The Mafia's past sin

Elena

The air reeked of gasoline and blood.

I pressed my back to the cracked brick wall of the warehouse, adrenaline flooding my veins as the distant sounds of gunfire echoed through the industrial district.

A drug exchange was going down, one that could finally crack open the Moretti empire.

My heart was beating so loud in my ears, louder than the unfolding chaos around me. I was trying desperately to keep my breathing under control.

"Fuck-fuck.. oh God, fuck." I kept muttering under my breath.

"Cruz, what's your status?" John a colleague of mine's voice crackled through my earpiece.

I pressed my mic. "North wall. Warehouse 14. I've got movements on the inside. There is no visual on the target yet." I responded.

Static. Then a voice I didn't want to hear- Detective Marcus Hale. "Hold position. I repeat, do not engage until we regroup. We've got a goddamn war in there."

I gritted my teeth in frustration, grabbing tightly to the sleeves of my bulletproof vest. Of course, it was war. The Moretti cartel is meeting with a mystery buyer tonight. What was to be expected? But this was bigger than the regular storm, this was a hellfire and I was the only one here to witness it.

"Wait for the signal, Cruz. No hero shit." Hale said again.

Too late.

I took a deep breath and moved silently around the side of the warehouse. Broken glasses crunched beneath my boots as I walked past a shattered window path.

My Glock was loaded and ready, held steady in my hand, though my stomach churned and my nerves were a mess. I hadn't trained for this level of carnage. Not yet. But this was the job I chose. The kind of war I asked for.

And now I was knee-deep in it.

The air inside the warehouse was thick with smoke and filled with the stench of gunpowder. Bodies lay scattered across the floor, some groaning, and some still.

I almost gagged at the sight. My heart thumped violently in my chest and my breathing ragged, as I moved cautiously.

I heard a sharp pop of gunfire crack through the warehouse.

My training kicked in and I ducked. My heart slammed against my ribs and adrenaline coursed through me. Two more shots were fired, followed by screams and shouts.

Then silence.

I rose slowly, gripping my gun more tightly this time. More smoke covered the air and a trail of blood smeared on the floor near the loading dock and I followed the trail.

A flicker of movement caught my eye behind a stack of shipping containers.

I immediately raised my gun. "Police! Show me your hands!" I yelled fiercely, though my inside was jittery.

I got no response. Just a wet, ragged cough.

I made my way around the corner and froze in my steps as I saw him.

There, slumped against a crate smeared with blood, was a man in a torn black shirt and bulletproof vest hanging loose.

His face was pale beneath the bloodied strands of his dark hair, with a deep gunshot wound in his abdomen.

His eyes fluttered open and my whole world cracked in half. A gasp escaped my lips as my gun lowered an inch.

It couldn't be.

Fuckk, it was.

Adrian Moretti.

But this wasn't the man the newspapers warned of. This wasn't the infamous mafia boss responsible for half the city's drug war.

This was Adri- the boy with the crooked smile who used to climb trees with me. The boy who once kissed me under a thunderstorm and then vanished without a word ten years ago.

"Adri..." I whispered before I could stop myself, my fingers trembled around my gun.

This man should be my enemy. The mafia boss that my team and I swore to take down and put behind bars. But the man in front of me right now is someone my heart didn't know how to hate.

His eyes fluttered open again, still the same storm-gray color that haunted my childhood dreams. It didn't look like he recognized me.

He was desperately trying to stay conscious.

I dropped to my knees beside him abruptly, tucking my gun back in the waistband of my pants.

"Stay with me. I've got you. I'm not going to let you die." I whispered, tearing open his vest to assess the wound.

Thankfully the bullet hadn't gone clean through.

He blinked and stared at me unfocused.

"Who...?"

"Shhh... don't talk. Save your strength."

At this point, my mind is screaming at me to call for backup and turn him in.

But my heart had already decided. I couldn't leave him here to die. Not like this. Mafia boss or not, sworn enemy or not, fragments of who he used to be to me before, flashed through my mind.

I pressed my hands shakily to his wound, hard, ignoring his groan of pain. I glanced around, just to make sure. No cameras, no backup. Just me and a dying man, whose past self lived rent-free in my memory.

"I'm getting you out of here," I mumbled.

*****************************************

One hour later

The underground clinic reeked of bleach and secrets.

I found this place from a small-time drug trafficker I had arrested on my first assignment when I joined the team. He begged me not to report this place and instead, he would give me a tip on the drug exchange happening today.

The information came in handy and I was assigned to investigate alone since my partner had been MIA for a while now due to personal reasons. I got a call that the shipping would be happening sooner than expected and my team wasn't around, so I left immediately and called for backup on the way. Hence why I was there alone.

The underground doctor worked fast, no questions asked. I just stood in a corner watching. My clothes were soaked with Adrian's blood. The metallic smell of blood filled my nose and I could nearly taste it. I couldn't bring myself to stop staring at his face. Pale, still, so different, yet so familiar.

When the doctor left to go grab more supplies, I moved closer, brushing a strand of hair from Adrian's forehead. My fingers lingered longer than they should have.

"You were supposed to have a better life." I whispered sadly. "What the hell happened to you?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't. But he stirred, ever so slightly, when I touched his hand.

"You just vanished. I waited. I looked for you..."

I blinked back the memory-the alleyway, our first kiss, the night he left, the note that never came, the way I had yearned for his return for years.

I sat in a plastic chair in a corner in the shadows and dozed off unknowingly. By the time I was jolted awake by the clanking sound of something hitting the floor, it was already dawn.

The bed was empty.

Bloody bandages scattered everywhere on the floor. A broken window and no sign of Adrian.

He was gone. Just like before.

Vanished.

I stood there staring at the empty bed, still in my clothes soaked with his blood, my chest heaving.

He didn't know it was me. Don't know if he saw me, but I had seen enough.

Adrian Moretti was alive.

And now I was caught between saving the man I once loved... and taking down the criminal he had become.

As I left the underground hospital, walking to my car, my phone vibrated. One new message. No name. Just a number I didn't recognize.

"He should have died last night. You made a big mistake."

My blood ran cold and my heart sank to my stomach.

Someone had seen me. Fuckkk!!! I screamed internally.