The Mafia's Prodigy

Chapter 37 Fate

You know how when something bad happens, you instantly block it out? The adrenaline that races through your veins to get you out of a situation? The fight or flight taking over the sorrow and hurt. When everything slows down to almost a still. Eyes are wide. Nervous sweat dribbling down your temple. Flushed cheeks. And that pit in your stomach that makes you feel as though your entire world is crashing around you. That’s what I felt as I looked back to see my dad lying on the floor, hyperventilating with a bullet lodged in his chest.

“Dad! No no no…” I mumbled over and over as I successfully slid out of my cheap handcuffs. I grabbed my gun again and shot off the shackles on my feet before falling off of the slab and crawling. There were shouts of pain and grunts from the physical forces going on around me. There were whizzing bullets and blood splattering’s all over the place. But I blocked it all out as I moved on my hands and knees to my father’s side.

“You can’t leave me Dad; you’re not allowed to leave me. No no no, don’t leave me like mom did.” I said frantically as I gripped his hand and felt him squeeze back, no trace of emotion in his eyes as he stared at me with shallow breaths.

“It’s my time Marina. It’s alright. I love you sweetheart,” He said in such a hushed voice that I had to lean in to hear him.

“Don’t you dare fucking leave me. You can’t leave me!” I said over and over as I ripped the bottom of my dress and tried to wrap it around the wound seeping from his chest. He was hyperventilating harder as I squeezed the knot around him. “I’m going to get you out of here, I’m going to save you,” I said as he stared at me with an uncertain grimace.

“You’ll die before you can save me.” He whispered while staring at the wound gushing from my arm and my swollen forehead.  I shook my head back and forth with tears in my eyes. They were clouding my vision as I stared down at him.

He began to hyperventilate less as my breaths grew more frantic. I tried to sling his arm around my shoulder and heave him up, his weight crashing me back into the floor.

“Please don’t leave. I can’t do this alone,” I said as the tears began to poor harder out of my eyes. His grip loosened a little on my hand and I clutched it with both hands harder.

“I have trained you your entire life to do this sweetheart. It’s your time and mine,” He said as he looked at me with sorrow. Emotion filling his eyes for once in his life. I saw love being emitted from them. The love I had never truly seen in his eyes this raw until now.

“I forgive you dad,” I said as my tears dripped onto his chest.

“I know Marina,” He whispered  before squeezing my hand as tight as he could and then releasing it all together. It flopped out of my hand onto the ground as I let out a pained scream from my lips. My sobs wracking through my body as I fell on top of him, clutching his chest. I stayed like that for a while. Seconds? Minutes? I wasn’t sure. But it felt like the longest moments of my entire life.

After the last tear left my eyes, I came back to reality. A body collapsing down next to mine. The word SWAT written across his chest being the only reminder that I needed to get out of here.