her, and she shouldn’t know anything about our security.”
“I promise, I’m not going to do anything to the Varassos, Willow. I just want to help. You guys are doing me a big enough—”
I held up a hand. “Alessandro.”
Alessandro looked at me, and I instantly recognized the darkness behind his eyes. My loving husband wasn’t in at the moment. Only the mob boss Alessandro was present. “I need to focus on this right now. You can work with Denise and Molly on security, or you can stay out of the way.”
It shattered me. I didn’t like it when Alessandro spoke to me like that, especially when it involved treating me like I was just one of his flunkies. I knew Denise wasn’t going to give me a moment alone, but I wasn’t about to help them give her inside information about our security, so I just backed out of the way and stayed quiet. Once Marco was off, I could pull Alessandro aside and tell him what I needed to.
My skin crawled as Molly started to go over security details with Denise. What happened to keeping her on the outside? What had she done in such a short period of time to convince my family that she was worth telling such sensitive information to?
“Okay. I got it. You have to go.” Alessandro started to push Marco out the door, and I followed after them. The rest of the family filed in behind, and we started to walk Marco to Gabriel’s car, each of us giving him passing wishes of good luck and congratulations.
“Call us when you land,” Alessandro said.
Marco nodded, pulling open the passenger’s side door to Gabriel’s truck. “I will. Let me know whe—”
“Marco!”
Denise flew past me and jumped out toward Marco. My heart dropped, convinced that Denise was finally making her move, but when I heard a gunshot, it was from the bushes next to the parking lot. Alessandro jumped in front of me and pulled out his gun, as did Gabriel and Luca. They open-fired as a figure dressed all in black rushed out from the bushes and started down the driveway. Luca and Molly took off after him as Denise and Marco clattered to the ground.
“Marco!” Gabriel shouted, and we all ran toward him and Denise.
Marco rolled over, and the blood on his shirt turned my stomach, but he grabbed his shirt and then looked over at Denise, whose side had a much darker concentration of blood.
“She got shot.” He pressed his hands to the spot on her side, and she winced. “My god, Denise, I can’t believe you. You saved my life.”
“Well, it wouldn’t work for you to get shot the day your kid was born.” She groaned. “Go! It just grazed me. I’ll be okay.”
Marco looked up at Alessandro, and Alessandro nodded and swapped places with him. “Gabe, get him to the airport now. Stacy, you go. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
They didn’t respond but immediately jumped into action. Marco still lingered at Denise’s side. “Denise.”
She shook her head. “Go.”
He jumped into Gabriel’s passenger-side front seat, Gabriel climbed into the driver’s side, Stacy into the back, and they were screeching off down the driveway a moment later.
Luca and Molly rushed back over to where Alessandro was kneeling. “She saved Marco,” Luca said.
Molly had a warm smile on her face. “Geez. Hero complex, much?” Denise laughed and then groaned. Luca put his phone to his ear as Molly knelt to take Denise’s head in her lap. “Just hang in there.”
“Yeah. Hey, doc. We gotta call one in.” Luca had his phone to his ear and was talking fast. “No, not a Varasso, a friend of the family. Saved Marco’s life. Fuck. All right. We’ll bring her to you. Bye.” Luca looked back at Alessandro, his phone in his hand. “He can’t get away. We have to bring her there. He says take the normal measures, and he’ll meet us at intake.”
“Fine. We should wrap her.” Alessandro looked up at me. “Can you go grab the first aid kit from my office?”
I knew I was going to get flack for my next response. “No.”
Luca, Alessandro, and Molly’s eyes rushed to me. “What?” Alessandro asked.
“I’m not helping. She set this up,” I replied.
Molly’s jaw dropped. “Are you fucking kidding me? She got shot. She saved Marco’s life.”
“How do you think she knew someone was going to shoot?” I asked.
“I saw him,” Denise replied, but then she touched Alessandro’s hands on her side. “Don’t make her do anything that she doesn’t want to. If I were her, I wouldn’t trust me, either.”
That made my blood run twice as hot. She was intentionally trying to come off as the understanding victim. Luca raced past me toward the house, and Alessandro was looking at me like I was the one who shot Denise.