His Mafia Rose

Richard

I groaned as I came back to awareness, all the muscles of my body fighting the movement. My head pounded, a dull, persistent hurt at the back of my head where I had been hit. My arms and legs were heavy and nonresponsive, and each breath I drew was filled with smoke and hurt. My muscles had let go; my brain, uncoordinated and disjoined, but as I was finally able to open my eyes, the soft glow of the emergency lighting cut through the fog.

The first that I see is Holland Graves next to me, his face white and bloody, inhaling shallowly, alive. There was a buzz cut, shreds ripped away from his chest as he came up standing tall, his hands flailing blindly before he steadied himself with a grimace.

"What the hell." he rasped, blinking frantically at the burn of whatever was in the air.

We did not say another word. We were not required. Instinct and blood-fear forced us. We stumbled upright, steadying one another like crippled men with no crutch but will, and staggered through the side wing of the estate into the infirmary.

The Estate Infirmary was a minimally occupied, small wing, a nod to medicine more than a serious provider. It echoed now with the confusion and commotion; the antiseptic aroma was not strong enough to cover the bitter smell of blood. Nurses darted in jitters, the moans of hurt guards stretched out across bunks, towels soaked in blood piled high in buckets.

One of the nurses; a woman I vaguely recognized from home staff; elbowed into our line of passage, her eyes frantic.

"Mr. Graves. Mr. De Luca. Thank God," she panted, shoving past to help Holland.

"We didn't know if either of you;"

"We don't have time," I cut across her, throat sore and raw.

"We need something for the pain, and we need information. Now."

Within minutes, our wounds were quickly cleaned, the worst of the bleeding stopped. Ice was pressed to the base of my skull while Holland's side was wrapped where a piece of glass had gouged him. Neither of us waited for stitches.

"We're looking for our wives," Holland said through gritted teeth as he stood again, not bothering to fasten his shirt. "And the children. Were they brought here?"

The nurse's eyes moved to the side, avoiding the question.

That said enough.

Adrenaline broke through the fog. Fear took the place of agony. We didn't even pause long enough to say anything; instead, we turned and ran; half-ran, half-limped back into the bulk of the estate.

And that is when the devastation was apparent.

Smoke wafted through the air, its acrid odor blending with the bitter taste of gunpowder and blood. The mansion; that once impenetrable fortress, that icon of power and safety; had been broken open, ripped asunder in an arena of shattered glass, splintered wood, and bodies scattered across the marble floors like shattered pawns on a board. Panic seized my throat as the memories of the attack came crashing back in jagged flashes; the shots, the chaos, and the screams.

The manor was still thick with action as guards ripped through the wreckage of our formerly immaculate home, pushing the final unmoving guests toward safety, yelling orders to scour every inch of the manor. The orderly chaos was a dissonant counterpoint to the overwhelming terror constricting my chest.

Then Lorenzo, our most reliable man, emerged from the shifting shapes, his face set, and his posture stiff. The blood on his cheek had started to dry, but his eyes were stubborn as he came towards us.

"Sir." Lorenzo paused, for an instant, before his tone became harder. "We've started looking. There is something you have to see."

The terror in his voice made my blood freeze instantaneously. I caught eyes with Holland, the two of us fighting to keep up despite our battered bodies' complaints. Pain came in second place, stomped down by the cold fist of fear.

Lorenzo led us to the door of the servant, where a table had been wiped clean. And there;

Two bags, recognizable in their plainness. They had been left on the wooden table. Red bathed the sheer fabric, bright and new under the cold stare of the overhead light.

Kia's bag. Daisy's bag.

My breath stopped. The blood; so much blood; created a savage nausea that churned within me. Holland's whole body stiffened, jaw muscles contracted so tightly it could crack steel. The implications were enormous.

Lorenzo continued, his tone somber. "The invasion was led by Dominic Fernandez."

A hollow silence filled the room.

Then;

"What?" Holland's voice was a low growl, his rage barely contained. "That asshole was supposed to be dead."

"He isn't," Lorenzo spat. "And he made a point to inform us otherwise."

I exhaled raggedly, my fists forming at my sides. Dominic. He was responsible for this attack. Nothing more was needed from either of us as a commotion outside caused a fresh wave of tension to spark in the air.

There were screams in the courtyard. Guards walked past, their voices chopping the air in brief orders as they started to come out of the wreckage, dozens of them, black plastic bags strewn across the estate like the remains of a terrible treasure hunt.

I and Holland moved forward, our hearts pounding, our legs trembling but fueled by an intensifying horror that festered in our guts. The guards, weathered men with death as their backdrop, moved aside as we moved toward them, their faces pale beneath the flickering outdoor lights. Between them where open trash bags; filled with butchered body parts.

Death was heavy in the air with its odor. Thick. Choking.

Holland's whisper. "Tell me it's not them."

The guards squirmed nervously. "We don't know yet, sir." One of them swallowed hard. "They're women. But we; we haven't found the heads."

The words were a punch in the gut.

My stomach knotted. I barely felt the fire in my throat, the ragged gasps I was inhaling. We weren't fools. We knew.

Kia. Daisy.

Gone.

My own vision blurred at the periphery, my heart thundering in my ears. Holland stood stiff at my side, his knuckles white as he fought to draw breath past the tempest of grief, of anger, of something darker yet.

And yet, out of the mist, there was another figure. Something colder.

Betrayal.

For they had not merely been ripped from us.

They were already trying to escape.