Ruined in Vows (Marchetti Family #3)

56. Dante

Chapter 56

Dante

A bsolute fucking carnage is the only way to describe what is happening right now.

Riccardo caught on quickly that the wedding was a set up and within minutes his guards were on us. The other families managed to remove most of the women to a safe space, and the majority of them are now locked away in an office. Had they not been, I don’t believe they would be making it out of this alive.

“Fuck,” I growl when a bullet flies past my head.

Crouched down behind a pew with Leo and Enzo by my side, we don’t seem to be able to move without being fired at. I’m not surprised. Riccardo is very much aware that I am alive. When I first stepped into the nave, his eyes had widened before his jaw clenched in anger. From his reaction alone, it was obvious he had believed I had died in that fire.

The second person to spot me was Vincenzo. I couldn’t stop the smirk tugging at my lips witnessing his reaction. His face turned a deathly white color, and he stumbled backward as if he had seen a ghost. Having noticed something was wrong with Vincenzo and where his gaze was pinned, Benito and my ex ‘wife’ looked my way.

Caterina’s mouth dropped open, her eyes widening almost comically as she stared at me, while Benito looked like he wanted to put a bullet in my head right there and then. The feeling was mutual. And I would enjoy every second of killing the assholes who enabled Riccardo’s plan. I’m quite sure, before this, I didn’t make it a habit of killing women, but Caterina was an exception. She deserves everything coming to her for her part in what happened.

“We need to move,” Leo shouts over the noise.

I nod. “Watch our backs, Enzo. Stay vigilant.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he grumbles his response.

“Dante, Riccardo is moving from the altar toward the side door. He thinks he is getting away.” Nico’s voice comes through my earpiece.

“Not on my fucking watch,” I grate out through clenched teeth, raising to my full height and not caring about getting caught in the crossfire.

I will die before letting that asshole get away.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Nico warns.

Ignoring him, I glance around noticing some of the heads of the other families, fighting on our behalf. Shifting my gaze, I spot Riccardo, surrounded by who I assume are his guards along with the Conti siblings and Benito all backing away quickly, but still firing shots at anyone they deem a threat.

“Leo, Enzo, follow me.”

“On it,” they reply in unison.

As a unit, we duck, dive, fire shots, all while avoiding getting hit ourselves. Dead bodies line the aisle, blood coating the stone floor and I grimace that this is all happening in the house of God.

We make it to the altar, unharmed, but that soon changes.

“Fuck,” Leo cries out, dropping to the floor.

Falling to my knees beside him, I look at Enzo.

“Watch us,” I instruct, checking Leo over and searching for where he has been hit.

“My fucking arm,” his jaw is clenched tight, his face pale.

Locating the wound, I breathe a sigh of relief when I find that it’s a flesh wound. Although the bullet went straight through, this is the end of the fight for Leo.

“Get him out of here. I will go after Riccardo,” I order Enzo.

“Nico won’t like you being on your own, Dante,” he fires back.

I open my mouth to argue when a deep rumbled voice speaks up beside us. I startle, pulling my gun and aiming, only to drop it when I find Nico and Matteo. “Nico will be with him. Go. Get Leo and any of our other injured soldiers out of here. The passcode for the padlock on the front door is six, zero, eight, two. Take two standing soldiers with you. They can watch your back and take out any enemies before they escape.”

“Got it, boss.” Enzo begins to lift Leo, pulling his good arm over his shoulder and instructing a couple of men to cover his back.

My gaze meets Nico’s determined one.

“That fucker does not leave here,” I growl and Nico nods his agreement. “Let’s go.”

As if in sync with each other, the three of us rise from the floor, like phoenixes rising from the ashes. I lead us as a unit, moving to the doorway where Riccardo disappeared. When we enter the cold, dark corridor, bullets fire in our direction and we shoot back, only to stop when Riccardo’s voice echoes in the space.

“If you want your sister to live, I suggest you ceasefire, Marchetti.” The smugness in his voice tells me he is not messing around.

Freezing on the spot, my head snaps to Nico.

“I thought you said Allegra was safely on her way back to the Hamptons,” I whisper.

He nods, a frown creasing his face. “She is. Along with my mamma.” Looking away from me, he calls out, “Nice try, Romano. My sister will be back on my estate by now.”

“Is she though?” The sound of his voice turns my veins to ice. “You see, I anticipated something happening today. And on the off chance that I was right, I made sure I had a backup plan. Insurance if you will.” Every word is like a knife piercing my skin. “If you don’t believe me, take a look.” He steps out of the shadows, and my fists ball with the need to strangle the fuck out of him. “If you kill me, my men have orders to do whatever they want to your mamma and sister before slaughtering and hanging them like pigs from a building for the whole world to see. Is that how you want your family to be remembered?”

He holds up his cell phone where what looks to be a live stream of an SUV tipped up on its side, surrounded by armed men. The vehicle could be anyone’s, but when Alessio pops up out of a window, shooting one guard dead, before dropping back down, it’s clear it’s the SUV Allegra and Valentina were traveling in.

Riccardo smirks, pocketing his cellphone. “Now this is what is going to happen. You are going to give us the code for the lock and let us leave. Only when we are far enough away, will I tell my men to stand down. I give you my word.”

“Your word means shit, asshole. Not only were you consorting with our Russian enemies, but you also had a hand in blowing up my club and Dante’s disappearance,” Nico growls.

Riccardo shrugs. “It was a means to an end, nothing personal. I saw the way my fiancée looked at him,” he jerks his head to me, disdain written all over his face. “I needed him out the way, if Allegra was ever going to marry me.”

“So you banished me to Las Vegas, and had me believe I was someone else. Why didn’t you just kill me,” I snap.

Riccardo laughs sardonically. “I would have. But I decided to keep you as insurance instead. I just never counted on that whore lying to me and going to Las Vegas instead of Miami. In a city full of people, I also didn’t consider her seeing you, let alone convincing you that you were not Luca Mancini, but her long lost love.”

I shoot forward, ready to strangle the son of a bitch but Nico pulls me back. “Don’t you dare refer to my wife as a whore ever again.”

Riccardo stills, his jaw clenching, gaze narrowing. His face turns bright red, and he looks like he might explode with anger.

“ Your wife,” he repeats the statement.

Smirking, I pin him with a challenging look. “Yeah. My wife. Not yours. She was never yours Romano.”

He straightens - and it isn’t lost on me that the group behind him are keeping very quiet - clearing his throat. “Well, Vitale. If you want your wife to make it to the end of this day with her life, I suggest you give me the code. Now.” He barks, his voice echoing around the space.

My heart pounds in my chest, and I know at this moment I will do all I can to keep my wife alive. So that means we are going to have to let Riccardo go – but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill him.

Mind made up; I reel off the numbers to open the lock.

Benito moves to the door. The only sound in the otherwise silence is our heavy breathing and the clicking of the lock, before the chain clangs to the floor and the door is pushed open. Light floods the dark corridor, and Riccardo’s lips curve up into a devilish grin.

“You better hurry. My men are closing in. Tick Tock. Tick. Fucking. Tock.” He taps his watch, laughing sardonically.

And then he is gone.

I know we should go after Riccardo and the other motherfuckers, but there is someone more important that needs my attention right now. And I am sure Nico feels the same way.

We just need to get to them first.

Because who knows what else Riccardo has up his sleeve.

Pulling up the app to track my wife’s necklace, I breathe a sigh of relief when I find that they are only a couple blocks away.

I can only pray to every god above that my wife, her mamma, and Nico’s men will be okay.