“No, it won’t,” Alessio sighed, and it was my turn to frown. “It might, for a short while, until we have new enemies on our shores, deals go wrong, or we piss someone off. No one in our world is ever truly safe; we just like to pretend we can keep them safe.”
“Well, I need you to keep pretending, Alessio. I need you to pretend so fucking hard that I can do this and live without them. Or I won’t.”
He pulled over to the side of the road and turned to me. Our eyes locked. “What if you didn’t have to?”
“What?”
He smiled. “Live without them.”
Chapter twenty-five
Present Day
“Finn. Finn, wake up.”
Alessio’s deep voice pulled me from darkness as he gripped my jaw and gently shook me awake.
Pain exploded everywhere. My ribs. The back of my head. Behind my eyes. I forced my eyes open and mumbled groggily as Alessio pulled me into a sitting position so I could lean back against something soft. A chair? I looked around, squinting at the luxurious cream interior of Alessio’s private plane. How had I got here?
“What happened?”
“You were beaten pretty badly. We gave you some sedatives to ease the pain and help you heal,” he said calmly.
I tried to think back to the last thing I remembered…
“Nerina! They had Neri!” My voice didn’t sound like my own as I tried to scramble to my feet, but Alessio’s firm hands on my shoulders kept me seated.
“She’s fine. She’s safe. Fabi’s got her. They handed her back, and she had no idea she was in danger.”
“And Enzo.” Panic and fear doubled, overlapped, and pressed against every inhale. “Where’s Enzo?” I twisted in the chair, scanning the faces of solemn soldiers until my gaze landed on one who shouldn’t have been there. On the other side of the plane sat Frankie’s teenage son, Atlas. He stared at me with a blank expression.
The silence was deafening. My eyes met Alessio’s, and I saw it. Sympathy. Pain. Regret. He gave a small shake of his head, and with that simple gesture, my world imploded. I fractured into two broken parts; inconsolable heartbreak and pure fucking rage.
“No!” I shouted, leaping from the chair. “We have to go back! We can’t leave him!”
Men shot to their feet as I stormed down the aisle towards the emergency exit, ignoring the fact that only blue sky and white clouds were visible through the windows. My whole body was vibrating, my head pounded, and the crippling ache in my chest was the only thing keeping me from believing this was a nightmare I’d wake from.
“Finn! Stop. It’s too late,” Alessio shouted over the blood pounding in my ears, gripping me and twisting me back to him.
“No!” I shoved his chest, stumbling when the plane tilted. Or was it my legs that were giving way? “Where is he? Where’s Enzo?”
Alessio grabbed my face, his hard blue eyes boring into mine, forcing me to look at him. I shook my head before the words left his lips. “He killed Joey Galiz, Finn. He was caught. They killed him.”
The words echoed in my head, but denial was a powerful thing. “No! Fuck you! You’re lying!”
I had to go back. I had to stop him. I had to save him. He couldn’t do this. I had to find him.
My back slammed against a wall, and I realised I’d gone into fight mode, lashing out at every soldier within reach. Alessio grabbed me and forced me against the wall, his arm across my chest. My injuries from that beating told me I couldn’t fight them all off, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
“Finn, stop. Listen to me. Enzo killed Joey to save Neri and end this war. It’s done. He’s gone. He made that choice.”
“Get the fuck off me!” I roared, shoving him with tears streaming down my face. It didn’t make sense. None of this did. Enzo couldn’t be dead. Why the fuck was Alessio even here? A fresh wave of pain surged, and I threw myself at my best friend, tackling him to the floor. “You knew, didn’t you? You followed us here, and you knew they had Neri!”
He stared up at me, not fighting back, and I saw it in his eyes. I knew him better than anyone, so it didn’t take long to put the pieces together. He was the one who called Frankie. He arranged the meeting and told Enzo about it, which was why Frankie knew where we were and Enzo wasn’t surprised. Alessio followed us here because he was a fucking control freak, and if anything had gone wrong, he would have handed himself over like the selfless, loyal prick he was. But that never happened because Enzo agreed to kill Joey himself.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Alessio?” I punched him in the face. Pure rage was in control. But beneath it, betrayal and hurt drove me. Alessio had never kept anything from me before. Hands grabbed me and hauled me off him as I fought against them. I snatched one of the guns from a soldier’s holster and aimed it at Atlas’ head. The boy blinked back at me from his chair, not even flinching.
"Finn, don't!" Alessio growled as he climbed to his feet. He slowly stepped in front of the boy, shielding him, our fucking enemy, from me. “Or his death would’ve been for nothing.”
