“Carmine,” she said. The sound of his name on her lips made his chest swell with love despite the fear. Nothing would ever overpower it. He stared into her deep brown eyes, and it seemed as if time stopped. It always would, he realized. Carmine’s world wouldn’t go on without her.

“I love you, too,” he said, struggling to fight back the emotion so as not to scare her. “Sempre.”

The moment he said the word, the black sedan rammed the back of their car. They skidded off the side of the road toward some trees. Carmine threw his hands out instinctively to protect Haven, knowing it was too late to stop it. He thrust forward and hit the steering wheel, pain ripping through his chest as the air left his body.

Blackness stole him instantly.

46

The airbag deployed with a loud pop, silencing Haven’s screams as her seatbelt locked into place. Slamming into it, she gasped for air, unable to take a breath until it deflated. She glanced at the driver’s side, her chest on fire as she tore off her seatbelt. Carmine was slumped forward, his airbag splattered with blood from his face. Haven screamed his name, pawing at him, trying to find some sign of life, and she cried out with relief as he took a shaky breath.

The slam of a car door nearby alarmed Haven. The black sedan was parked alongside the road, everything hitting Haven at once as four men approached, all of them shrouded in black masks.

They were a blur in her panicked state, their rapid approach severing any grip she might have had on herself. She considered trying to run, but she wouldn’t leave Carmine when he couldn’t fend for himself. “Carmine, I need you! Please!”

Her distress skyrocketed as the men neared, their voices muffled to her ears. Glancing around the front seat, she spotted Carmine’s gun on the floorboard. Her heart pounded vigorously. She hesitated for a split second before grasping it with trembling hands.

Someone appeared at the driver’s side, and Haven pulled the trigger as a reflex. It sounded like an explosion in the confined space, and she yelped, remembering to keep a grip on the gun so it didn’t slip out of her hand. The bullet shattered the driver’s side window and grazed the man’s face. He grasped his cheek and turned as someone screamed, the man behind him dropping to the ground a few feet away.

The first man ripped off his mask as he spun back around, and Haven shrieked when she recognized Nunzio. He whipped out his pistol and reached into the window, grabbing Carmine by the hair. Yanking his head back, Nunzio pointed the gun to his temple the same time the passenger door opened and a gun pressed to the back of her head.

The person behind her spoke, his voice heavily accented. “Drop the fucking gun, sweetheart.”

She let go of it instantly as the man grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the car. He threw her to the ground and picked up the weapon, checking it as Nunzio slammed Carmine’s head against the steering wheel.

“Please,” she screamed, feeling sick as the word rolled from her lips. “Please don’t hurt him!”

“Shut up,” Nunzio said as the man tossed him Carmine’s gun. “Did your boyfriend teach you how to use this thing? I never understood what Sal saw in him. Principe della Mafia, the future of the organization. He doesn’t have the brains for this.”

He glared at her, an eerie silence surrounding them as Nunzio slipped Carmine’s gun into his coat. “Get her up. We don’t have time to dick around.”

The man yanked Haven to her feet and pulled her toward their car. She hyperventilated, frantically looking for some way to escape.

“What about him?” a third man asked, glancing at their partner on the ground. His voice also carried an accent.

“Leave him,” Nunzio said. “I would’ve killed him, anyway.”

“And the kid? DeMarco?”

Haven’s heart felt like it stopped in that instant, pain radiating out through every inch of her body. She screamed and tried to pull away, fear making her knees buckle. The man’s grasp slipped, and she collapsed, sobbing. “Please don’t kill him! I’ll go with you, I will! I won’t fight! Just don’t hurt him!”

Devastation consumed her when the man drew his gun and pointed it at Carmine. She let out a shriek, the sound originating somewhere down inside of her soul and resonating so loudly her own ears rang. Both men in front of her recoiled from the sound as something hard slammed into the back of her head, the force silencing her.

“Shut the fuck up,” the man with the thick accent said, followed by another strong blow that knocked her forward.

“Please!” she screamed again through the pain, not caring what happened to her as long as they didn’t touch Carmine. He was still alive, and she needed him to stay that way. “I’ll do anything! Don’t shoot him!”

A foot slammed into her side, and she whimpered, trying to catch her breath.

“That’s enough,” Nunzio said. “We need her in one piece. Just leave DeMarco before she gives me a headache.”

The guy lowered his gun as Nunzio pulled her to her feet, eyeing her so intently her skin crawled. He pulled her close to him and leaned down, his nose grazing her cheek. She could smell the blood on his face as he smeared it against her. “He’ll die soon, anyway.”

She held her breath, revolted, and collapsed to the ground when he let her go.

“Put her in the car,” Nunzio said, walking away. Arms wrapped around her waist and dragged her toward the road. She could faintly make out Carmine’s body slumped over in the car, the sight of him crippling the last of her resolve. She screamed his name, desperately hoping he would hear her and wake up.

