I’d rather cut off my arm. “I’d like to go home, actually.”
“Your home isn’t safe,” Vincent said. “He could come and snatch you again easily.”
It almost left a bead of hope in my heart. “I don’t want to live in fear. I just wanna sleep in my own bed.”
Vincent bristled and I could tell he was about to try and make a big stink about it, but Anton stepped between us before he could. “Avion, I get it. This has all been a bit of an ordeal. Please, just humor us and stay here tonight and at least let us secure your place in the morning. Then, if you want to go home, we won’t stand in your way.”
I could see in the looks on both of their faces that I didn’t have a choice. “Okay,” I said. “Just tonight though.”
Anton nodded. “Just tonight.”
He put his hand behind my back and guided me towards the inside of the house and I let him pull me along and eventually up into one of the guests' rooms. It had a flat, modern bed with slate gray sheets and pale white walls. It wasn’t comforting at all.
Anton rubbed my head, strikingalmostclose to brotherly. “Get some rest. We’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him, and the first thing I did was walk over to the windows. I just wanted some fresh air and to try and think through my situation. The windows at Gio’s place didn’t open, but I loved the night air and thought it would help calm me down. The windows were fairly traditional and should have just slid aside so I could open them, but they wouldn’t budge. I tried the windows on both sides of the bed, but when I couldn’t get any of them open, I figured I must have been doing something wrong.
I very nearly just sunk down into the bed, but I was feeling claustrophobic and constricted in the room. It wasn’t just that my room back at Gio’s was much larger, but also the fact that I just didn’t want to be there. I felt trapped and knew the only hope I was going to have of getting some sleep that night was going to be if I could open the windows.
Walking over to the doors, I was already about to call out for Anton, when I tried to twist the knob and it wouldn’t give.
Maybe I was turning it the wrong way?
I tried twisting it to the left, then the right, then the left again. I tried pushing on the door, pulling, everything, but it wasn’t budging.
“Anton?” I called out, trying to open the door, but then my heart seized up.
Why the hell did my brothers lock me in?
23
GIO
There was nothing but silence between Milli and I. He was standing against the doorway leading out of Avion’s room and I was sitting on the edge of her bed, letting her scent envelop me and trying not to completely lose my shit. The interaction with the Narzand brothers was playing on repeat in my head and I knew the same was going on for Milli. It just didn’t make any sense and left me with the most unsettling sense of foreboding I’d ever experienced in my entire life.
“This is nota war you want to start, Vince,” I growled at the eldest Narzand brother.
He smirked. “You’re right, it wasn’t, but I didn’t kidnap a member of your family. You started up with us.”
His words led me to believe that the brothers still didn’t know about their father’s debt, and I wasn’t sure if it made more sense to tell them or not. “I had my reasons for doing what I did. Is your sister really important to you? She’s been missing for over a month.”
“And we’ve been looking for over a month,” Anton said. “Smart of you to snatch her after she told us she was safe.”
“You’re new here, so let me do you a favor and explain why what you’re doing is a big mistake,” Milli said. “Merrick Raines will not rest until he’s paid you back for killing his son. You may think that you’ve got power, but all of New York City bends to Merrick’s will. You do not want to mess with him.”
“You’re right, again,” Vincent said. “We don’t. We’re perfectly fine to keep the peace between us for now, we just came to get what rightfully belongs to us.”
“She’s not your property,” I hissed, earning myself a scathing look from Milli.
Anton laughed and Vincent raised an eyebrow. “Aw… Don’t tell me you fell for her. She’s as tricksy as the rest of us, Gio. Let me do you a favor and tell you that you shouldn’t trust her any more than you’d trust us.”
I knew it wasn’t true, but I didn’t fight them on it, nonetheless. They were clearly just trying to smear Avion so that, if they hurt her, I wouldn’t retaliate, but they were wrong to think it. “Well, you’ve taken her, so what’s next? Killing us? It’s like Milli said, you’d be starting a battle with everyone under Merrick’s thumb. You’d never win that war.”
Vincent looked over at his brother with a look of exhaustion. “Do they not speak English?” Anton just shrugged and Vincent looked back at me. “I just said, we’re fine to leave you in peace, we just came for our sister.” As if to punctuate the point, Anton pulled his gun back from Milli’s head but kept it held defensively in his hand. “So long as we can trust that you won’t be trying to take her back, we’ll go. There’s nothing else to gain from a confrontation with you.”
Milli and I exchanged a nervous glance. “That’s it?” Milli asked.
