It was dizzying and I took a step back, putting a hand on the doorframe in order to steady myself.
‘ENOUGH,’Dante’s voice boomed over the rest and they fell silent.
‘While you all were busy talking over each other you failed to notice someone tripped the perimeter sensors.’
Phones came out of pockets in a flash and the argument was temporarily forgotten about as they sprang into action.
‘We’ve got a trio of figures coming toward the front of the house,’Ranieri said as he showed the guys his phone.‘I can’t make out faces but they have pretty big builds.’
Elio turned to Dante.‘Dante, get the guns. The rest of you know what to do.’
Dante disappeared down the dark hallway and Nico grabbed my hand, dragging me farther into the bedroom.
‘I’m not hiding under a bed again,’I told him, sounding like a brat.
‘No,’he agreed as he pulled the closet door open.‘You’re not.’
The clothes hanging in the closet were pushed aside and Elio pressed a hand into the back of the closet causing a panel to open.
‘This is a safe room,’he explained as he helped me inside of the small space that was lined with padding.‘If one of us doesn’t come back to get you, the passcode is your birthday.’
Nico shut the door before I could say anything else and as soon as the lock clicked on the overhead air vent, it began to blow cold air over my head.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I waited, my heart in my throat as I tried to feel what my alphas were feeling and finding each of my bonds to be insulated, like they were trying to protect me.
If and when we got out of this, I definitely needed to learn how to control our connections better. It wasn’t fair that they could block me but I couldn’t do the same to them.
I figured it would take them at least an hour to deal with the intruders, so it surprised me when only minutes had passed and the doorway opened with a hiss and I saw Dante crouched in the closet with a smile on his face.
He held a hand out to me.
‘Is everything safe?’I asked as I took it and let him pull me out of the safe room.
‘It is, now go ahead and get dressed. We have some guests,’he said pointing at the change of clothes that had been laid out on the bed.
I frowned at that.‘Guests? What kind of guests would be out in the middle of nowhere like this?’
As far as I knew there weren’t even any other cabins within a fifteen mile radius around this one, so anyone walking on foot was definitely suspicious, and yet Dante seemed almost jazzed by whoever it was.
‘Who’s here, Dante?’I pressed, urging him to give me a straight answer as I pulled on the pajama pants and sweatshirt that I was pretty sure was Dante’s judging by the tart scent of green grapes wafting off of it.
Dante took my hand and gave it a squeeze.‘My dads.’
Twenty-Six
“Y’all have a pretty good security system here, Dale just about lost his foot when he stepped on that bear trap about a half a mile back,” Travis said with a laugh that was gravelly from years of smoking cigarettes.
“We didn’t set up those traps, Travis,” I told my adoptive father as I descended the steps with Cini right behind me.
It had taken us all of five minutes to realize that it was the trio of men that had been my fathers and that they weren’t here to hurt us—not that I thought they ever would in the first place. They may have been the butchers for the Amante family, but I knew they had no lost love for Alessandro Amante. Their loyalty had always been with the last head of the family and they never missed a chance to let it be known.
And now here they sat looking like a group of bikers had stumbled up on us, leathers and all.
Older than Amante Sr., Dale, Travis, and Howard were all in their late sixties and had served under Cini’s grandfather in their heyday. Travis was the boisterous one, usually laughing about something or another, Dale tended to attract disasters like a magnet, and Howard was the silent, observant one. Just like me.
They were known as the butchers. The ones who extracted information for the Amante family by any means necessary.
Dangerous was one word for the seemingly jolly men sitting around the kitchen table drinking beers, but after years of knowing them I knew they would never be a danger—at least not to us.
