“Do it again. That phone conversation you talked about sounded shifty. She could be talking to Gio or alerting someone.”
“Fine,” Anton said.
When I heard footsteps that meant he was coming, I panicked and backed away from the door. I tried to turn and run for the kitchen, but in my panic, I tripped over a side table that had a vase of flowers on top, that promptly toppled and shattered on the ground.
“What the fuck?” Vincent called out. The door flew open and Anton ran out with Vincent right behind him. My eyes locked into theirs briefly, and it was obvious that they knew I’d heard them. “Kill her,” Vincent said.
I took off running for the kitchen, my heart slamming in my chest and my brain a haze of fear and anger. Why did I stand there for so long? I could have escaped with no issue. Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be many staff members at all hanging around the house. I could see the back door and thought I was going to get to it without issue when a loud, sharp crack split the sky. A bullet flew past my face, barely missing me, and needled through the glass of the wall of windows in front of me.
“Don’t shoot at her!” Anton barked.
“Why wouldn’t I when I want her dead?” Vincent replied, and then there was another shot.
Doing my best to serpentine as I ran, I eventually made my way to the back door and slammed through it. I heard the glass crack as it hit the wall from how hard I’d thrown it aside, but I didn’t care. I just kept running and running, even long past my legs starting to burn.
“Stop her!” I heard Vincent shout, and then I noticed a pair of flashlights start to close in on me, one from each direction. I should have expected that they’d have guards watching the outside. “Kill her if you have to!”
“Avion! Just stop!” Anton screamed out. “Do you want to die?”
I made it to the treeline of the forest and bolted in, hoping that I could just keep myself straight and make my way to the interstate. I still had Anton’s phone in my hand and was hoping to use it to direct myself, but I wasn’t expecting to be chased. Terrified that I might drop it if I tried to carry it, I shoved it into my pocket and left it there. It would be useful to me, but not right now.
Well into the forest, I could see flashlights whipping all around as Vincent, Anton, and their goons fanned out and tried to find me. “There’s a half-million dollars for anyone that finds her, dead or alive,” Vincent called out.
What an ironic number for him to choose. Apparently, that was what I was worth to my family.
My head was whipping in all directions. Looking for anything that could hide me well, but the trees in the forest behind their house were tall and thin. I was praying for a hill or embankment, just something I could crawl into or under, but I was striking out and I was starting to lose steam.
Finally, I just stopped running. There was no way I was going to make it all the way to the interstate that way without someone finding me or shooting me. Even if I could temporarily evade some of them, with the number of people I could hear searching for me now, some of them were going to run ahead of me and get to the interstate before I could get there, putting Gio at risk as well.
Was this where I was going to die? After everything I’d survived? By my brothers’ own hands?
That sounded much more like a mafia situation than anything that I’d ever experienced at Gio’s estate.
Giving up was imminent, and I was just about to drop to the ground and wait for someone to find me, when a pair of arms snatched out from behind a tree. They caught me around my mouth and my torso and squeezed, and I knew all at once.
I was about to die.
27
GIO
It took everything in me not to let out a scream as Avion’s teeth sunk into the skin of my hand. She was relentless too, refusing to release my hand until I took it from around her mouth, but I didn’t want her to scream and risk blowing our cover. I could see the flashlights of the people searching in the distance and was glad that I’d chosen to come into the forest and look for Avion instead of just trust that she’d escape without attracting attention. I really wanted to have faith that she’d rise to the occasion, but then I remembered it was Avion. She wasn’t good under pressure. The one escape attempt she had at my estate, she’d turned in the opposite direction of the stairs and ended up only in my bedroom.
But that was okay. It was why I was there, to help her in the areas she lacked.
Flipping her around so she could see me and finally stop biting me, I was filled with relief when I saw that she seemed okay.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. “I’m sorry!”
She looked so relieved to see me, which filled me with joy on its own, but then she took my hand and sweetly kissed the spot she’d bit down on. My heart jumped up into my throat and it was confirmation enough that these new feelings, whatever they were, they were definitely there. In fact, I was so happy to see that she was safe that when she threw her arms forward to hug me, I didn’t stop her. I wrapped my arms around her back and held her close to me and breathed in a moment of thanks that I’d gotten to her in time.
“We have to go,” I whispered to her. “How many are there?”
“At least four, but I think there’s way more now,” she said. I already had one of my guns out, but I pulled the other one out and handed it over to her. Her eyes nearly dropped out of her head. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Hold it,” I said, “and fire it if you need to.”
“I’ve never shot a gun before!”
