Chapter 11: Brutal Vows: Chapter 11

Once in the kitchen, I head straight to the wine fridge, pull out a bottle of Cabernet, and bring it over to the big marble island. I grab a corkscrew and open the wine, all the while breathing deeply to try to calm my throbbing heartbeat.

“Hey. Irish.”

I’m so startled by the voice, I drop the corkscrew and curse. “Christ! I didn’t see you there.”

Reyna’s mother sits at the kitchen table, squinting at me from behind her glasses.

It’s unnerving how she does that. It’s as if the woman can materialize out of thin air, like Dracula.

I exhale hard and add in a more civilized tone, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Caruso. I’m not myself today.”

She snorts and says something in Italian.

I don’t know what it is. I also don’t want to know. I grab two wineglasses from the cabinet and bring them and the bottle over to the table.

I sit down across from her, open the wine, pour us both a glass, and raise mine. “

.”

She makes a sour face. “Same to you.”

That makes me chuckle. “It means cheers.”

“Oh. Well, why didn’t you say so?” She picks up her glass. “To what?”

Looking at her, the woman who spawned Reyna, Queen Devil Bitch of All Existence, I say sourly, “Birth control.”

“Heh! I’ll drink to that.”

We clink glasses and drink. When I set my glass down, she’s smiling at me.

Somehow, it’s not comforting.

She says, “So. Homer-who’s-named-after-a-dead-artist. You kill people for a living, ?”

I debate about how to answer, but decide to go with the truth. She seems like someone who doesn’t tolerate bullshit.

“I wouldn’t say it’s my primary role, but it’s definitely in the mix.”

She nods, grunting. “My husband killed people, too. So did Reyna’s. It’s a way of life for all made men.”

She peers at me over her wineglass as if she’s waiting for me to respond.

“If you’re asking if I enjoy it, the answer is no.” I stop and think for a moment. “Actually, strike that. I can recall several times I did enjoy it. But those particular men were savages.”

“All men are savages,” is her instant response. “It’s simply a matter of degree.”

I say drily, “I’m starting to see where your daughter gets her love for the opposite sex.”

“If you were married to the devil for fourteen years, you’d see a lot better.”

The way she says it, in a low voice laden with pain and regret, makes my skin crawl. “He was that bad?”

She meets my gaze and holds it for several silent moments, then sighs and takes a deep swallow of her wine.

“I wouldn’t have survived him. To be honest, I’ve never known anyone who could. But Reyna did. Would you like to know how?”

She doesn’t wait for my answer before saying firmly, “Grit.”

When I only gaze at her in silence, she adds, “She might not be sweet. All that was carved out of her. But once a heart has been hollowed out by knives, it can withstand anything.”

“What about Lili? Does she have grit?”

She looks me over for a long moment. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

I’m about to protest that I’m not anything like Reyna’s dead psycho husband when the crack of gunfire rings out from somewhere behind the house.

“Oh, listen,” says Mrs. Caruso calmly, glancing toward the kitchen window. “They’re playing your song.”

I leap to my feet, kicking the chair out from under me and crouching low. Pulling my gun from the holster inside my suit jacket, I snap, “Get under the table!”

“No can do. I’ve got wine to finish.”

As another volley of shots rings out, she sips her wine and smiles at me.

I make my way swiftly to the wall next to the windows. Leaning in, I take a quick scan of the backyard. The yard is surrounded by massive maple and oak trees and a tall hedge of arborvitae that blocks the view of the property from outside.

There’s still enough daylight left for me to see the long stretch of lawn leading down to the pool, the formal garden with its rosebushes and fountains, and the pool house off in the distance.

And the fast-moving line of men dressed in black combat gear making their way toward the main house, snaking in and out between the trunks of the trees, tactical rifles held at the ready.

I also see four men lying facedown on the lawn, scattered around like discarded dolls.

Gianni’s guards.

“We’ve got company,” I tell Mrs. Caruso.

She chuckles. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

I turn and glare at her. “Will you get under the bloody table, please?”

“I can get shot there as easily as I can right here. And you should be worrying about Lili, not me. She’s up in her bedroom, in case you were wondering. Turn left at the top of the staircase, last room at the end of the hall.”

Shaking my head, I pull the revolver from my ankle holster and set it on the table in front of her. Then I switch off the lights in the kitchen and leave Mrs. Caruso with her wine.

I head swiftly down the corridor outside, where I encounter Gianni coming out of his study with a shotgun in his hands.

