The hospital reeks of antiseptic and chemicals.
I hate it.
I’ve hated hospitals since my mother, Giada, died in one far too young, when Carmine and I were still kids and before Dante, Claudia, and Bianca moved in with us.
I hate the harsh overhead lights. Hate the sterile white walls, the quiet murmurs of pain humming behind every breath and beep of a monitor.
Hospitals are for the broken. And tonight, that broken one is one of ours.
Bianca lies unconscious in bed, a tangle of IVs snaking from her arms, her skin pale but unmarred, except for bandage on her arm where she took a hit from the blast. Machines hum low around her, a dull, robotic orchestra of survival.
She’s going to be okay.
…So, thank fuck, is the baby.
Lyra sits at Bianca’s side, holding her hand. Dante stands on the other side of the bed, his eyes icy steel as he looks down at our sister. Tempest paces like a restless animal, chewing her cuticles, and Carmine has launched into full don mode just outside the room, organizing things with the capos and his head consigliere, Santino.
I stand leaning against the windowsill, my fingers drumming restlessly on the wall, pure rage boiling inside me like molten lead.
And when I glance at my dad, I realize how true the saying about apples and trees is.
Vito legit looks like he’s been possessed by a demon.
I’ve seen my father in a rage before. I’ve seen him cold and calculated, blistering with quiet fury. But I’ve never seen him like this—teeth gritted, face contorted, and eyes shifting between panic when he looks at his daughter, and pure wrath when he pulls them away.
“This isn’t how it’s done anymore,” he snarls under his breath. Suddenly, he whirls, and even I flinch when he slams his fist into the wall, hard enough that the drywall cracks, fragments crumbling to the floor like bone dust.
“It just isn’t!” he barks again, chest heaving as he whirls to look at me. “Those days are fucking gone!”
He’s talking to us, but also to the ghosts of the men he buried in the name of a more civilized empire. Dad’s been in the game since New York was a different animal, run by violence and mob justice. He’s also part of the generation that restructured the underworld with blood and then rebuilt it with civility. Rules. Order.
But the old world, with car bombs in broad daylight, just came knocking.
Just then, the door to the room bursts inward with a force that almost takes it off the hinges. Kratos storms in like the Devil himself from his hospital bed, still trailing IV lines from his arm.
His eyes are wild and bloodshot, filled with a fury that’s not human. He looks like something the ancient Greeks would have whispered about and written into legend.
He drops heavily to his knees beside Bianca’s bed.
“Princess…” he chokes quietly. It’s like the rest of us aren’t even there.
Kratos is the only reason my sister is still alive. While the rest of us were still stupidly trying to figure out why the car started ticking when she opened the fucking door, Kratos was already bolting toward her. He managed to wrench her away and dive for cover behind another parked car, shielding her when the Chevelle erupted into a fireball.
Kratos isn’t walking away unscathed. The blood-soaked bandages on one of his shoulders is proof of that. But right now, I’m guessing he doesn’t feel shit except pure fear for Bianca and their unborn child.
Lyra steps forward, placing a hand on his uninjured shoulder.
“She’s okay,” she whispers quietly. “The doctors are just keeping her under so her body can heal. And the baby’s heartbeat is strong. They’re both going to be fine.”
Kratos exhales like he’s been holding his breath since the blast.
Tempest drops to her knees and throws her arms around him. He hugs her back, and when he pulls away, I see the look in his eyes, the same as in mine.
And Dad’s. And Dante’s.
AKA, downright fucking feral.
Carmine steps into the room, his face as grim and his eyes as vicious as everyone else’s. Kratos turns to him, a blackness I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in him rippling just beneath the surface.
“Short list of suspects,” he rumbles. “Now.”
Carmine meets Kratos’ gaze without flinching. “We’re working on it, brother,” he growls quietly.
“Do whatever you have to,” Kratos hisses, rising to his full height. “I’m going to go out there and turn this entire city to rubble, door by fucking door, until I find out who did this.”
“Good,” Carmine says.
No hesitation. Just fury meeting fury.
“I’ll come with you,” I say, cracking my knuckles and feeling the pull of violence in my veins. I’m not like Carmine. I don’t typically need to feed the beast inside me with bloodshed and pain.
But right now?
Hell yeah I do.
“Ares is already getting our people together,” Kratos snarls. Ares as in Ares Drakos, Kratos’ oldest brother and head of the Drakos Greek mafia family.
“Then what the fuck are we waiting for,” I grunt. “Let’s go.”
“I’m coming too.”
Tempest shoots Dante a look when he says it. But when she sees the ripple of fury in his face, she just nods.
Carmine rolls his neck. “Santino has our guys out there already. I’m—”
“Kratos…”
The giant’s black cloud of fury evaporates at the soft, broken sound of Bianca’s voice behind us.
Kratos turns instantly, rushing to her side and crouching down beside her again, brushing her cheeks with both hands, raw love smoothed across a face carved from rage.
“I’m here,” he murmurs. “I’m right here, baby.”
He presses his forehead to hers, and for a moment, there’s no explosion, no enemies, no blood on the streets. Just them, and their love.
The kind I’ve never had.
The kind I very much doubt someone like me gets.
I look away.
The moment between Kratos and Bianca hangs there, delicate and holy in the middle of a sea of wreckage.
Then the machines beep steadily again, and Bianca falls back asleep.
Kratos doesn’t move.
He just holds her hand and watches her breathe, as if he could anchor her to this world with nothing more than his will.
I step out into the hallway. I need air. Well, air flavored with cigarette smoke, to be precise. I also need silence so I can think.
Someone sent a message tonight.
And now, we’re going to send one right the fuck back.
I pull out my phone and send a group text to all my “little birds”—my spies, my informants… The people who live in the shadows of New York and see things most people don’t.
Me
If you haven’t already heard what happened to my family tonight, you will. Find me who did it, and you’ll get whatever you want. The sooner the better.
I hit send, then slide the phone into my pocket as I slip a cigarette between my lips and walk out of Lenox Hill Hospital and into the night.
Someone just made the mistake of fucking with my family.
They have no idea what they’ve just awakened inside me.
