A Sinner’s Truth (De Bellis Crime Family Book 5)
A Sinner’s Truth: Chapter 32

I’m starting to think I should have taken Santo up on the offer to go home and let him fuck me senseless. Don’t get me wrong… I love Drew and I’ve missed him. Catching up with my best friend is high on my priority list, but it’s really hard to pay attention to him when Santo’s fingers are tracing love hearts on my upper thigh.

Drew really is making an effort. I’ve talked to him about my feelings for Santo, and how we have decided to make our relationship real. Drew said it was never fake and I was fooling myself to think it was. He also said he could tell from the start that Santo was into me a lot more than as just a friend.

As Drew talks about his upcoming trip to Europe, I try my best to be excited for him and to keep up with the conversation. My mind, however, keeps slipping back to Santo. We just exchanged rings. It feels so much more real now. Who would have thought something as simple as a piece of jewellery would make me feel more married? I also can’t stop looking at it. It’s stunning.

“You know it’s not going anywhere?” Drew asks me.

“Huh?” I look up at him.

“The ring, it’s not going anywhere.” He laughs.

“It’s never fucking coming off,” Santo grunts.

“I’m allowed to admire pretty things,” I tell them both.

“You are,” Santo says. “I’m going to spend my life buying you all the pretty shit to admire, darling.”

“You don’t need to buy me anything. I have you and that’s all I need.” I press my lips against his.

“Okay, you two are sickeningly sweet and I’m about to throw up in my mouth.” Drew’s face screws up in disgust.

“Don’t be jealous. You’ll find some brainless blind woman who will love you one day.” I laugh.

“Don’t jinx me, Aria. I’m going to be the eternal bachelor. One vagina forever sounds like fucking hell.” Drew shakes his head. He really is a good person. He’s just a little… slutty.

I lift a shoulder. “It’ll happen, and when it does, I can’t wait to laugh in your face and say I told you so.”

“If that happens, just shoot me. I know you want to anyway,” Drew tells Santo, who smiles in return.

“If that happens, you’re not going to want to miss a single second of life with that person,” he says while looking at me.

“Okay, let’s change the subject. This talk of forever is getting a little too doom and gloom for me. Did you two find a house yet?” Drew asks.

“Not yet,” I answer him. “But we’re going to look again. Why? Are you kicking me out of the apartment?”

“How can I kick you out of an apartment you own?” Drew questions, and I stare at him, confused.

“What?”

“You own the deed to the apartment, Aria. The papers were signed over a month ago. You didn’t know?” Drew looks from me to Santo.

“What did you do?” I ask my husband, knowing full well he did something.

“I didn’t do anything. You bought an apartment.” Santo shrugs.

“You mean you bought an apartment in my name?” I correct him.

“Same thing.” Santo smiles at me. That smile is bloody lethal. It sends little tingles of pleasure straight to my core.

“Not the same thing. That’s a lot of money, Santo,” I scold him.

“You can afford it.” He chuckles.

“In what world can I afford that? Did you forget the part about how my father went through all of his wealth? I’ve inherited debt,” I groan. I plan on selling Swan Enterprises, considering it would be impossible for me to dig the company out of the red now.

“You are far from broke, darling. You just haven’t checked your bank balance in a while. Besides, I told you I wasn’t having another man pay for an apartment for my wife,” Santo says.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” I stand up and Santo stands with me. “Don’t even think of following me,” I hiss at him while I point to where the door is located. “It’s right there.”

Drew pushes up from his chair. “I’m getting another round. You two can kiss and sort it out, because I hate when mum and dad fight.”

“Aria.”

I turn my head towards the voice, a voice of someone I don’t want to see or hear. Oliver. Except as I do, Drew jumps in front of me, and then there’s a loud bang before my body is shoved onto the ground.

“Stay down,” Santo tells me. He has a gun in his hand. He jumps up to his feet as he scans the room. “Fuck!” he curses before offering me a hand. “Get up. We need to get out of here.”

I don’t take it. I’m staring at the body lying next to me. Blood pooling around it. Drew. He’s on his stomach. His eyes are on me, but they’re blank. “No!” I crawl over and roll him onto his back. There’s so much blood. My hands tug his shirt up and I cover the hole in his chest, trying to stop the bleeding. “No, no, no!” I yell.

