A henchman appeared behind her, his gun raised to shoot her in the back.
Before I could aim and fire, the man had been hit in the chest. He collapsed to the concrete, dead before he hit the ground.
My father appeared from the left, a raging look in his eyes. Smoke still blew from the barrel of his gun.
I got to Vanessa first and held her to her feet. “You’ve been shot.”
“Obviously.” She hissed through her teeth, blood still spilling everywhere. “Knuckles shot me when I tried to get away.”
My father didn’t stop to check on Vanessa. “Conway, get her to the hospital. I’ve got to—” He stopped when he came face-to-face with Knuckles, a long gun pointed directly between his eyes.
“No!” Vanessa tried to squirm out of my grasp.
I held her tighter, my gun at the ready.
Knuckles sneered at my father. “You thought you could cross me?”
“I did.” My father didn’t raise his hands in the air. With a strong voice and even stronger stance, he didn’t show an ounce of fear. “I’ve got my daughter back, and Sapphire is safe. You could put a bullet in my brain, but it wouldn’t make a difference.”
Knuckles pressed the gun harder into my father’s skull, his irritation bright in his eyes. He held the gun, but my father held all the power. Even if Knuckles pulled that trigger, he would lose the game. It took all the victory out of it. Once he killed my father, he would be captured by the rest of our men. If he hadn’t been so arrogant as to underestimate the Barsettis, he wouldn’t have been so careless. I knew he was capable of a better plan than this, a man with more resources than us, but his confidence affected his judgment. If he’d taken the time to learn more about my family, he would have realized this wasn’t our first rodeo.
Fucking idiot.
My mom appeared from behind Knuckles, a black rope between her hands. With featherlight steps, she came from around the corner then yanked the rope against his throat, just when my father turned out of the way of the gun. With lightning speed, he broke Knuckles’s wrist and snatched the gun out of his broken hand.
And my mom choked him harder, pulling so tight on the rope it was about to snap in half. She tugged on the rope and pulled him to the ground, making his body slam on the concrete. She was half his size and weight, but she managed to drag him several feet, making the rope slice into his skin. A gun was on her hip, but instead of giving him a swift death, she decided to make him suffocate.
My father didn’t intervene, letting my mother do exactly what she wanted.
“No one. Touches. My.” She watched his eyes roll into the back of his head and his body finally give out. “Daughter.” With knuckles strained and white, her hands were about to give out. But when his body collapsed and his spirit left him, she still pulled—like desecrating his remains would give her even more satisfaction.
My father approached her slowly. “Button.”
Like she didn’t hear him, she continued to tug.
He repeated her name again, this time with more force. “Button, he’s gone.”
She finally dropped the rope. She stared down at him before she spat right on his face.
“Damn,” I said under my breath.
Vanessa was watching the scene too, resting most of her weight on me. “I hate to whine but…I think I need to get to a hospital.”
I didn’t think my mother had it in her to become a ferocious killer. But the second her daughter was in danger, she turned into someone I didn’t recognize. She relished the bloodshed the same way a killer did. “Alright, here we go.” I scooped Vanessa up into my arms and waved down a taxi, not wanting to wait for Carter to bring the SUV around.
I carried her into the back seat and looked at the driver’s terrified expression in the rearview mirror. “Get me to the nearest hospital.”
They took my sister to surgery right away, and we were left to sit in the waiting room. I was covered in blood, so Carter gave me a t-shirt to change into. The waiting room was packed with other families waiting for news about their loved ones.
My mother and father stood alone on the other side of the room, talking quietly to each other. Tears welled up in my mother’s eyes over and over again, and my father did his best to make them stop.
Aunt Adelina came a few hours after that, bringing her daughter, Carmen. They hugged Carter and held him for a long time.
I’d been too busy thinking about Vanessa that I hadn’t even thought about Muse. I should pick her up and bring her to the hospital to wait with the rest of my family, but I didn’t want to leave just in case we got any news. The nurse told us removing the bullet should be a simple process. It didn’t have the same risk factors as open-heart surgery or something more invasive.