Russo Blood Debt Chapter 04
The Door Comes Down
Gia sits on a rolling stool and scrolls Instagram.
She glances up at me every few minutes the way you check a roast in the oven.
“Sera,” she says, casual, “what did you even marry him for? The face? The name?”
I don’t answer. My thumb is digging into the soft spot above my ankle. The way Marino said. Hard.
“Be honest. You knew you were out of your league. A nobody from a nothing family — please.”
I keep pressing.
“Honestly, you should be flattered Dante married you at all. He only did it because you got knocked up on the second date. Romantic, right?” She laughs. “Then the ultrasound came back and Nonno’s face — Madonna, I thought he was going to stroke out on the spot. A girl. After everything.”
Press. Breathe. Press.
“Lucky for everyone, Bianca was carrying a boy. Otherwise this whole branch of the Family was finished.”
She crosses her legs.
“So when she delivers — and you survive, if you survive — you sign the papers. Take a check. Walk out. Find some accountant in Jersey to marry. You’ll be happier.”
I open my eyes.
“Does Dante know you’re talking to me like this?”
She grins.
“He sent me, cara. He said you’re stubborn. He said, go down there and make her see reason.”
I almost laugh.
I would laugh, except a contraction is splitting me in half — the worst one yet. The drug is wearing off. My body knows. My daughter knows.
“Aaah —”
Gia winces and stands up.
“God, you’re loud.”
She opens the door. “Get someone in here. I think she’s actually doing it.”
A nurse edges in. Sees me. Goes white.
“Miss Gia — she’s fully dilated — the head’s right there — she’s losing too much blood — we need to deliver now —”
“So deliver.”
“Without instruments? Without Pitocin? Without — without anything? She’ll bleed out, the baby will —”
“Then they bleed out.” Gia is already on her phone. “I’m going up to find Dante. Stay with her. Try not to get any on your shoes.”
She walks out.
The nurse drops to her knees, hands shaking, no gloves, nothing.
“Mrs. Russo — push when I say — I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry —”
I push. I have nothing left. My daughter is right there and I cannot get her out. My vision goes gray at the edges.
Papa. Where are you. Where are you.
Then —
Boots.
Not one set. Many. Moving in formation down the hall above us. The kind of footfall that belongs to men who breach buildings for a living.
The nurse’s head snaps up. “What — who —”
The door does not open.
The door comes off its hinges.
Six men in black tactical gear. Rifles up, sweeping corners. The man in front pulls his balaclava off and his eyes find me on the floor and go red.
“Principessa.”
It’s Matteo. My father’s capo. The man who taught me to ride a horse when I was six. The man who stood behind me at my First Communion.
I try to lift my hand. I can’t.
He’s on his knees beside me before I can blink, gun holstered, one hand under my head.
“Forgive me, principessa. We came as fast as we could.”
The nurse is screaming. “Who are you — security — security —”
Matteo doesn’t even look at her. One of his men puts her face-first on the floor without breaking stride.
“This is the Russo clinic,” she sobs. “You can’t —”
Matteo finally turns his head. His voice is very, very quiet.
“There won’t be a Russo clinic by morning.”
He scoops me up. I feel him shaking — Matteo, who has killed men older than me — shaking.
“Move,” he tells his men. “Field surgery in the truck. Call ahead.”
The hallway blurs.
Behind me I hear the nurse, hysterical: “Whose people are you —”
And one of the soldati answers her on the way out, almost kindly.
“The Vitali.”
I feel the nurse’s silence like a held breath.
Even she knows that name.
Even she knows my father is going to burn this city down.
I close my eyes against Matteo’s shoulder and I let myself, finally, for one second, be a daughter and not a wife.
Papa. I’m coming home.
But first — first —
I press my hand to my belly, where my daughter is still fighting.
Hold on. Just a little longer. Mama’s got you now.