Chasing His Brother's Bride
Chasing His Brother’s Bride – Chapter 56

The men had gone to the basement when Malik had messaged Elio while she’d been chatting with Brix. Dinner had been paused waiting for the men to come home. Pia had fallen asleep in an armchair earlier and now it was approaching eight and Brix was not home yet. Rosa and Kendall were putting dinner away. She heard clamoring and Rosa telling someone to go. This house always had one of the guys off to do one thing or another.

Jolie sat on the sofa eavesdropping in the living room sipping a glass of wine when seconds after Rosa spoke she saw Trey tear through the house with Elio and Fabrizio on his heels and slamming the outer door behind them. She stood up and looked at Keely and Opal in confusion.

“What is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Keely stood up as well.

Rosa came into the living room and pulled Jolie to sit down, and Kendall took the other side of her. Immediately her stomach dropped to her feet.

“What happened? Who is hurt?” Jolie knew a mother who was getting ready to deliver scary news.

“Brix was shot, honey.” Kendall patted her hand softly. “He’s been taken to hospital. Normally our men don’t go to hospital but because this happened on Beckwith territory instead of Cacciola territory, the police were on sight. Malik is with him in the ambulance.”

Jolie pushed off the sofa and made her way to the basement, ignoring the way the women were calling her. She gave a glance over her shoulder, “stay here. Keely, make sure everyone stays upstairs.”

She saw the surprise on the face of the men as she entered the security room. “Luiz, get me the video of what happened.” Luiz froze at her command.

Luiz shook his head, “I don’t know, Jolie. Brix wouldn’t approve.”

“I want to see what happened to my husband, now.” She pointed to the screens. “Get me the video of what happened.”

One of the other soldiers stepped closer to her and she held her hand up to him, but he didn’t stop. He spoke up, “Dona, I don’t think you want to see this.”

“Alfonso, right?” He was one of the men Brix had brought back from Vegas when he’d gone to deal with Chiara. This poor bastard had been her personal guard. Jolie felt terrible for him.

“Yes, Dona.”

“If your wife had been shot, would you want to see what happened?”

“Yes, Dona but,” he swallowed, “we are used to such things.”

“Three times you have called me Dona,” she was blunt. “Play the video for me now. It’s an order.”

Alfonso motioned to the chair one of the other guards had vacated. “Please sit then.” When Luiz glared at him, he shook his head. “She is the Dona. She is not a weak woman. She has survived far more than the video we have in our possession. She has given us an order and we are to obey the way we would obey an order from our Don.”

Luiz nodded but it was clear he was not in agreement, “Jolie, if any of this gets to you, you say the word stop and we stop playing.”

“I got it.”

She sat in the chair and felt the protective stance of the men around her. She had no fear of them at this moment despite how close both Alfonso and Luiz were standing behind her. She took a breath and nodded when Luiz leaned over her shoulder and pressed play on the keyboard.

She watched the entire thirty-minute playback right up until they loaded Brix into an ambulance on a stretcher. She motioned to Luiz, “play it again from the moment right before she pulled the trigger and shot him. I want you to freeze it and tell me if you see what I saw.”

“What?” Alfonso was confused.

“Play it from the moment right before she fired the gun.”

Jolie watched with a set jaw as she watched as Macey narrowed her gaze, not in direction of the police officer charging her but right at Brix and shot him. “Freeze it there. Play it back.” She made them replay it six times and each time they replayed it, her fury escalated.

Alfonso and Luiz exchanged glances and Alfonso shook his head, “Dona, you don’t miss a f*****g thing, do you?”

“Nope.”

“She knew what she was doing.”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“She hates us. She hates me because she has always hated me. She’s been pissed off over the last several weeks since Brix took over and he’s called her professionalism into question multiple times. She offered him s****l favors from day one, she harassed me multiple times, she failed to keep her staff in line, she continued the gossiping with the girls in the department despite being warned not to and yesterday she stupidly tried to get me to turn informant for her lover. She knew she f****d up yesterday and when I fired her it pissed her off.”

“You fired her?”

