“Care about what you can get from me.”
He laughed. “That business? Dead and gone with the woman who held you hostage. No. This is purely on principle now. You owe me your life for the money we have been losing, and we will take the ultimate revenge on the Faustis. You will be sold. And where you are going, let me just say that it will make your life with Régine seem like a fairytale.”
Boris might have thought he was holding the old me, but the new me was not the same. This woman had overcome her past, for the most part, and become a stronger woman because of it. I was a wife and a mother, and just those two thoughts alone had me planning. And besides, the Faustis were starting to surround us, even if they couldn’t take a clear shot.
Matteo.His name appeared in my head as a whimper from the furthest point in my soul.
I wasn’t going to allow Boris to take me anywhere, even if it meant he’d come close to beating me to death like he’d done before, or,ifhe took me to our waiting car, Matteo kept loaded guns tucked away in prime spots. While Boris went to drive away, I’d snatch one and blow his brains out.
He brought me to a van that seemed to be used for delivering baked bread, and his men started to converge. I was suddenly surrounded.
Maybe Boris thought our men wouldn’t start shooting, not with me being so close, but they did. And then Boris’s men started shooting back. And all hell started to break loose. Boris went to shove me in the van, but a man with wild hair and eyes, his suit stained with blood, along with his face and hands, was walking a straight line to us, shooting men as he did.
Nonno.
And the only way I could describe the look in his eyes then was possessed by something stronger than bullets.
Boris was momentarily thrown off by Nonno’s crazed eyes and steady hand with the gun. It was like he was taking a purposeful walk on a sunny day in Lucca, but with the eyes of an animal on the hunt.
I recognized his grandson in him right away.
“Teo,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Oh God. My Teo.”
Boris shook his head, like he was shaking out of a stupor, and tried to push me into the van again. I started fighting, and somehow, I ended up on the ground. He’d pushed me too hard at one point. His recklessness turned into my opportunity. A gun had been lost in the fight, and I snatched it up, but before I could fire a shot into Boris’s head, he grabbed one of his men and set him in front of him. He was using his own men as shields as he rushed out of the battle he’d started.
“Coward!” I screamed toward him, as loud as I could, as I took the gun and started firing in his direction.
Nonno was suddenly there, and he lowered my gun, ordering something at me in Italian. Probably not to shoot him but shoot if I needed to. He directed me into our waiting car and closed the door. The car was armored and bulletproof, though pings kept going off in the night like fireworks. Again, Nonno ran a handthrough his hair, like this was just another day at work, and then got into the driver’s side of the car. He took my hand, used my finger to press the starter button, and then we zoomed away in the night.
“Wait!” I barely got out. I could barely breathe. The night was catching up to me. Blood was all over me. Mine and whoever else’s. “Matteo. Oh God. Matteo. I have to go back—please!”
His eyes were hard on the road, and even though he’d fixed his hair, it was still unruly. I’d never seen him like that before. Like his hair was the only indication, besides the blood all over him, that anything was wrong. He said something in soft Italian, the total opposite of his body posture—rigid.
“He’s going to the hospital?” I translated. “He’s on his way?”
“Sì.” And the car seemed to pick up even more speed once we were able to avoid some traffic.
Okay. Okay. Okay.
I gazed out the window for a second until vibrations coming from the seat made me take notice. It wasn’t the fucking seat. It was me. I was trembling so bad, I thought the seat was.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
Okay.
A little slower…a little deeper…
“How bad is it?” I rushed out.
Nonno’s eyes were still on the road, his hands strangling the wheel. Veins in his arms and hand stood out in the light of the car, swollen underneath his skin, just like Matteo’s. His jaw tightened, and he said nothing, and that scared me the most.
And for the first time I truly understood.
I truly understood Scarlett and Brando.
