Chapter 1
Marcel
I can’t believe this shit is happening. It’s the Clans, so I should expect anything now. My brother was killed in a hospital for fuck’s sake, but this shit, blowing up a church, has to be a first. We were supposed to be at a Clan wedding, but the bride had everyone evacuate the building. Now I know why.
It is chaos, and everyone around me is screaming. Salvatore, my brother in law, has run back into the building for his mother only to have the place explode on him. I doubt he is alive, and I don’t know how Aria is going to handle this. My heart breaks for her.
My eyes search the crowd, scanning to see if anyone else is missing. My heart skips a beat when I don’t see a certain orange dress, the only one like it today.
Shit. Aria is going to lose her mother in law, her husband, and her best friend here today if some damn miracle doesn’t happen.
I hear murmurs and then applause and look back at the rubble. Sal is somehow alive, the lucky bastard, and is carrying someone in his arms. The body is limp, and I think I am going to be sick until I realize that a girl in an orange dress is right behind Sal, her hand on his shoulder as they walk out of the crumbling, ashy mess towards us.
I run to meet Salvatore, finally seeing it is Marta, his mother he carries lifeless in his arms, but it is Isabella's face I notice as tears streak through the sooty mess on her face. She looks frightened and confused. I take off my jacket and throw it around her, covering her shivering, cut up shoulders as I then walk her over to the family. It’s funny how she has been a part of the Funar Clan for her entire life and much of mine, but it is just recently I have noticed her presence as more than an extra body constantly surrounding us.
Aria’s best friend. The accountant’s daughter. Even though he always swore he would marry her off to a Romanian and keep her pure, it never clicked that she was one of us. I barely even noticed her other than the silly crush I always knew she had on me, especially when she was a kid.
Sal places Marta down on the ground, his face white as a ghost, and looks up at Aria only for her to begin to fall backward. Luckily, he is right behind her, catching her, as she goes unconscious.
"Oh my god!" Isabella screams, rushing to her friend’s side and leaving me to follow.
"Sal, I'll get her to the hospital, okay? You need to be with your family." I can see he is torn, but he has no choice as I lift her in one go. He needs to be with his children and his father right now. They need to make a decision about Marta and figure out why Carla’s wedding was targeted with a bomb.
"I'm coming with you!" Isabella says, tugging my jacket farther over her shoulders and following me to the car. We lay Aria in the back of the SUV before taking the driver’s and passenger seats. I would normally have a driver take us, but there is no time, especially in this chaos. My hand slides over the two guns I have on me for reassurance. It will be up to me to keep the three of us safe if someone comes after us at the hospital.
"I was trying to make sure everyone got out, and I heard her. I was trying to get to her, and I watched her go. Sal came just a moment too late. I think she had found the bomb or something. She was screaming. She didn’t die from the blast. She was already bleeding."
I listen to Isabella ramble on, hoping it will comfort her and distract me. My mind is racing right now, trying to figure out what fucker decided to fuck up a Clan wedding. Whoever it is must have some gigantic balls to try and get us all in one go like that. Carla or that husband of hers must know something, but I will have to leave that up for Sal and his half-brother to work out for now.
I glance to the back seat as we pull up to the emergency room, the entrance that is only supposed to be for ambulances. I don’t give a fuck.
Isabella’s hand lands on mine, making me tense. "She’s going to be okay," she says through some bleary eyes. "She has to be."
I nod and get out, leading the ER staff to Aria and instruct them with a wad of cash to keep it private and keep her alive. Then, they direct me to go around front like everyone else and tell me where we can wait for news about her.
It’s all a blur as we park and get out of the SUV, rushing in to find the double doors we were told we could wait outside of. It was the best courtesy they could give us with my money until they knew what was wrong. I know they need space to work on her, so I let it go.
We lean against the wall, breathless and in shock.
"Do you mind if I clean up a bit?" she asks, and I nod, having forgotten for a moment we were covered in soot and debris.
She goes off to find a bathroom, but I pass. I don’t want to walk away in case there will be news.
She comes back a few moments later, her face clean and her dress as clean as it’s going to get right now. In her hand she holds some wet paper towels. "I thought you'd want to get clean too," she says as she comes at me with them. I stand still, almost numb, letting her clean me up. When she’s done, I look down at her and really look at her for the first time since the blast.
I can’t believe I could have lost her in that blast without even paying attention. Today, at the wedding, when I first saw her in that dress, something inside me snapped. I had always been teased about the way she looked at me and obsessed over me. She was a silly little girl, just my sister’s best friend. But now, I can see it. Her tiny little waist, her blemish free, tan skin, her long legs, her silky long hair. She is gorgeous and definitely not a little girl anymore even if she is younger than me.
There is some cheesy classical music coming faint through the speaker. I put my hand out and offer it to her. "It would be a shame for that dress to go to waste."
"In a hospital?" she questions, but takes my hand anyway. I pull her close up against me, my hand on her back, my fingers entwined in hers tightly. "You're only doing this because you feel sorry for me," she whispers, her head falling against my shoulder perfectly.
"No, I was going to ask you to dance today anyway," I whisper back. We sway like that for a moment before a doctor bursts through the double doors. We break apart like a couple of kids caught in the act and wait for the news.
"She will be okay. She is pregnant with twins. I am not sure if you were aware. But the stress made her blood pressure plummet. She will need to rest up and take care of herself."
I nod, glad that it's good news. Not a good time to be pregnant, though. "Thanks, doc."