“I counted six,” I tell him. “There may be more.”

“Where?”

“North side of the yard. Headed in fast. How many armed guards are on property?”

“A dozen.”

“You’re down to eight. You have a safe room in the house?”

He nods. “In the basement.”

“Lili’s in her room. Get her and take her to the basement. I’ll deal with our visitors.”

“I’ve already put everything into lockdown mode,” he protests. “The doors and windows are bulletproof and the walls are reinforced. There’s no way they can get in the house.”

“There’s always a way.”

As if proving my point, an explosion somewhere nearby rips through the house, setting the chandeliers swinging and plaster tumbling down in chunks from the frescos on the walls.

“Any idea who your friends might be?” I ask Gianni, eyeing the marble statue of Apollo teetering dangerously atop a column nearby.

“Maybe they’re friends,” he retorts. “We’ve all got targets on our backs.”

“Fair enough. Where’s Reyna?”

Glancing around, he mutters, “Probably off somewhere sharpening her claws and boiling the skulls of her enemies.”

If we weren’t in the current situation, I might actually laugh at that.

“Get Lili and get to the basement. Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”

Without waiting for his response, I head toward the explosion, moving swiftly and staying away from the windows. After turning down several corridors, I find the one with smoke drifting in the air and rubble scattered over the travertine.

I back up a few steps, crouch low against the wall, and listen.

It’s silent for several seconds. Then I hear the crunch of broken glass under a boot.

I lean around the corner and open fire.

A hail of bullets screams past my face, missing my nose by inches. Jerking back to safety, I’m gratified to hear the heavy thud of a body dropping against the floor.

There’s a low groan, a wet gurgle, then silence.

Another quick peek around the corner reveals one of the intruders lying flat on his back, staring with sightless eyes at the ceiling.

Other than him, the hallway is empty.

They split up.

I run to the corpse, crouch beside him, and do a quick search of his jacket and tactical pants. He has no ID, phone, or wallet. The only things I come up with are spare cartridges of ammo for the rifle.

I pull off his gloves and shove up his coat sleeves, looking for tattoos, but his skin is bare. So is his stomach and chest when I yank up his T-shirt.

All made men have tattoos that declare their family affiliation. The only lads who don’t wear ink are those who don’t want anyone to know who they are.

In other words, they’re hired help.

Mercenaries.

Gunfire erupts at the front of the house, outside in the courtyard. Most likely it’s Gianni’s other guards putting up a fight to the newcomers in black. I’ll worry about them as soon as I deal with whoever else is inside.

Heading down the corridor again, I come to a ragged hole blown through the exterior wall. The floor all around is littered with debris.

It’s about a six-by-six opening. A substantial size, which means substantial firepower. This mess was made by something with much more oomph than a hand grenade, especially considering the walls are reinforced.

The echo of heavy footsteps catches my attention.

I duck into a niche in the wall and listen as the footsteps move farther away. I can tell there’s more than one man, but not more than three. Holding my handgun at low ready and keeping my footfalls as light as possible, I walk farther down the corridor until I come to a break in the wall, beyond which is an enormous sitting room with a glossy black grand piano in the corner.

Two men with rifles move swiftly among the clusters of sofas and chairs. The scopes of their weapons are held to their masked faces, the muzzles pointed at a figure standing still on the other side of the room.

It’s Reyna.

Her hands hang loosely at her sides. Her expression is impassive. She watches the men approach with an eerie detachment in her eyes, as if the scene unfolding in front of her is happening to someone else.

I raise my weapon, take aim, and fire.

Brains splatter the wallpaper in a chunky vivid patchwork of red. The intruder the brain belonged to drops heavily to his knees. He falls face-first onto the carpet.

The other one spins on his heel and jerks the muzzle of his rifle in my direction.

Before he can get off his shot, Reyna pulls a knife from a pocket in her dress and embeds it in his neck.

He screams, staggering sideways and dropping his rifle. As he grapples with the blade jutting out from the side of his neck, desperately trying to dislodge it, I put a bullet between his eyes.

He jerks and falls, landing backward on a velvet sofa. Blood squirts erratically from the wound in his neck. Then he slides slowly to the floor and remains still, his mouth hanging open.

Reyna looks at me with undisguised irritation.

“I had it handled, Quinn.”

“You were about to get your bloody head shot off! And you’re welcome!”