“Yes.” She nodded at Luiz’ question. “Brix backed the decision, but it was my call. She had an opportunity to be loyal and she chose incorrectly. She chose the wrong side. She should have come to Brix or Malik the minute this guy started asking her to get information. She wanted to believe his s**t. She wanted so much to believe the woman she hates, me, was not happy and was being abused that when she found out I wasn’t, that I am loved,” Jolie made fists as she stared at the woman, “she wanted to hurt me. She lost everything already. She lost her job. She knew she’d be arrested the minute Brix said the cops were on the way. Solomon’s family never care much for who might be sleeping around but discretion to them is important. Her being arrested would be enough for her fiancé to call it off. She lost the lover because Brix pointed out bluntly, she was being used and Jax didn’t deny it. She lost everything and she wanted me to lose it all too. She was never going to kill Jax but Brix, the minute he said aloud he loved me, she wanted him dead.” She gave a sarcastic snort, “good thing she’s a shitty shot.”

Alfonso nodded, “what do you want to do?”

“I want to know if my husband is okay. One of you down here will find a way to get updates to me immediately.”

Luiz nodded and motioned to one of the men to move to his computer and start gathering information.

“Then find out where they took her and him.” She pointed to the man behind the sofa, “he’s going to get a get-out-of-jail free card. He’s a fed and they always find a way to protect these bastards. I’m tired of him meddling in my life. I really wish her shitty shots would have hit him right between the eyes.”

“We can take care of him.”

“No. Not today.” She shook her head. “If you do something now it looks like retaliation. We’ll follow the lead Malik set involving legal. Take him to court. Sue him and his bosses and see how far we can take it. Make him so damn uncomfortable when he finally loses his mind and kills himself, or we kill him and it appears he killed himself,” she shot a telling glance to Alfonso who was surprised by her words, “nobody will be surprised.”

“And her?”

“Brix once told me I had the luxury of only needing to protect Pia, but he was wrong. This,” she waved around the room, “is my house, my family, and my life. Protecting Pia means I must keep all of them safe for her. She needs her daddies and her Nonnos and her Nonnas. She needs her guards and her soldiers. She needs her family. I will not allow anyone to try to take my husband from me or my daughter’s father from her.”

Luiz nodded. “To be clear?”

“I want her dead,” Jolie said bluntly, her jaw clenched. “If I thought for one minute the shot, she fired had not meant to hit Brix, then I would second guess, but she tried to take out our Don. f**k her.”

“She is a woman, Dona. We don’t usually do such things.”

“We don’t touch innocents,” she clarified as she stared at the frozen image of Macey pointing the gun straight at Brix with her eyes narrowed, “but when a person deliberately tries to take out the head of the Cacciola family, I don’t care if it was on Beckwith property on not, the punishment must fit the crime.” She looked to Luiz, “I’m sure the family has a way to make sure she doesn’t make it through the night, and it does not come back to us? A heart attack in her cell or pissing off a guard who shoots her for being an a*****e? Suicide where she hangs herself in her cell? I don’t care how but she doesn’t make it to dawn, and it does not come back to us. Am I understood?”

He nodded once and waved to four men who were behind her, “you know what to do.” When they hesitated, he hissed, “she is your Dona.”

One of the men gave a single shake of his head and then moved to her and when she looked at him with a curious expression, he took her hand and kissed her engagement and wedding bands. All four men did the same and Jolie felt strangely calm as each man of the quartet did as the first and then they jogged up the stairs.

Alfonso nodded at her, “Dona, we can take care of the rest of this while you go upstairs and rest. We will bring you news of Brix as soon as possible.”

“Thank you.” She climbed the stairs and made her way to the living room where the women and Axl were all quietly waiting for her to reappear. She smiled at Axl, “sweetheart would you mind refilling my wine glass for me?”

She sat down, waiting for him to leave the room before looking around, “Macey shot Brix in the chest,” she pointed to her left shoulder, “just to the side of his shoulder. An inch and a half lower he’d be dead. There was a lot of b***d from what I could see on the video.”

“An accident?” Keely asked.

“No. I watched the video. She looked right in his direction when she fired the shot. She waited for the police officers to charge her and then she fired. She wanted to kill him.”

“b***h,” Kendall hissed furiously.

“Our concern is not her. We need to focus on Brix. Rosa, you said earlier we usually avoid hospitals. Why?”

“We would never want our DNA to be collected by the hospitals. No b***d work ever gets taken at a hospital.”

