Love and War 2 (15 page)

Four hours...

Caprice looked at her watch, unable to believe that four hours had passed. Diesel had gone into surgery first. Nico went into the operating room just a few minutes later. Then the waiting began.

Not a single doctor or nurse had come out to the waiting room to give the families an update. Caprice had been hounded by a stream of police officers until she screamed that she wasn’t answering any questions until she knew her brother and her man were going to live. But no doctor. Every time the double doors leading to the back of the ER swung open Caprice stopped pacing.

“Mom,” she had asked a dozen times. “No news is good, right?”

Each time, Mahogany replied the with the same shoulder shrug.

“Will you please sit down?” Gloria Harris practically shouted at Caprice. “You’re drivin’ everybody crazy with all that walkin’ back and forth.

Caprice gritted her teeth. If it had been up to her, she would be in the hospital alone, but Maria and Gloria deserved to know what happened to their loved ones. If Diesel made it, he’d be pissed that Caprice didn’t call his mother.

It would have been nice if Gloria let her deal with the ordeal without having to deal with her smart ass mouth. It would have been better if they could get along for five minutes, but that wasn’t going to happen even though it wasn’t the time to get into another argument with Gloria.

“Please don’t yell at my daughter,” Mahogany spoke up before Caprice could. “She’s just as worried as you are.”

“Oh, is she?” Gloria raised her eyebrows and turned up her nose at Mahogany. “I thought I gave birth to my son. Pardon my mistake.”

Mahogany cut her eyes at Gloria and folded her arms. Caprice actually stopped walking and watched her mother.

“I gave birth to her,” Mahogany said. “And if you think I’m just going to sit here and let you talk to my child any type of way, you are sadly mistaken. Either talk to her like you got some sense, or don’t say shit to her.”

“Ain’t nobody got time for you or your prissy ass  daughter.”

“Prissy or not,” Mahogany replied. “I don’t have time for you to be yellin’ at her.”

Caprice wanted to laugh. She rarely saw her mother get angry, but when Mahogany did get mad enough to really check someone, it was hilarious. People who didn’t know her were always surprised when the New Jersey came out of her.

“Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’m going outside. I need some air.”

Caprice steeped outside and walked over to the smoking area. She wasn’t smoking, but it was the furthest away from the door. She pulled out her black phone and called her father. He answered on the first ring.

“Any news?” Domani said.

“Not yet. Dad, he’s still in surgery. This isn’t good, right?”

“I don’t know, Caprice. People have survived explosions before.”

“Dad,” Caprice said and a tear rolled down her face, “I don’t know what to do.”

Even though he was across the world, Domani tensed. There was nothing he could do to comfort his child or help his son.

“Right now, there’s nothing to do but pray that Nico lives. We’re going to act on this, for sure. But right now, just focus on your brother.” He paused. “And your boyfriend.”

Caprice eyes widened. She hadn’t mentioned Diesel the first time she called Domani to give him the news.

“What?”

“All you need to know is that I know and I have known,” he replied. “We’ll discuss another day. It’s not important. Now listen to me, there’s a lady there named Mary King. When your brother comes out of surgery, she’s going to take care of him. She’s going to make sure that SIU is the safest place in the world for your brother. No matter what she says, do it. You got me?”

“I got it.”

“I’m going to work something out. As soon as this hits the news, every Federal Agent on the east coast is going to be watching that hospital hoping I show up. But I’m coming. Don’t you worry.”

Movement at the ER entrance caught the corner of Caprice’s eye. She looked up and it was her mother waving at her.

“Dad, I have to go. Mom’s waving me inside. I’ll call you right back.”

Caprice hung up and ran back into the ER. One poor surgeon was surrounded by a mob of people firing questions at him. Caprice pushed her way past Gabriella and Maria to stand in front of the doctor.

“Is my brother alive?”

“Yes,” the doctor stated. His voice was tired, but relieved. “The situation is still critical, but he made it through surgery.”

“Why is it critical if he made it through surgery?”

“Most of the injuries caused by an explosion are internal and don’t show up for hours,” the doctor explained. “We’re keeping him in a medically induced coma until we know for sure that his lungs, heart, and gastrointestinal tract are operating as they should.”

“When can I see my son?” Gabriella asked.

“I’ve been told that special arrangements are being made. Nurse King will be out shortly to take you to him. Are any of you Gloria Harris?”

Gloria raised her hand and the doctor stepped away from the crowd to speak with her privately. Caprice stared, wondering what they were saying. Gloria remained composed the entire time. After a few minutes, she shook the doctor’s hand, motioned for Brianna and Allen to follow her, and started to walk out of the ER. Caprice had to run to catch up with her.

“Hey! What did he say? Is Diesel okay? Where are you going?”

Gloria stopped walking and turned around with an attitude. “We’re going home.”

“Home?” Caprice said, obviously shocked that Gloria was just going to leave her son in a hospital.

“No point of sitting here listening to you and your family cry all night. My son is going to Jersey so I’m going there too.”

Caprice would have bet The Capri that she hadn’t heard Gloria correctly.

“What?”

“I’ve arranged to have him LifeFlighted to AtlantiCare Regional.”

Caprice slowly moved her head back and forth and closed her eyes. “You are a piece of work,” she stated in utter disbelief. “He’d be safer here.”

“I don’t care,” Gloria said. “I have a friend who works in that hospital and he will make sure my son gets the best care humanly possible.”

“And I have people here who will do the same!” Caprice protested.

“Goodbye, Caprice.”

Caprice watched Diesel’s family walk away and her heart hurt. Transferring him to a New Jersey hospital was so stupid! She couldn’t be two places at once! What was he going to think when he woke up and Caprice wasn’t there?