Rolling her eyes as if she thinks I’m being ridiculous, she kneels down next to the body in front of the sofa. She yanks the knife from his neck, wipes the blade on his jacket, and stashes it back into the hidden pocket in the skirt of her dress. She picks up his rifle, checks to make sure there’s a round in the chamber, and stands.

“You know these guys?”

Impressed by her utter calm, I say, “No. You?”

She shakes her head. “Where’s Lili?”

“Gianni’s taken her to the safe room.”

“And Mamma?”

“In the kitchen alone, drinking wine in the dark.”

She nods, as if what I’ve just told her is entirely normal. When more gunfire erupts outside, she says, “Any idea how many of them there are?”

“I counted six. Killed one in the hallway. Plus these two, that leaves three left.”

“Two.”

“How do you figure?”

“I killed another one on my way in here.”

“Of course you did.”

With a toss of her head, she flips her hair over her shoulder. “Flashed my tits at him. He froze like a deer in headlights.”

Funny how I can be insanely jealous of a dead man I’ve never met.

“How creative.”

“Men are annoyingly predictable.”

“Tits are our Achilles’ heel. Now get down to the basement with your brother and Lili. I’ll clear the rest of—”

“Oh, shut up, Quinn,” she interrupts crossly, then spins around and strides out of the room.

I have to take a moment to press a hand over my heart, which is having a seizure.

No matter how long I live, I’ll never forget the image of Reyna Caruso in a black dress and stilettos, carrying a high-caliber rifle at the ready as she heads off to hunt armed intruders, her full hips swaying and her long dark hair flaring out behind her like a flag.

I leap into action again when I hear the staccato pulse of shots fired.

Weaving around the velvet chairs and tufted divans, I head out of the room. I search five more rooms on the ground floor, each bigger than the last and seemingly used for nothing more than display of hideous furniture and frightening, religious-themed art.

All are empty.

Near the staircase in the foyer, a man clad in black combat gear lies facedown in a pool of blood. His weapon is missing. The front door stands wide open. I see three of Gianni’s guards sprint past outside, in pursuit of someone running on foot.

Several seconds later, there’s more gunfire, then some shouting in Italian that sounds celebratory.

If there were only six men who entered the property, there’s one more to go.

Reyna’s nowhere in sight, so I run up the stairs and go from room to room, checking them one by one to ensure they’re empty. When I’ve confirmed they are, I trot back down the stairs, then hurry through the remaining rooms on the ground floor. They’re all empty, too.

Then I hear an angry voice coming from a nearby salon, the last one still unsearched. It’s a voice I’d recognize anywhere.

“Go ahead, fucker. You’ll be doing me a favor. But I’ll see you again in hell, and then I’m going to cut off your balls and choke you with them.”

My heartbeat surges into overdrive. Moving fast but quietly, I stride over to the salon, gun in hand, and slow just outside the doorway.

When I glance in, my pounding heart skids to a dead stop.

Reyna stands in front of an unlit fireplace, eyes flashing with fury, chin lifted in defiance. A man stands across from her, about six feet away.

He’s pointing a semiautomatic hand gun at her chest.

A rifle lies on the floor beside him.

I think it’s the one she was carrying. He must’ve surprised her somehow and pulled it from her grip.

I say loudly, “Oy. Dickface.”

He jerks his head to the right.

I squeeze the trigger and put a bullet in his temple. He collapses like a rag doll into a heap on the floor.

Then something kicks me in the shoulder from behind.

“What the…?”

I spin around to find another masked guy in black crouched on one knee in the corridor, arms outstretched, holding a Glock semi-auto in his grip. Before I can raise my weapon, a shot rings out.

Blood mists from his mask in a spray. He topples sideways, gun clattering against the marble, then lies still.

Breathless, Reyna runs up beside me. “It’s too bad you can’t count, Quinn. There were seven of them, not six.”

Too stunned to argue, I stare at her holding the rifle in her hands. “Did you just shoot a man to protect me?”

She looks at me, blinks, then winces. “Shit. Must’ve been a reflex.”

“Or maybe you were feeling gratitude for both times I saved your life in the last ten minutes.”

She scoffs. “Please. I didn’t need your help.” Then she gasps and her eyes grow wide.

“Don’t tell me. You just remembered you didn’t make me supper yet.”

“No, Quinn…” She reaches out and lightly touches my shoulder. “I think you’ve been shot.”

I look down at where she’s touching. A wisp of smoke rises from a small hole in the fabric of my jacket. The acrid smell of scorched silk hangs in the air.

Watching a ring of wetness grow larger around the hole, I sigh.