Trapped in his End Game (Series)

The shots blasting from Vincent’s gun are so loud that I can feel them in my chest. He fires back towards the flashing muzzles and ducks as they return fire. I’m flattened on the ground.

This is it. I’m going to die. There are already screams of pain. Vince grabs his mother and my arm. I stumble over a body. He keeps my head low, covering my body with his. Plaster explodes around us and I get a brief glimpse of the people still huddled around the table. Bodies everywhere.

Vince’s face is tense, but determined. Mrs. Cesare bolts into the kitchen, hiding behind a stove. He shoves me behind the doorway as he leans around the doorway, swearing at the top of his lungs as he fires at them.

He’s going to get shot.

He’s going to get shot.

I’m just waiting for a bullet to zip into his skull when he leans, exposing himself to the gunmen. Another black body sprints into the kitchen and I scream, but it’s only Nicky, who takes the other side of the doorway.

“Ben and Tony are dead,” he yells.

Two captains. Dead.

“Fuck,” says Vince. “Where’s Jack?”

My body flinches with every gunshot. Somehow, I still have my purse and I clutch the bear mace inside and hold it in my hands.

“He’s a fucking sitting duck!”

In silent awe, I watch as both of them fire around the corner. A peppering of gunfire smashes into the wall they’re hiding behind. Vince flattens his back against the wall and grits his teeth.

“Jesus Christ.”

And then there’s a sound that jump-starts my heart.

Sirens.

The wailing sound grows louder, but Vince and Nicky don’t look happy, even when the gunfire stops and we hear the screech of tires.

“No, don’t!”

I finally find my voice as Vince peeks around the corner, his face white when he turns back.

“Nicky, get rid of your gun.”

Both of them toss their guns. Luckily the wait staff and cooks fled out the back door. The mace still trembles in my hands when Vince turns to his mother.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“Ma! It’s okay, they’re gone.”

But she’s screaming and inconsolable, still refusing to budge from the stove. I can’t blame her.

No longer gentle, he grabs her arm and drags her across the kitchen towards me.

“Adriana, we need to leave now.” Impatient, he grabs my arm and I drop the mace as we walk back into the restaurant.

It’s a bloodbath.

We round the corner as cop cars slam their brakes in front of the restaurant; the only sounds are Vincent’s mother, still screaming her head off, the quiet whimpering of the wounded and great, wracking sobs. Another woman’s screaming makes my head snap to the right where the table is. A woman and her husband lay dead on the floor, one of Giacomo’s captains and his wife. Another man I recognize as Ben is dead. Vince rushes past me as he sees Jack propped up against the table in a pool of blood.

Mrs. Cesare seizes my hands. “Oh my God! Jesus, Mary, and Joesph!”

Vomit swiftly rises in my throat and I have to bend down with my head between my knees to stop myself from throwing up. My hands block out the sight of the carnage. I can’t look anymore. I don’t want to see their broken bodies and the fragments of flesh littering the floor like raw meat.

“POLICE! PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS UP!”

Navy-blue bodies dart inside the restaurant, sweeping through the back and around the kitchen.

“We need some help here!”

Horrible, wheezing sounds filter through my hair as Vince’s boss struggles to breathe. A heavy hand lands on my shoulder and I scream.

“Ma’am, it’s all right. I need you to follow me outside.”

I look up into the face of a weathered cop and I take his proffered hand. I look to my right and see Vince looking stricken as EMTs lift his boss’ body onto a stretcher. My heart jumps when I realize he’s taking me out of the shattered front door.

“No, I’m not going out,” I mutter.

His voice sounds weary, like he’s dealt with too many hysterical women. “Ma’am, we need to secure the area.”

They’ll kill us all.

“No!” My voice rises into a scream. “I’m not going outside! They’ll kill us.”

“I need you to-”

I rip my arm out of his grasp and shove his chest. “Get off me!”

“Calm down!” He touches his hip, where his Taser is attached to his hip.

“FUCK YOU!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “I’M NOT GOING OUT THAT DOOR!”

Suddenly, I’m pulled into someone’s broad chest and initially I resist, but then I recognize his voice and I sag into his arms, breathing in the scent of his cologne.

“I apologize, officer. My fiance is just shell-shocked.”

“She should see a doctor,” he says in a grim voice. “Her too,” he adds, gesturing to Mrs. Cesare.

