Chapter 11 - Blood on the Pine Floors
“Norah.”
Matteo’s voice was barely a whisper. The terrifying, untouchable mafia don who had just dismantled a hit squad in ninety seconds looked entirely broken, his hand trembling as he reached toward the open car door.
Norah didn't flinch. She didn't swoon.
With the speed of a mother protecting her young, she reached into the footwell, pulled a spare tire iron from beneath the seat, and pointed the jagged iron tip straight at Matteo’s chest.
“Stay back!” she screamed, her voice shaking with rage and terror. “Do not come near him!”
Matteo immediately raised both hands in the air, dropping his custom handgun onto the gravel. It clattered uselessly against the stones.
“I won’t touch you,” Matteo said, his voice cracking. “I won’t come near you, Norah. I swear on my mother’s soul. You’re safe. The threat is eliminated.”
“Mama! Mama!” Leo’s frantic cries echoed from the backseat.
Norah kept her eyes locked on Matteo, refusing to drop the iron weapon as she reached blindly into the rear, unbuckling Leo’s car seat harness and pulling her crying son tightly against her chest. She wrapped her sweater around him, shielding his eyes from the bodies lying in the driveway.
Arthur stepped into the dim light, holstering his weapon. “Mrs. Rossi... Claire. It’s Arthur. We’re securing the perimeter. Moretti sent five men. There are no others within fifty miles.”
Norah looked at Arthur, then back at Matteo.
It was only then that she noticed the dark, spreading stain across the left side of Matteo’s charcoal sweater. During the brief melee, a deflected round from Riker’s shotgun had pierced beneath his Kevlar vest, tearing through his ribs. Blood was dripping steadily from his fingertips onto the gravel.
Matteo swayed slightly on his feet, his face turning an ashen shade of gray, but he refused to sit down. He stood like a sentinel, keeping his distance, his dark eyes drinking in the sight of his wife and the little boy clinging to her neck.
“He... he has your eyes,” Matteo whispered, a ghost of a sad smile touching his pale lips before his knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the wet grass.
“Boss!” Arthur rushed forward, catching Matteo before his head hit the stones.
Norah stood by the car, clutching Leo, her mind spinning between three years of pent-up betrayal, absolute fury, and the undeniable fact that the man bleeding out in her driveway had just thrown his body into a wall of gunfire to save their son.
“Arthur,” Norah said, her voice dropping into a cold, clinical tone that sounded terrifyingly like her late father. “Drag him into the kitchen. Do not get blood on the sunroom rug.”
Ten minutes later, the kitchen of the saltbox cottage was illuminated by harsh overhead lights.
Leo had been settled safely in his bedroom upstairs with a locked door and a cartoon playing softly on Norah’s tablet.
Downstairs, Matteo sat stripped to the waist in a straight-backed wooden kitchen chair. His torso was a roadmap of old scars, but the fresh wound across his lower ribs was ugly—a jagged furrow that had torn through muscle, bleeding heavily.
Norah stood over him, wearing latex gloves, holding a bottle of medical disinfectant and a curved suture needle.
She didn't offer him a towel to bite on. She didn't offer him scotch.
She poured the antiseptic directly into the open wound.
Matteo hissed, his powerful muscles locking into steel cables, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edges of the wooden chair. But he didn't cry out. He didn't complain. He took the agonizing burn as if it were a holy sacrament he richly deserved.
“You shouldn't have come here,” Norah said coldly, threading the surgical suture through his flesh with steady, unyielding hands.
“They were going to kill you, Norah,” Matteo rasped, sweat running down his temples. “Emilio found your digital trail. If I hadn't been tracking their radio chatter, you would be on a private jet to a Moretti torture compound right now.”
“And who brought the Morettis into my life, Matteo?” Norah yanked the first stitch tight, feeling him flinch beneath her fingers. “Who brought hitmen to the edge of my son’s nursery? You. Your empire. Your choices. Your arrogance.”
Matteo lowered his head. He had no defense. For the first time in his thirty-five years on earth, the Don of Boston had no words of power, no threats, no leverage.
“You’re right,” he whispered into the quiet kitchen. “It was all me.”
Norah paused, her needle hovering over his skin. In the seven years she had known him, she had never heard Matteo Rossi admit fault for anything.
She finished the remaining six stitches in absolute silence, tied off the thread, and snipped it with sharp scissors.
May you like
She stepped back, pulling off the bloody latex gloves and dropping them into the trash bin.
“Your wound is closed,” she said, not looking at him. “Arthur is disposing of the vehicles down in the quarry. As soon as the sun rises, you take your gun, you take your money, and you get out of my town.”
