“Stop, or I’ll put a bullet in your head,” Zeus growls.
“My men will fill you with bullets before you get off another shot.” Arturo smiles as he watches the blood from Zeus’s wound drip onto the ground. “But you’ll be dead soon enough.”
“Gina. Come.” Stefano holds out his hand to me as Zeus keeps me behind him.
My eyes sting with tears. “How could you do this to Tommaso?”
Stefano’s jaw hardens, but his face is unreadable. He looks at Zeus, then back to me. I know we’re fucked; the staccato of gunfire is behind us, and Zeus and I have no cover or place to go.
Arturo laughs, an evil sound, and my attention goes to him and his equally evil smile. “There are no allies back there, Gina. You’re as stupid and gullible as Tommaso if you thought Vincenzo was your friend.” My stomach sinks. “Didn’t you and your guard dog here question why he encouraged you to come to the cliff’s edge today? Where there’s access to the beach below,andhe let us land our helicopter here to wait for the perfect time?”
My stomachplummetsbecause what Arturo says all makes sense.
“Your allies are really your enemies, you stupid girl,” he hammers the reality home.
“You’re not taking her,” Zeus growls, but I hear the pain in his voice, and he sways slightly. He’s been shot in the back, and I’m not sure if the bullet exited out the front. I’m not sure which scenario would be worse.
“You, dead or alive,” Arturo says emotionlessly, “doesn’t matter. The whore is coming with us.” He smiles at me. “We have plans for her.”
The soldiers level their guns at Zeus’s head.
We’re outnumbered and have no place to even try to run for cover.
“Don’t shoot him,” I command more bravely and steadily than I feel. “Leave Zeus alive, and I’ll go with you willingly.”
“Gina, no,” he grits, swaying again, and the puddle of blood at his feet grows by the second.
“Agreed,” Stefano says quickly but without emotion. He levels Arturo with a hard look when he tries to disagree.
Arturo doesn’t like it, but he motions to his men to lower their weapons.
“Gina, you need to know what’s going on,” Zeus says quietly. “This isn’t how—”
I stand on my toes to speak low into his ear. “I have a tracker. Tell Tommaso that his father betrayed him.”
Then I step around Zeus because the two soldiers still look like they want to fill him with bullets. Stefano seems to have some control over the situation and is willing to spare Zeus, while I pray that his wound doesn’t kill him before he can get help.
I glare at Arturo and Stefano. Hate burns and swells within me. Bloodlust rises. These bastards will pay. Maybe not by my hands, but by my husband’s.
But in the meantime, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect the life inside me.
Because as a queen, hard choices have to be made, especially when backed into a corner with no way out. I’m going to be taken, one way or the other. Giving Zeus a chance to survive, not only for him to live, but so he can tell Tommaso about his father and Vincenzo, is the strategic move. So, I’ll concede for right now, but I’ll fight to the death.
Tommaso, my king, deserves that from his queen.
Once I’m at the cliff’s edge, I can see that in this section, there’s a rocky incline up from the beach. It looks treacherous as hell. As I suspected, there’s a ledge the three soldiers had stood on. The remaining two soldiers lead the way down the rocky descent. Arturo follows them, and Stefano nudges me to go next. His face is cold and impassive as he stares at me.
Does he care that I’m his daughter-in-law? That I carry his grandchild?
Or are the child and I just roadblocks to get the alliance he wants with Arturo?
The thought of Rosa marrying Tommaso makes my blood heat. Over my dead body. Which is how they think this is going to go down, but I refuse to accept that as an option.
They want me alive; otherwise, I’d be dead already.
I follow Arturo down with Stefano bringing up the rear. The soldier Zeus had shot in the neck lies at the bottom of the cliff, his body in a twisted, crumpled heap. Neither the soldiers nor Arturo stop to get him; they leave him where he landed. No loyalty in death. Which shows the kind of men I’m dealing with.
I stare at the man’s unmoving body as we pass; looking back over my shoulder, I see that Stefano is as well. When he sees me looking at him, he jerks his chin toward the helicopter waiting for us.
