All Chapters of My Biker Mafia Stepbrother: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Candice's P.O.V.The warehouse area reeked of salt water and rust, and that faint metallic undertone of blood that still lingered on our clothes in the mountain bunker; we were in a loose circle round the SUVs where, as the sheriff said goodbye, I felt like he was sentencing me to death-- everything in those files will become public in twenty-four hours. Mantovani was pacing a few feet away, phone glued to his ear, voice low and desperate as he gave a bark in the direction of our tech team in Italy, attempting to keep the leak contained to dark web forums but not making it to mainstream news, but the expression on his face as he hung up informed me everything- we were too late. Sanna was leaning against the hood of the closest car, his bandaged arm hanging slack, face drawn with weariness and the sort of silent rage that befell him when he knew that his empire was disintegrating, not by bullets, but by the words on a screen.Dad put his hand on my shoulder, and his voi

Candice's P.O.V.Each minute the basement of the brownstone was growing smaller, the odor of old concrete, instant coffee and the bite of gun oil on the metallic taste was growing heavier, and we sat at a folding table covered with laptops, burner phones and half-empty containers of takeout, and the screens of the computers lightening everyone in cold blue, and the federal warrants scrolling across news feeds like a death sentence. Papa sat next me, and in a creaking metal chair, which squeaked with every movement, his hand on my knee in the very same way it used to when I was a kid and feared thunderstorms--and now the storm was here--warrants, leaks, the sheriff daughter locked away upstairs in a bedroom we had turned into a guarded safe room, and his silent presence helped me not to get away all the way. Mantovani had been standing behind me and had one hand on my shoulder and the fingers digging in just enough to be reminding me that he was there, solid and unyielding, an

Candice's P.O.V.It was as though in the mountain night that had followed the shot, a thunderclap that smashed all apart, the bullet tearing into the back of Mantovani with a wet, sickening thud that knifed my stomach and I felt the same terrible weight against my heart that I had felt as he crashed at me, his weight crushing me down to the ground as he fell at me, his weight heavy and warm and frighteningly still. Blood was spreading, and soaking through his shirt and on my hands as I scrambled to roll him on his back, my fingers going numb in the warm blood, the familiar horror of losing the one person who made this insane world seem like it made sense overwhelming me in tidal waves that left me choking. "Mantovani! No, no, no, said I, and I stretched the palms into the wound high up on his chest and I could feel the blood pulse between my fingers, hot and insistent, and his eyes fluttered over and closed, and the green depths clouded with pain and something deeper, and he regretted

Candice's P.O.V.The alarms waked the world like a hell-siren, banging, banging, with the noises of the alarm into the quiet farmhouse bedroom and broke the delicate hope I had been festering on, that the mountain, the monitors flashing red warnings that Mantovani was dead, had gone dead, into a straight uncompromising beep that filled my ears like an orchestra of orders--Clear! Bill to 200!--and I fell to the wall, my knees shook, as I saw them cut off his shirt, and there our fresh bandages, all wet with blood, and there the sheriff had shot him a ragged hole in the side, all to the derision of every prayer I had uttered. Mom had grabbed me before I collapsed, and the arms were around my waist in a wild embrace, and her own face was shot through with tears and dirty and her voice was gone on the last word, it was a scream of fright at seeing someone you love being lost and yet it had to be so, and the boys the boys must have been, and through her sobs she was saying, hold o

Candice's P.O.V.The alarms rang out like a knife thrust in the flesh, and the sharp beep of the alarms grew louder and louder, and I could hear them piercing the air like a knife thrust in the flesh, and then, as the doctors crowded around the bed of Mantovani, I felt them cutting holes in his flesh, and then I was in the doorway as my hands were clenched into fists, and my nails tore a crescent into the palm of my hand, and I heard the doctors swarming around the bedside, and their voices blended into a frenz Mom drew me back and her arms were round my waist, and her body was trembling against mine, and she was whispering through sobs, He is strong, Candice, he is going to pull through, he has to, but her words seemed empty, the familiar fear of losing him, of having the life seep out of those green eyes that had stared at me with such passionate, unsated intensity, were tying at my stomach in knots, so that it was hard to breathe, hard to think beyond the endless repetitio