. “For what it’s worth.”