“Be quiet, little girl. The men are talking,” Ignazio snarls. His beady eyes divert back to Massi. “I knew in the end you wouldn’t be able to choose her mother over your own. It’s exactly why I dragged her here. I had to find a weakness of yours, and even I know you’re not coldhearted enough to let her die from execution when you could just as easily save her.”
“Shut the fuck up already,” Massi snaps. “Now, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it by my rules. On the count of three, you’re going to push my parents over to us, and I’ll push Vittoria over to you.”
Massi grabs my mom from behind me and puts her in front of him like a shield.
“No!” I cry out, but he ignores me.
She looks over at me, tears welling in her eyes, and says, “It’s okay, sweetheart. You need to get out of here. I promise, I’ll find you.”
“Mom, no,” I sob out. “I just got you back, I can’t…” The words don’t come. My mind is caught in a warp with everything that’s going on. This can’t be happening.This can’t be happening.
“Shush,” she soothes. “It will all be okay.”
“And as soon as your wife is back in your arms, you will all exit this plane and forget we ever existed,” Massi says.
Ignazio narrows his gaze on him. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because, in the end, you’re right about me. I can’t put someone else’s family before my own when it really comes down to it.”
Those words are like a stab to my gut, and I’m not sure how Massi and I will ever recover from this.
“Fine. As you wish, Massimo. On the count of three,” Ignazio says.
“One …”
No, please, God, this can’t be happening.
“Two …”
I won’t allow it. She can’t go back to that monster!
Just when I’m about to hurl myself in front of my mom, Massi rushes out, “Three,” then pushes her.
I go to cry out, but the next thing I know, she’s being thrown at me and a gunshot goes off.
I fall to the ground with my mom, placing my body over hers, and keeping my head down, not knowing where the gunshot came from.
There’s yelling, and a few more gunshots go off until someone’s hands are on my shoulders. I flinch at the touch.
“It’s just me.”
“Massi?” I raise my head to look over my shoulder where he’s kneeling down beside us.
“Yeah, baby. It’s me. It’s okay. It’s over.”
“Massi,” I cry out, my emotions on overdrive. I quickly lift myself off my mom and throw my arms around him. “W-what happened?”
“I’m sorry I threw her at you like that, but I had to make it seem like I was going to hand her over to Ignazio.”
“You didn’t do it … I-I thought you were going to.”
“I know. I had to make you think that, but I would never do that to you.”
“It was my mom or your parents, Massi. I understood the predicament you were in no matter how much it hurt.”
“There was never a predicament. I knew me, Gio, and Gui would be able to take them out without harming my parents. I just needed Ignazio to let down his guard for a second to take theshot. From there, it was just a matter of Gio and Gui taking out the others.”
I glance back at my mom who’s sitting upright on the floor. “Are you okay, Mom?”
