I dropped the gun again and my body shook uncontrollably. The bile burned as it travelled thick and fast up my throat and I vomited promptly over the grass.
The rain started to fall in fat, ice-cold droplets, and I cried hard as I got up to my feet again. My brain was short circuiting as I tried to figure out what to do next. Stooping down and almost losing my balance, I picked up Xavier’s phone. It was locked and no amount of my jabbing at it would do a thing. As I stumbled away from Xavier’s body, not daring to glance back out of fear of completely losing it, I took off down the side of the burning building to get to the house. I could call emergency services, the police, the fire department, an ambulance. I’d need them all. Even if it wasn’t the usual course of action, it was the only number I could access.
Just as I hit call, I heard a voice. “Luc! Luc, wait!” Dante yelled loudly, and my heart thrummed erratically in my chest. They’d found me. If Dante was here, then so was Luc, and I was ready to throw myself into his arms and promise him that I’d never pry into people’s business again. I’d spend the rest of my life being a quiet soul who steered clear of trouble. I’d sit in church and actually pay attention and hope that God took some kind of pity on me.
As I reached the other end of the stables, I saw two cars sitting on the gravel beside Franco’s. Nearby them, Gabriel was yelling at Vittoria, and Dante was running toward the stables. “D?” I was almost delirious from the agony of my injuries and the happiness of seeing my brother. “D!”
“Mia?” His head whipped around towards me. “MIA! Are you okay?” He came towards me and as I tripped over my feet, Dante caught me in his arms, and I let myself collapse against him. “Let me look at you.”
“I’m fine,” I told him although it couldn’t be further from the truth. “Luc? Where’s Luc?” I asked, noting he was missing from the line-up. I needed my husband. I needed him to tell me everything would be okay. That we could fix all of this mess and that I’d survive because I felt unbelievably broken.
“He went in to look for you,” Tori said, taking steps towards us.
My heart dropped to my feet so quickly that the world became tipsy. “No! No!” I ripped myself away from Dante’s arms and the second burst of adrenaline ran through me for the night. Luc would be searching blindly for me when I’d made my way out. If they’d just arrived at the other side, I’d have run straight into Luc’s arms.
I only made it a few steps before Dante’s arms were wrapped around me, pressing down on my broken and bruised skin, making me want to scream. “Let me go!”
“I’ll go, Mia!” Dante yelled back. “I’ll go! You need to stay—”
The last of his words were swallowed by a thunderous cracking sound. Before our eyes, the roof of the stables caved, losing its structure and collapsing in on itself. The flames leapt high and were bright against the inky night as they continued to hungrily devour the building.
“LUCAS!”
I screamed his name as if it would have made a difference. As if my desperation for this nightmare to end would somehow have Luc materialise in front of me when the truth was, Luc had run into a burning building to save my life and in turn ended his.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dante
“Dante! Don’t you dare!” Vittoria had grabbed a hold of my wrist in a vice-like grip and momentarily stopped me. “You are not going in there!” she screamed when I faced her. “You are not going in after him!”
“He needs me!”
“I need you! Please! Please, don’t do this!”
“This is my family, Vittoria!” I screamed at her, pulling my hand out of her grasp. Any other words were lost when the sound of a gunshot rang clearly through the night. “What the fuck?” Fuck. That was not a good sign. Even Luc had stalled in his tracks as we looked around.
Gabe had gotten out of the car at a calmer pace and made a move towards Tori with his phone in hand. No doubt trying to get a hold of his psycho dad. There was no one else out here apart from the four of us, which meant that shot had to be something to do with Xavier, Franco and Mia.
I turned back around to see Luc disappearing inside the doors. “Luc!” I yelled after him. “Luc! Wait!” He was hell-bent on finding Mia, no matter what the risk. I’d never let him face this world alone and I wouldn’t start now. I took off towards the doors after my brother, prepared to lay it all on the line for everything we’d worked for.
“Let him go, Tori! He’s made a choice,” Gabe said.
“D?” D!” The sound of my name just audible over the rain and the inferno ahead had me wheeling my head around to see a figure running towards us. “Mia? MIA! Are you okay?” The sight of her both elated and worried me. Mia was alive but she was covered in blood, clothes wrecked, and hair singed. She spluttered and stumbled, and I changed course to meet her. She tripped over her feet and I held her upright, but Mia was weak and rested her weight against me. “Let me look at you.”
If she had been shot, if she was bleeding, we’d need to pack the wound. We needed to keep her alive. My brain went into an overdrive and I didn’t believe her when she told me she was fine. She’d just come out of a burning building after being kidnapped. Fine was not the way to describe your emotions after a traumatic event like that. Fine was not what you said when the tears had cut through and made clear tracks through the ash on your face.
As Mia asked for Luc, my heart lurched. I didn’t get a chance to soften the blow when Tori joined us and let the truth slip from her lips.
Mia suddenly had all the energy in the world as she pushed away from me, aiming to run back into the stables. I caught her before she could get too far, arm wrapped around her middle and hauling her feet off the ground. Luc would never forgive me if I let her loose like that. Mia was his priority, and he was my boss. She came before everything else and that included himself.
“I’ll go, Mia!” I told her as she thrashed against me, attempting to set herself free. I couldn’t risk her going back in there. There was no guarantee that she’d come back out again in the state she was in. I’d go and find Luc. I’d find him and we’d sort this shit out once and for all. “I’ll go! You need to stay—” The rest of the sentence was swallowed by a thunderous sound.
Movies would have you believe that tragedies made the world slow down. That everything unfolded cinematically as you stood by and watched. The truth was that tragedies happened so quickly that you had no chance to stop them. It takes seconds for your entire world to be ripped out from underneath you and leaves you questioning why?
What happened in the aftermath of the stable collapsing in on itself felt like an out-of-body experience. Mia’s scream broke through whatever vacuum I’d been sucked into, tearing into my heart and soul as I watched my brother buried beneath the debris.
Mia struggled against my body, but I locked her in my arms as tight as I could. My movements were on autopilot. She needed to stay safe. If it had been dangerous for her to be in there before, it was more so now. I couldn’t risk potentially losing both of them in this disaster.