What would Nico think when he woke up and she was in New Jersey by Diesel’s side?

Gloria had no right to do this; to make her choose between them. No right at all.

****

The private room that Nurse King had arranged for Nico and Diesel was eerily quiet. It was five o’clock in the morning. Although Caprice knew she had to leave, she was very hesitant to leave the hospital.

Caprice stared at the empty bed that should have been holding her boyfriend. Gloria wasn’t listening to reason when she decided that moving Diesel to another hospital was the smart thing to do. Caprice didn’t give a shit about Gloria’s doctor friend. Unless he was an actual Angel of the Lord, there was a slim chance that he could do anything that couldn’t be done in New York.

The ER doctors, after many loud threats, had reluctantly informed Caprice of the severity of Diesel’s injuries, and his were worse than Nico’s. A large object that the fire department hadn’t identified yet had struck his head with such force that it caused bleeding in his brain. One of the surgeons had compared the nature of his injury as being similar to being thrown through a windshield in a high speed car accident.

No one knew if he’d wake up.

After that news, the only thing that kept Caprice from driving her car off the Brooklyn Bridge was the fact that Nico was doing a little better than Diesel. But just a little.

Maria and Gabriella were sitting on either side of him, holding his hands, and praying for his life. Caprice had nothing to do but plot and plan.

Her anger was the only thing that kept her from becoming completely hysterical. All she could focus on was the fact that the Four Horsemen had made a move.

She refused to take that lying down. Even if her father could figure out a way to enter the States without immediately being arrested, she had to act. She was going to act.

Her twenty-fifth birthday was not going to be the fun get-together that she wanted, but it sure as hell was going to be memorable.

No one in New York City would ever forget the day that Caprice Bonatelli turned twenty-five.

No one.

The cold air nipped at Caprice’s already red nose as she walked across the employee parking lot of Allenwood Penitentiary. Even for November, it was brutally cold in Pennsylvania. Her Nikes crunched on the gravel. She laughed to herself when she realized that she was wearing the same clothes from the day before. It didn’t matter. She was on a mission and she needed Fausto’s help…urgently.

“Hey Manny,” Caprice said her cousin when he opened the entrance door.

“What’s up? How’s Nico?”

Caprice untied her leather trench coat. “Same. His doctors think he’ll pull through, but they can’t say for sure. Maria and Gabriella called their priest to come sit with him.”

Caprice couldn’t get the explosion out of her mind. No matter how hard she tried focusing on getting revenge, she still saw the restaurant blowing up, her brother’s limp body, and Diesel bleeding everywhere. The fact that the news they were receiving wasn’t exactly good news was equally disturbing.

“Go in the training room,” Manny instructed. “I’ll get Fausto.

Caprice sat in the familiar room and drummed her fingers on the table. She’d been in this room no less than ten times since her first visit. She and Fausto had a special relationship, better than she had ever expected they would. They exchanged letters and phone calls when he was allowed. When he wasn’t, she made the three hour drive to visit him. She had a feeling that her great-grandfather liked her more than he liked her father.

Fausto was the reason she was wearing the diamond and gold signet ring. He was also the reason someone tried to blow her up, along with her brother and boyfriend. He was the only one who could tell her how to fix the problem…or problems.

“Caprice,” Fausto sullenly said her name when he entered the room. She ran into his outstretched arms and began to cry.

Fausto patted her back and allowed her to cry. She’d been through something so traumatic that she deserved a few minutes to breakdown.

“Talk to me, kiddo,” he said after a few minutes.

Those four words comforted Caprice. Her father was in another country and she could never really go into details with her mother. She needed someone to talk to. She sat down while Fausto remained standing.

“I don’t know,” Caprice wailed. “One minute we’re walking and he was talking to Diesel about football. Then the next minute the fucking building explodes! Everything happened so fast. It’s 2013! Besides al-Qaeda, who the fuck blows shit up?”

“Old school gangsters,” Fausto answered calmly. “It’s what I would have done.”

“Great,” Caprice replied sarcastically. “I’m going to kill them, Papa. All of them. Tell me how.”

Fausto chuckled. His great-granddaughter was something to be proud of. She embraced the life and her family like she’d known them forever. She was ambitious and smart and extraordinarily confident. He didn’t know her mother, but he knew that Domani had passed down everything that was good about him to his daughter.

Fausto was almost positive that if Domani had never called her to New York, she’d be running a Fortune 500 company by now or working for the government. He could see her walking the Senate floor, campaigning to be the first female president. She had the balls to do it and could crush anyone who stood in her way.

“First,” Fausto advised, “you gotta calm down and call for a meeting.”

“How do I do that? I don’t even know all of them.”

Fausto grinned as if he was about to reveal a sacred secret. “You don’t do it. There’s a lawyer in Midtown, an old fella by the name of Tribiani. Call his after hours number. Leave a message with your name and say ‘we need to talk.’ That’s all you have to say. He’ll call you back within a half hour with a time and location.”

Caprice raised her eyebrows. “That’s it?”

“Whadya mean, that’s it? This is one of the biggest things you’ll ever do in your life. Tribiani is the only person in America who can get in touch with all of us. Do you understand that?”

“Only one man? Seriously?”

Fausto sighed. “Yeah, seriously. By time you get back to New York, you should be ready to meet.”

Fausto changed the subject. “How’s your father holdin’ up?”

“He is drivin’ me crazy. He wants to come home, but it doesn’t look like Poleski or Gina are going to be able to sneak him into the country.”

Fausto nodded. “If it was my boy, I’d be trying to come home too. But if he’s smart, he’ll stay where he’s at. Nico will pull through.”