The man covered her mouth to silence her, and she panicked, biting down on his hand. Her teeth tore his flesh, repulsive blood filling her mouth. He pulled away enough to give her a chance to slip from his grasp. She spat and ran for the car but was grabbed as soon as she made it to the driver’s side.

“I thought you were going to play nice?” Nunzio asked, dragging her back to their vehicle. He forced her into the backseat as the others climbed in, tires squealing as they drove away.

Nunzio grabbed a small pouch and unzipped it, pulling out a needle full of clear liquid. “It’s a shame I have to do this.”

She gasped as his hand grasped her around the throat. She struggled, slamming her fists into him as hard as she could, trying to knock the needle out of his hand. He jabbed it into her thigh and held her tightly for a minute longer as she faded, slipping into unconsciousness.

* * *

“Carmine?”

The sound of his name registered in Carmine’s ears, but the voice was muddled and sounded far away. It was familiar, though, and he strained to hear.

“Carmine, open your eyes.”

Everything was black but oddly hazy, like he was submerged under water or in a thick fog.

“Come on,” the voice said, clearer than before. He recognized his father and tried to respond, but he couldn’t get words to form, strangled moans vibrating his chest.

“Wake up, son,” Vincent said. “This is important.”

Carmine forced his eyes open but winced at the pain radiating from his head. He groaned as he moved, the stabbing feeling spreading with each attempt. His distorted vision blurred everything.

He was still in the car, the front end wedged against some trees. Smoke and heat still filtered from under the hood, so he couldn’t have been unconscious too long. He saw his father standing beside the driver’s side door and made a move to get out, but Vincent stopped him. “You shouldn’t move. You’re injured.”

“I’m fine,” Carmine said, unsure if that was true. He climbed out and grasped the side of the car to stabilize himself, his legs wobbly. He felt sick right away and hunched over, vomiting.

“You have a serious concussion,” Vincent said. “Probably some fractured ribs. Looks like a broken nose and—”

“Quit fucking diagnosing me,” he said. “Where’s Haven?”

“I hoped you could tell me. I was on my way back to the house and saw the car here.”

Carmine’s panic flared. “I, uh . . . She was with me. We were at the house and someone started shooting. Nicholas got hit.”

“Nicholas? Where is he?”

“Still at the house. I had to leave him and get the fuck out of there.” He fought back his guilt, unsure of which hurt worse—the emotional anguish or the physical pain. “We were trying to get away, but a car ran up on us, and here we are. Or, fuck, here I am. Where is she?”

“We’ll find her,” Vincent said. Carmine wondered how he could be calm, and froze when something a few yards behind him caught his attention. His heart pounded forcefully when he realized it was a person.

His father glanced in that direction. “Johnny.”

“Johnny? Who the fuck is Johnny?”

“Nobody important. I’m not even certain that’s his name. He’s part of Giovanni’s street crew.”

“One of your own?”

“He has a gunshot wound to the abdomen, but it’s not necessarily fatal,” Vincent said. “Missed his major organs, but I’m venturing a guess it hit his spinal cord.”

“A gut shot? I thought you shot to kill?”

“I didn’t shoot him,” he said, shaking his head. “I hoped you could tell me who did.”

“You found him there?” Carmine stared at his father, bewildered, before turning to the car. The passenger side door was open and the seatbelt was unlatched, so he didn’t think Haven could have been too hurt in the accident. There wasn’t any blood on her side.

“Maybe she went for help,” he said, tossing things around. “Where’s my gun?”

The moment he said it, he spotted the single .45-caliber cartridge on the passenger side floorboard. He picked it up and got back out of the car, eyeing it as his father sighed. “I had a feeling something like this would happen—even before I knew she was related to Sal. After everything I lost, I knew saving her wouldn’t be easy. They all knew how important it was to me. I was afraid someone would take her for leverage. I should’ve known it would be him.”

Carmine’s legs wobbled. “Nunzio?”

Vincent nodded. “No one has heard from him in days. He was called in for a sit-down and didn’t show. It was the reason I was going to Chicago this weekend.”

Carmine felt the bile rising up. The thought of her being somewhere with Nunzio sickened him. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she was going through.

“I’ll kill him,” Carmine said. “He’ll pay for this.”

“He will,” Vincent said. “But right now, we need to be more concerned with finding her.”

* * *

It turned out to be a brisk night, a storm rolling in from the west making the waters of Aurora Lake more turbulent than usual. Vincent stood at the end of a long pier a few miles from the Barlow residence, huddled up in his coat as he tried to shield himself from the harsh winds.

Vincent could easily recall the first time he met Nicholas, a warm fall day at the local elementary school. Carmine had just turned ten, and it was the first time Vincent had made it to one of his football games. Between juggling his job at the hospital and managing his work with la famiglia, he had little time left over for his children.