113 Nine Lives

The older women wailed, seeing the sight in front of them. Thankfully, some men from the De Luca family got to them in time and brought them to safety behind the counter where bullets weren't able to go through. 

"Gael…" Giovanni grimaced as he crawled towards his nephew several feet away. 

Gael had his hand on the side of his torso where he was shot, but he had no energy that covering his wound with his weak hand didn't help at all. His breathing became shallow and the color on his face was draining.

His sister, Gabriella, and his grandmother were crying next to him, unsure of what to do.

"No, no, no… Gael!" Giovanni made it to his side, wincing in pain as he held his arm. 

"Zio! You're bleeding too!" Gabriella whimpered. She panicked even more, her hands trembling as they were suspended in the air.

"Don't worry about me, Cara. It's just a scrape." Giovanni took a peek at the gunshot wound on his upper arm—blood gushed out as soon as he released the pressure. He pressed on it again, then he nodded at the scarf on her neck. "Press that onto his wound. He'll be okay, trust me." He winked and smiled, not showing her any traces of worry.

Gael coughed. The shortness of his breathing was evident that it scared Giovanni. If the latter were to guess, his nephew must have been hit in the lung. Fûck.

Giovanni fished for his phone in his pockets to call for help but couldn't find it. He searched for Gael's phone from the pocket of his suit jacket and found that the phone had a bullet stuck right in the middle. His eyes grew wide as he glanced at his nephew—Gael could have received another shot if it wasn't for his phone. 

…

A week later

A faint sound of men conversing woke Gael up from his deep sleep. His eyelids were heavy, and drowsiness was pulling him back to unconsciousness. He could hear a beeping sound from a machine not far from him. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the blaring light on the ceiling. He had to squint his eyes until he was able to adjust.

His warm breathing clouded the oxygen mask on his face. He wasn't bothered with it at first, but it only took a few seconds before he tried to take it off.

"He's awake!" a man said. "Don't take that off."

Gael lazily dragged his gaze to the left until Giovanni's face came into view. "Ma… Gab…" he whispered. It was painful to breathe. But it was more painful to speak. 

Giovanni let out a sigh. Even now that he was injured, Gael was still worried about others. He patted his nephew's arm. "They're okay. They just left an hour ago. I'll call the doctor—"

Gael's weak hand gripped Giovanni's wrist. "How…" He coughed.

His uncle leaned closer to hear what he had to say. 

Giovanni's jaw ticked, and he looked away. He met one of his men's eyes and without saying anything, he nodded. The man already understood what the wordless order was, so he left the room to give the two some privacy while he called for a doctor.

"Gio," Gael called when his uncle didn't answer.

Gael didn't have to elaborate his question for Giovanni to understand what he was asking about. He wanted to know how many people they lost. 

"Nine." Giovanni's voice was low. He clenched his hands into fists as he took a deep breath.

Gael's heart sank. Nine lives. They lost that many brothers. His chest ached at the same time that the side of his torso did. The intensity of pain was unbearable, but the thought of their people who lost their lives during that drive-by, he didn't feel like he had the right to complain. They died, and yet he still lived.

"Senior Carlos?" he probed.

He squeezed his eyes shut when he saw Giovanni shook his head from side to side. A tear rolled out of the corner of his eye as the image of the older man flashed in his mind. The last image he saw of a smiling Senior Carlos carrying a cake just before he was shot.

Gael coughed, and then he wheezed. When he opened his eyes again, that's when he realized that they were in the bunk—a safe house of the De Lucas in New York. There were machines attached to his body, and that's when he knew that what happened to him must have been serious.

He wasn't surprised to see that he wasn't in a hospital. Because of their identity, they couldn't stay there for long. But they had state of the art medical equipment and an on-call physician whenever needed.

The doctor came by to check on him a few minutes later. He was told to take it easy and to stay in bed for at least one more week. The bullet from his gunshot wound punctured his lung. He had to undergo surgery to remove the bullet. They also had to cut a small piece of his lung to save the whole organ.

Gael lost a lot of blood, so his life was in danger. If he hadn't received immediate care right away, there would have been ten bodies to bury. 

The scene of the crime was handled by Giovanni and one of their contacts from the police. In the end, the local authorities closed the incident as a simple robbery case. Apart from those who were involved and the ones present during the shoot-out, no one else knew the truth.

"You're lucky, you know," Giovanni began as he sat in the armchair by the bed.

Gael stared his exhausted eyes at his uncle. He lost a part of his lung, and he was gasping for air. Lucky? He scoffed in his head. His scoff was immediately followed by silence. He was alive. 'Yeah, I guess I'm lucky,' he thought. But he didn't feel like celebrating after knowing that they lost people.

Giovanni nodded at something on the other side of Gael's bed, and he continued, "If you didn't have your phone in your pocket, that bullet would have pierced straight to your heart."

Turning his head to the right, he found his phone on a nightstand with a bullet stuck on its screen. He softly chuckled once, and right away, he winced in pain. Who would have thought that a mere device could save his life?

His uncle spoke again, but this time, Gael's attention was no longer with him. Seeing the phone made him remember a particular someone. 

The image of a beautiful woman slowly formed in his mind. When his heart raced, the heart monitor beeped fast, alarming Giovanni who shot up to his feet in a panic.

"What?! What's happening?" Giovanni scanned his nephew's body, but Gael didn't seem to be in danger as he remained motionless but conscious. He was staring at his phone on the bedside table.

The heart monitor returned to the normal beep, and then Giovanni heaved a sigh of relief. He brushed his hand down his face. "You… If you don't stop scaring me like that, I will kill you myself."

"I... need a new... phone," Gael muttered breathlessly.

"Gabby already got one for you. I don't know where she put it, though. You were receiving a bunch of calls and texts from your little girlfriend. She didn't want to deal with it, so she turned it off. I'll call her to let her know you're awake." 

Gael was left alone in the room with his thoughts. And now, all he could think of  was Angela. "Shît."