“Why indeed?” I repeated. “Statement. I’ll make a statement.” I didn’t fill them in on the actual statement I’d made the day before with my uncle, but that was fine. I could cause a fuss, get the attention away from the Abandonatos. I owed them that much at least.
Nixon looked down at his phone. “Hey Trace what’s—”
His entire face paled.
Chase made eye contact with me.
And then I heard screaming on the other end while Nixon’s damn hand shook with rage, his eyes narrowing more and more. I half expected a vein to pop in his forehead. “Hurry.” He hung up and shook his head slowly in my direction, his nostrils flaring with anger. “It’s Mo.”
“What’s Mo?” I stood, my hands on hips, ready to take action, ready to kill any bastard who’d dared to lay a hand on her.
“She’s been shot.” Nixon cursed and threw his phone against the couch.
“Is it always like this?” Sergio whistled.
“Shut the hell up before I shoot you in the face,” I roared, charging towards Sergio.
“Whoa!” Chase moved in front of Sergio just in time for me to pull out my gun and aim it at his chest.
“Shit,” Chase muttered. “Put it away, Tex, we’ve got bigger problems apparently.”
“She was shot in the leg.” Nixon said his hand firmly gripping my shoulder. “Lots of blood we need—”
“I’m calling in a favor.” I snapped and quickly dialed the De Lange’s second in command. He’d once been a surgeon and wouldn’t blink twice if I asked him to come in and perform emergency surgery.
“What?” He barked into the phone.
“I need you. Nixon’s house. Now.”
“And if I don’t come?”
“Then I’ll hunt you down, and you’ll really wish you would have…”
“On my way.” He snickered and ended the phone call.
Nixon sighed. “You sure you want the De Lange’s involved?”
“News flash, Nixon,” I growled. “The whole damn Mafia was already involved the minute you protected me in Vegas, the minute Mo said she was pregnant. We have the strongest family in Italy posting on Craigslist for my damn head! Adding in the De Lange’s does nothing. Just invites more people to my funeral.”
“You’re not dying.” Chase sighed.
“Right.” I nodded, but I knew it was the opposite of true. I’d die… my death was as certain as my love for Mo. It might as well have been written across my forehead.
My love for her would kill me.
Because in the end. When I chose the Campisi family.
It would be at her expense.
And I’d ask Nixon to kill me for it.
Only then could I keep her safe… only then would my word be trusted.
“Nixon!” Trace yelled running into the house.
In a blur Vinnie brought Mo in and laid her across the kitchen table.
“Shit!” I raced to her side. “Chase get the morphine.”
Mo’s eyes fluttered open and then rolled to the back of her head as she started convulsing.
“We’re going to need blood.” Sergio started cutting away her jeans with scissors.
My mind whirled. “Use mine, use my blood.”
“You have to be a match.” With one final rip Sergio pulled the jeans from her left leg, blood spewed from the wound.
“We are!” I roared. “Chase!”
Chase tossed me the morphine.
“Needles, we need to draw blood, grab an IV.”
“We doing this here?” Chase closed his eyes, muttering under his breath before running back into the storage room where we kept weapons and drugs—the good kind.
My hands shook as I cradled Mo’s pale face. “Baby, can you hear me?”
She moaned.
Nixon slammed his hand into the wall as more blood poured from her leg. “Stop the bleeding, damn it!”
“I’m trying!” Sergio yelled right back, his hands covered in my wife’s blood. Red, a color that used to comfort me, bring me peace, was finally bringing me death.
“No.” I shook my head and kissed Mo’s face. “No, you gotta fight, baby! Okay? You have to fight!” There was so much blood it was impossible to tell where the wound even was.
“Needles.” Chase threw them at me; I caught them midair and grabbed the rubber band, tightening it with my mouth as I wrapped it around my bicep. The sting of the needle was nothing compared to the horror I witnessed in front of me.
“You better hope to God you have enough blood to give her before you pass out too.” Sergio didn’t bother putting on gloves as he shot Mo with morphine directly into her thigh.
“God’s never been on my side,” I mumbled, as I watched the blood pull from my body into the needle.
“Well, you better hope He is now.” Sergio moved his hands to Mo’s chest. “Because she’s losing consciousness, she’s lost too much blood.”
“Mo!” I yelled as Sergio leaned down and pressed his ear against her mouth. He cursed as he whispered something in her ear. She moaned and shook her head, her eyes opened and then closed again.
I swear I stepped outside my body and watched my soul start to crumble into thin air. “God, I’ll do anything to save her. Take me instead, take the evil, purge the evil, leave the angels where they belong.” I continued pulling, pulling vial after vial of blood, my knees shaking as weakness took hold. Finally Nixon put his hand on my arm and whispered for me to stop. Damn, I was going to bleed myself dry for that woman if I had to.
Minutes ticked by, they may as well have been hours. The De Langes finally burst through the door. Stephen took one look at Mo and jumped into action, his hands moving across her wound as if he already had the injury memorized. He sighed in relief at the wound. “It’s not her femoral artery but a large vein was hit, she’ll be fine.” He pressed his hands tighter against her leg, “Sore, but fine. If we don’t’ stop the bleeding she’ll die, but I imagine you guys already knew that.” Swearing, he removed one hand and reached for the forceps. “I need someone with steady hands.”
I moved to his side. “Tell me what to do.”
“Okay,” he said pressing my hands against her actual wound. “I need to remove the bullet but it’s going to keep bleeding so I need you to keep your hands pressed against this every time I remove my hands, the minute I pull the bullet you press against the wound as hard as you can manage without breaking her leg. Think you can do that?”