Enzo moaned. Livio almost jumped out of his skin, though he made no noise. The unexpected noise from Enzo had startled him. Then I saw him grin. The smell from earlier seemed to make the air toxic again—was Livio poisoning him?
Livio made a complete turn, his gun in hand, feeling me behind him. Our eyes met once again. A sigh of relief escaped silently from my mouth. He thought Enzo had passed out after we…he didn’t suspect that I had knocked him out. I had stuck the saved glass in the side of my bra, its jagged edge poking skin. Each slight poke gave me an extra bit of bravado.
“You are to come with me,” he said, eyes full of lava.
What had I done to piss him off this time? It didn’t matter. His existence pissedmeoff. Perhaps that was good enough for him too.
I nodded, relieved to have an escape. I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to fight Enzo once he came to. He’d be like a raging bull.
“What did Enzo do with the light?” Livio asked as he shoved me toward the door that led outside.
The night was cool, almost cold. The clothes I had on were not sufficient but at least my hair wasn’t wet.
“Broke it,” I croaked. It was getting harder and harder for me to swallow. I narrowed my eyes at the pulsing lights, feeling like I was still in a dream. “Thought it would be more romantic. Where am I going?”
“Per vedereGiovi.Ha un lavoro per te.”To see Giovi. He has a job for you.
No protest came from me as I climbed aboard the waiting ambulance, coming face to face with the man whose eyes showed nothing other than the solid brown of his irises.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brando
If I would’ve been any stiller, I would’ve been dead. Donato nudged me a time or two to make sure that I hadn’t died of a broken heart. Even during the busiest times, I couldn’t get my mind off of her, of what those twisted fuckers could be doing to my wife.
The bastards had found her by the posters that were made. The girl who had taken the picture didn’t see the harm in keeping one. One fucking picture sealed my wife’s fate. They had stolen her by paying off two boys to act as though they belonged at the villa. The boys were the ones who told two of our men that Rocco wanted to see me. There were so many children around that the men didn’t know the difference.
This got passed on to someone else, and someone else, and finally made it to me. It went through enough channels that who said it first had become blurry—until two guards searching the land had come across the two boys. Because the boys were being questioned and men were looking for me, security surrounding the entrance to the villa was slim.
The abduction had been planned out. Took less than a minute to execute. A ten-minute head start was what they had on us—and they had my wife.
Mywife.
A family had lied to protect her captors, and after begging for our protection, told us that she had been hiding in the wall of their villa. We had killed the father and son in law, all connected to those ruthless people. The chase led to one dead end after another. One villa after another, emptied just minutes before I got to her. Bloodied clothes that were still saturated with her scent in each filthy, stinking place. A dead Italian left on the side of the road. A line that lead directly to the French.
All of that lead to the moment we were in—Donato and I bobbed up and down in the Adriatic Sea. I waited for him to give me the signal before going aboard the yacht owned by the French bastards.
Donato had been Special Forces. He was one of the most lethal at what he did.
The water was obsidian at this time of the night, the stars thick and spread across the sky, their reflections dancing with the swaying waves.
A cigarette thrown overboard fell in front of me before the water swallowed it up.
Donato lifted his arm, held up three fingers.Three men.Not long after, silence descended up top, only the sound of the rocking waves moving against the side of the boat. Donato didn’t want me to come, at first. He thought I was too involved, that I could ruin him getting in and out.
I refused.
Scarlett was mine. I’d be the one to rescue her and to kill in her honor.
We had studied the plans. We knew the boat and where to go. We knew how many men were aboard and what our chances of survival were if we were to get caught. Getting caught seemed like the least of my worries.
We boarded without issue and made it close to the door we were about to enter when a man stepped out from the darkness. His eyes grew wide, his mouth opened to alert the rest, but before a sound could emerge, Donato snapped his neck, the look of surprise still on his stunned face. We carted him into the room and shut the door behind us with a click not even audible above the purring of the motor.
Two humped shapes slept in the bed, one slighter than the other. The smell of expensive champagne, caviar, and sex drifted in the air, mingling with the more natural scents of hot sun and seawater.
Donato set the dead man down, not even a sound coming from his side. I went to the larger hump, knowing it was a man. The man we came here to find. Donato took the woman. Her blonde hair fanned out over the pillow. Her tan skin glowed in the darkness. Expensive perfume wafted off of her skin.
Donato held a gun to her head. I held a knife to the man’s throat. Water made a slow drip from the edge of my hair, falling onto the man’s head, sliding down his narrow nose, pooling on his thick lips.
