Page 69 of Mafia Queen
“No!” I shout, and they all freeze. “Inside. The dining room table.”
They look at each other like a bunch of clowns.
“Do it,” Dario barks, and they listen, making a disaster of the transport—but these are the men we have, so this is what it is.
Unencumbered, I run ahead into the dining room. The table has a candleholder in the center surrounded by shoeboxes of mismatched dishes and silverware. I throw off everything but the tablecloth.
“Here,” I say, tossing aside the last box as Armando’s brought in. They lay him down. “Hello, Armando, how are you doing?”
Gingerly, I check the damage. The space between his navel and his open waistband is meat. A bullet ripped him open from one side and exited the other. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know how to fix this.
“I have a message,” he says. The effort sends a spring of blood upward.
“I found this.” Celia drops a red bag with a big white cross onto the table, and I wake up. It’s the super deluxe first responder kit, and I have never been so thankful for anything in my life.
“Sheets and towels.” Loretta drops a pile onto a sideboard.
“What’s the message?” I open the bag and dump it onto the card table. “Open all the gauze. Don’t touch it. Rip the sheets into strips. Someone, get me the alcohol.”
The guys do exactly as they’re told.
“Listen.” Armando coughs. “Violetta.”
“You shouldn’t talk.”
“They got him.”
The sounds of tearing fabric and shuffling feet get far away as I’m sucked into a sensory tunnel where nothing exists outside Armando and me.
“Who?” I’m not stupid. I know who, and I also know asking this man to say a single unnecessary word is cruel and dangerous…but I don’t know how to believe it without his confirmation.
“He’s alive, but…” In Armando’s eyes, past the pain and fear, is an apology.
Why does he look like a man who’s about to console me through his own excruciating pain?
No. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know.
The tunnel widens and disappears. I’m in the dining room again.
“I have to get you stable first. Where’s the fucking disinfectant?!”
Loretta puts a gallon of Smirnoff on the table. “It’s what I found.”
“Inside pocket,” Armando says. “Jacket.”
I unscrew the bottle and hold my hands out to Loretta. They’re shaking. “Pour it.”
She dumps a stream of vodka on my hands. I rub them together, ignoring Dario, who’s rummaging through Armando’s jacket pocket.
“They want the crown,” Armando gasps. “Even my sweet Gia.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“They ambushed us.”
“Oh, fuck,” Dario says when he takes out what’s in the bottom of Armando’s pocket.
“Gia… She’ll trade his life for it.” The wounded man doesn’t have the blood flow to sob for his love, but the sadness and disappointment are unmistakable. “For the crown.”