“Aria, we need to go.” Santo’s arms wrap around my waist and he starts to pull me away.

“No, he needs an ambulance. Santo, get help!” I scream at him.

“We need to leave. I need to get you out of here,” he repeats.

“I’m not leaving without him! Someone, please, call an ambulance!”

“Fucking hell.” Santo drops to his knees, moving my hands aside and covering the hole with his much bigger palms. “An ambulance is on its way. Get my phone and ring Gio, Aria. We need to call this in.”

I pull his phone from the pocket of his pants. It slips out of my grip and clanks onto the floor. I wipe the blood from my hands and pick up the phone again. “How do I unlock it?” I ask Santo.

“Two, seven, four, two,” he says. “A-R-I-A.”

I don’t have time to take in that his code is my name as I scroll through the contacts and hit Gio’s number. I hold the phone to Santo’s ear. I can’t talk. I don’t know what to say…

My hand shakes as Santo speaks in rapid Italian. “Hang up,” he tells me. And I press the red button before sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” I look at Drew. His face is pale. He’s not moving.

“He still has a pulse,” Santo says. “Aria, look at me.”

I pry my eyes from Drew and force myself to look to Santo.

“I need you to focus on me, not him. It’s going to be okay,” he says.

Tears fall from my eyes. “I can’t lose him. He’s all I have.”

“You have me. You have our whole fucking family, Aria,” Santo grits out between clenched teeth. “Whatever happens, you will always have me.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I attempt to clarify. I know my words hurt him. “I just… I need him to be okay.”

“I know.”

The paramedics run in. Santo tells them that Drew was shot, and that there’s no exit wound. How does he even know that?

Then he’s pulling me into his arms as I watch the paramedics treat Drew, who’s still unconscious. “This is my fault,” I say.

“This is not your fault.” Santo pulls me into his chest tighter. “We’re okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Within minutes, the café is taken over by Santo’s family and the men I assume work for them. His brothers surround us—surround me. “Come on, we need to get you home,” Gabe says to me.

When the paramedics wheel Drew out on a stretcher, I go to follow them. “I need to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll take you.” Santo grips my hand.

“Gabe and I will come,” Gio says before turning to the two figures standing at his back. “Marcel and Vin, find out where that fucker went. I want him found.”

“Why is it taking so long?” I ask Santo. We’ve been sitting in the hospital waiting area. Drew has been taken in for surgery. His parents are here. I had to call them, which was not something I ever want to have to do again.

“I’ll go see if I can find out anything.” Gio stands and walks towards the nurses’ station.

“We just have to be patient,” Santo says.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Santo’s fingers tilt my chin upwards so I’m looking at him.

“This is my fault. I shouldn’t have dragged you and your family into my mess,” I say. “And Drew… Why the hell would he stand in front of me? He should have moved.”

“Like fuck. He saved your life, Aria. And you didn’t drag me into a mess. You pulled me up out of the ashes and showed me how to live again. I’m going to find the fucking asshole who did this…” Santo lets his words trail off. I don’t need him to say the rest, though. I know what he’ll do when he finds the guy.

“Doctors are coming to talk to his parents now,” Gio tells me.

I’ve been avoiding Drew’s parents. Despite what Santo says, this is my fault. If Drew wasn’t there to meet up with me, he wouldn’t have been shot. I walk over to his mother, and she holds her hand out to me. “He’s going to be okay,” she says. I should be the one comforting her, not the other way around.

“I’m so sorry.” Tears fall down my cheeks.

“This isn’t your fault, Aria. Do not blame yourself,” she says.

Santo wipes a thumb over my cheeks. “I fucking hate seeing you cry.”

“Sorry,” I tell him.

The doctor stops in front of us, and my breath gets caught in my lungs, waiting for him to say something. Anything.

“He’s in recovery. We were able to successfully remove the bullet and it looks like he’s going to pull through. You can see him soon. A nurse will lead you back. Two at a time.”

Drew’s mum throws her arms around the doctor. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she cries into the man’s chest until her husband pulls her against him.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” I ask Santo. That’s what the doctor said.

“He’s going to be okay.” Santo kisses the top of my head. “We need to get cleaned up, Aria. Let me take you home and shower. We can come back.”

“I don’t want to go yet. Can I just see him first? Please.”

“Okay,” Santo agrees.