Page 112 of Urgent Vows
But I hear the hiss of another shot and mine goes wide as I jerk in surprise. A red hole blooms in Zio's forehead though.
He falls forward, tumbling to the floor in a heap.
A keening wail fills the air. It goes on and on. Why won't it stop?
Chapter 36
SEVERU
Aldo nods to the door of the office, "She's in there. Giovi Revello is with her."
Grabbing my Baretta from my shoulder holster, I put a silencer on it. We don't need anyone to come running if they hear gunshots. I open the door cautiously. If Giovi is the leak, my wife is in danger. What I hear as I step inside the room stuns me.
Giovi is telling Catalina the name of the leak in the Irish mob.
Catalina's body shakes with silent sobs as her uncle talks. My wife never cries. The sight hits me with gut wrenching force.
Neither she, nor Giovi, notice when I open the door to the office. They are so intent on each other.
She lifts a Glock from her lap and attaches a silencer, her words as shocking as her actions. She wants to save him from being tortured and she's prepared to kill him to do it.
I make a split-second decision. Stop Catalina from killing her uncle and take Giovi for further interrogation, or kill him myself?
He is a rat. He sold us out and broke his vow to the Cosa Nostra. He deserves time in the box, but if I take him, it will break her. I can see that.
Her bastard father wasn't able to break her with fifteen years of abuse. I'm sure as hell not going to be the reason she breaks now. I can't let Revello go, and I sure as hell can't let her kill him.
It would destroy her.
I silently slide the safety off my Baretta and pull the trigger. My bullet hits where I aim, slamming Giovi's head backward. Another bullet lodges in the wall to the right of the now dead man, proof that I acted in the nick of time.
He topples forward.
My wife makes the sound of a wounded animal, sobs wracking her small body.
I hate that she watched him die.
Furious, I snap at Aldo, "Where did my wife get that gun?"
"I don't know, boss. She didn't have it earlier. It must have been in here."
Big Sal cleared the room out, but Francesco must have had the gun hidden in here somewhere. Of course, Catalina knew about it. She made it her business to know as much as she could just for the power of holding that knowledge.
She drops the Glock without warning and launches herself across the room, throwing herself over the back of her slumped uncle's figure.
I hand the gun I just used to kill Giovi Revello to Miceli. "Take care of this."
"I'm sorry Zio," Catalina sobs over and over again.
The blood from the exit wound in the back of his head smears her arms and face. She doesn't seem to notice.
He was a traitor, but he loved her. And she loved him.
Dropping to my knees beside her, I try to pull her away from the body. She fights me. "No, I can't leave him alone."
"Fuck," my brother says with feeling.
"I killed him," she sobs and then she throws herself into my arms.