He stalks off and Vince kisses my ear before he whispers in a shaky voice, “We need to get out of here before these idiots recognize me.”

Pulling me gently, we walk back into the kitchen where there are less cops. I grab Mrs. Cesare’s hand and lead her back into the kitchen.

“Vincent, what is going on?” she screams.

He ignores her. “She needs to see a doctor!” Vince voice bellows.

They let him go out the back door after taking his information, and my whole body tenses as I feel the cold air biting my skin. The coats were left behind.

Mrs. Cesare’s fingernails bite into my hands.

I’m safe.

No fucking way am I safe.

He leads me to the car and opens the door, waiting for me to get inside. His face cracks with impatience as I consider sprinting away from him in the opposite direction.

“I-I’ll go to my dorms.”

“What?” he snaps.

“Please let me go.”

With a furious expression on his face, he grabs my shoulders and forces me to stand near the passenger side.

“Get in.”

“No,” I say in a weak voice, knees trembling.

“I’m not fucking around, Adriana.”

The rudeness seems to snap Mrs. Cesare out of her shocked state. “Vincent, that’s no way to talk to your fiance.”

“Ma, shut the fuck up and get inside!”

There’s no winning against that voice. For a moment, Mrs. Cesare looks apoplectic with rage, but I grab her hand and usher her inside the car. I slide inside after her and flinch as he slams the door. When he slides into the car, the look he gives me makes me want to run and hide.

“Ma, I’ll take you home.”

She sobs into a handkerchief. “Two of my sister’s kids were hurt. We need to go back there!”

“No,” he bellows. “I don’t need the cops to know I was there.”

I gasp. “What about the gun you left behind?”

He shakes his head. “It’s untraceable. No serial number.” He guns the engine and we peel out of the street. “I’ll take you home, and then we can make arrangements to see them in the hospital.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

I look at her gulping, white face, feeling more disturbed as she breaths in shallowly.

“Mrs. Cesare, you need to calm down.” I seize her hand and squeeze.

“I’ll fucking kill them all!” he suddenly screams.

“Vince!” I glance at him, and what I see scares me. He’s the embodiment of rage. His face turns to me as if he’s ready to say something nasty to me, and I quickly look away.

It takes a half hour to calm Mrs. Cesare enough for her to enter her apartment, and by then Vincent’s temper runs high.

My body slams into the car seat as he throttles the engine. “Ow!”

His neck twists sharply as he looks at me and his eyes lighten for the first time. “Sorry.”

The pain in his voice makes me remember mine. I almost died tonight-again. Getting shot at is something I’m not supposed to get used to, but even Vince looks panicky. Maybe the death of two captains and the attempt on his boss’ life convinced him that he isn’t invincible.

The pressure in my head explodes as we drive closer and closer to Manhattan. “What if they’re there, waiting for us?”

“They won’t.”

“But-”

“Jesus Christ, Adriana!” He pummels the steering wheel as we get stuck into traffic. “Fuck!”

Calm and collected Vincent is gone. It scares me the way he scans the parking lot when he parks, his unflinching confidence gone. We somehow manage to reach his apartment and when the door closes behind it, Vince makes sure to lock everything. After a quick sweep of the apartment, he takes me in his arms in a bruising embrace.

Maybe he needs to be comforted, too.

But nothing comforts me. Nothing can take away the pounding sense of dread I feel, standing so close to the windows. Bodies flash in front of my eyes.

“They’re picking us all off. They want to kill the leadership of our family.”

“Who?”

“The Rizzos.”

I exhale a long moan. “Why would they want to do that?”

“It’s complicated.”

Unwinding my arms from him, I beseech him with my eyes. “If Maria stayed, she probably would have been killed. Do you realize what that means to me?”

He slumps against the wall. “You think I’m okay with what just happened? Two capos dead. Jack got shot and I have no idea if he’ll survive.”

“You’re going to get killed. They’ve already got a third of you.”

“I’m not going to get killed. It didn’t work.”

“So they’ll try again!”

Vince’s phone vibrates and he immediately answers. “How is he?”

I watch his shoulders slump and his eyes close. “For how long? Okay. I’ll meet you later. Thanks, bye.” His eyes glaze over as he hangs up the phone and his whole body tenses. “Two of my cousins are dead. They’re starting surgery on Jack now.”

A shock goes through me as I recall the two bodies collapsed on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

He clutches the phone over his chest, his eyes staring out at me. He looks lost.