“Do you think Malik would be thinking clearly enough to make sure Brix doesn’t go to a hospital, despite police involvement?”

“Are you okay?” Opal slid over the sofa and squeezed her knee. “If he was shot, he needs a hospital.”

“No,” she shook her head, “we should be following Cacciola protocol the way Brix would want it followed.” Jolie looked at Kendall, “I assume when you and many of the family relocated from Vegas to Boston over the last couple of weeks, our medical team joined?”

“Yes.” Kendall nodded.

“Well hopefully my husband had enough common sense to ensure Brix goes to our doctors and not the hospital.”

Luiz stepped into the room, “we were able to connect with one of the soldiers who had been on the scene. Brix was put in an ambulance and taken to a nearby emergency clinic. Our physician works in the clinic and is on call. He is in surgery. No news yet but we have a man on site who will provide updates.”

“Thank you.” He turned to leave, and she called his name, “can you please review the video again from the minute the police arrive in the room until they clear the scene, as I’m sure they are still there, and make sure you document every single piece of evidence they took. If they have any of Brix’s b***d, make sure the evidence is destroyed.”

“Yes, Dona,” he marched away shaking his head at her words.

“Holy f**k you were born for this role,” Keely nudged her. “It’s very sexy. Have you ever considered switching teams?” Keely wiggled her eyebrows at her.

Jolie cracked a smile at her friend knowing Keely was trying to distract her. “Are you kidding? I can barely manage the men I got. Adding you into the mix would kill me. I teased them this morning telling them I wanted them back in bed, but I swear the minute they got out of the bed, I had to soak my aching muscles for an hour in the tub.”

“I have a question,” Opal looked to make sure Axl wasn’t nearby yet. “Have you taken both at the same time? Like you know –” she shoved two fingers into a ring she made with her forefinger and thumb.

Jolie smacked her leg as Rosa and Kendall gasped at the question and Keely chortled, “you’re nasty.” She smiled gently as Axl brought her glass of wine and he sat down beside his mother. “How are you doing, sweetie?”

“Is Brix going to be alright?”

“He is.” She nodded confidently. “I am sure he’s already yelling orders and telling Malik off.”

“He was going to help me with my math homework. He said he would sit with me sometime this weekend and help me.” Axl said quietly.

“If he said he would, then he would.” Jolie smiled tightly wondering whether she was saying impossible things.

“I know what the internet says about him and Elio,” Axl said quietly, “but if I had to choose between being the gay kid in a mafia family or the gay kid in public high school, I’d choose this family every time. He’s a good man, Jolie. Malik too.”

She pursed her lips as she fought the tears which threatened to spill, “Axl, it means everything to me to hear you say this. They both adore you.”

Her phone which she’d left sitting on the coffee table earlier rang and she picked it up. “Elio?”

“Hello, Jolie. I’m sorry we ran as we did. I should have stopped to talk to you.”

“No. You did what you should have done. I want you to make sure he is taken care of, Elio.”

“He’s higher than a kite right now,” Elio chuckled. “By the way, he made it very clear out of you and Malik you are far sexier.”

She heard the titter of laughter from Axl at the comment.

“He also made very explicit comments on who is better at certain other activities. The guys are laughing their asses off at Malik’s expense.” Elio continued.

“But he’s going to be okay, right?”

“Yes. Bullet is out. He has had b***d loss, but we have his b***d bank here and a transfusion was done quickly.”

She felt the tears stream down her cheeks at his words, “good. Keep me posted, please Elio.”

“Of course, my darling girl.”

He was about to hang up when she spoke suddenly. “Dad,” she blurted out, “dad, bring him home to me. Please?”

Elio was quiet for a split second and he responded, “of course my daughter. I will have him home to you soon. You should get rest. He’ll be home soon and he’s a terrible patient. You’ll have your hands full.”

“I love you.” She said sniffing.

“I love you too, daughter,” Elio ended the call.

Rosa chuckled, “you just made his week.”

“He’s been more my dad than my own,” she shrugged. “I want to go lay down. I know he’s going to be okay, and I need a few minutes on my own.”

The women nodded as she stood up and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. She crawled into her bed and pulled the pillow Brix usually slept on, her pillow which he’d stolen their first night in this house and inhaled his scent. Then she cried.