Donovan was contemplating his next move. If he took his eyes off me for even a second, I was set to pounce. He leered at me, his hands shaking with fury.
“If you move a centimeter, I’m popping daisies one by one, starting with them.” He flicked his gun over my shoulder.
He slowly started to back away until he was at the door. He backed out, keeping his gun trained on me while I tried to decipher the best time to move. I didn’t want to risk the girls, but they were right behind me and the easiest shot if he got jumpy.
The next few things happened in rapid succession, almost too fast to clock. Something barreled against Donovan. He discharged his gun as he fell to the side, and it skipped across Alessandro’s shoulder. He bellowed out, but it didn’t look like it hit him in a bad spot. A flash of color blew across the door, and then the door slammed shut with the Binachis on the outside and Stacy on the inside. She had a gun in her unbroken hand, which she quickly dropped so she could fiddle with the doors locks.
She was just a hair fast enough, as there were sets of hands pounding on the door a moment later. I was almost too shocked to move, but the wives jeering behind me pulled me out of my chair. I rushed to the gun that Stacy dropped first and set it back in her hand, then I dropped to Luca and started to untie him.
A total rain of bullets started to fly through the door. I panicked at first, but when I looked over, Stacy was already on the ground. She kicked a leg over, knocking Marco’s chair over, and then turned and did the same with Alessandro. Either she missed that he’d been shot or she figured shoulder pain was better than dying because the way she kicked him set him crashing down right where he’d been shot.
“Fuck!” he screamed.
“I’m so sorry,” Stacy whimpered.
I finally got Luca loose, and he clamored over to Marco and untied him while I carefully undid Alessandro. There was still an incessant banging on the door as Dante and Donovan kicked between their shots to try and get the door down. The wood was splintering, and we were running out of time. They’d open fire as soon as they got in.
When Marco was free, he jumped up and rushed over to the women, as did Alessandro. They worked to get them untied while Luca went to the armoire my dad kept and entered the security code. The doors opened, and an entire arsenal of guns folded out. I had no idea it was there. Luca quickly distributed them among the brothers and free wives, just as the door finally blasted open. None of us waited. All eight of us, standing in a perfect semi-circle, open fired on Donovan and Dante Binachi, throwing them back against the hallway wall as we emptied our clips into them. We only stopped when nothing but clicks of empty clips screamed back at us, but Luca quickly pulled another out.
He crossed to the door and peeked his head out. “Dario’s gone.”
“I’m sorry.” Stacy’s sing-song voice sounded so weird after only hearing the Binachi’s rocky timbers. “I only got him in his leg. Dante lied so I wouldn’t shoot him, too.”
Everyone looked at her, dumbfounded. I finally walked to her, wrapped my arm around her, and pulled her close to me. She was shaking under me, but not from the cold. I kissed her before finally turning her to face my family.
“Yeah,” I said. “Guys, this is Stacy.”
26
Stacy
I didn’t say anything while Gabriel and his brothers checked over the brothers’ wives and picked up some of the mess that was scattered around the office. The oldest brother, Luca, had made a few calls, and after about thirty minutes, a group of people showed up and dragged away the bodies of the men we’d killed.
The men we’d killed. I killed someone. I was a murderer.
My whole body was still shaking, and my head was pounding, but I think the thing that scared me the most was the total lack of remorse I felt. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel bad that someone had died at my hand, it was that I was more proud of myself for protecting Gabriel when he needed it the most. All I could think about was losing him. Walking into the huge m
anor and seeing his lifeless body in a pool of blood. When I weighed that on a scale against killing someone, the measurement wasn’t even close.
I thought of my parents, probably curled up on energy mats, winding down for the evening with incense burning around them. I thought of Mira, who was probably just now waking up to discover that I wasn’t in my bed where she’d left me. I thought of Sam, my clients, and all of my friends and family back in Woodstock. It would be the same if it were any of them. If I had a gun in my hands, and someone was about to take their life, and I could avoid their death instead, I’d do it in a heartbeat. There were those who couldn’t weigh one life against another, but the people I loved meant more to me.
I didn’t know if I was suddenly going to be under investigation for murder or if the Varassos were so skilled in cleaning up swiss-cheese bodies that they could walk around an office and stand chairs up as if nothing had happened. Either way, I trusted Gabriel, and I trusted the people who loved him. I had to protect him, and I did. I was proud of myself.
When the room was finally back to being a little more orderly, gallons of blood scattered around aside, Luca looked down at one particularly drenched spot and sighed like someone had thrown his morning paper askew. A beautiful woman with black hair and strong, wide eyes walked over to him and rubbed his back.
“Can we finally replace the carpet?” she asked.
Luca nodded. “You win. We can replace the carpet.”
It was such a normal, domestic conversation, and you wouldn’t think they were having it because the carpet was too bloody to keep around. I imagined my t-chart of things I’d have to get used to, and mentally etched blood on the next free line.
Gabriel was by my side. He looped an arm around my waist and clung me to him like he thought the floor was going to swallow me up. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me, so I didn’t press. If he needed time, I would give it to him.
The other women, a youthful one with light caramel-colored hair, sat in Marco’s lap, and his head fell to her chest and his hand to her belly. He rubbed gently. “How are you feeling?”
“We’re okay, Marco.” She placed a kiss atop his head where blood was drying. “Both of us.”
My heart climbed into my throat. “You’re pregnant?” I couldn’t keep from asking.