A chorus of negatives filled my ears.
The chaos of the gun fight was winding down as quick as it had started, our allies subduing the people around them and handcuffing the ones who were still alive. We would decide later what to do with them.
“Search the mansion,” Elio ordered as we stepped back into the hallway where the carnage continued. “We cannot let him leave this property.”
“What do we do?” I asked him as we retraced our path.
“When we were planning all of this, I forgot to consider just how much of a fucking coward that man is,” Elio growled as we passed one of our teams that was going room-by-room.
Seconds turned to minutes and we were wasting time trying to search every room in this mansion, but I was sure that Amante still had to be here. We had closed off every other exit. We were just about to head up the stairs to Amante’s study when a strange pressure filled my mind.
“Do you feel that?” Elio asked, frowning.
I nodded. “I think that’s Cini trying to get past our block.”
Elio frowned. “Ranieri, do you copy?”
Silence.
“Ranieri,” Elio repeated, his voice wavering with fear.
The pressure in my head increased and I dropped my mental block.
‘They’re here,’Cini whispered in my head.‘They came through the tunnel.’
We were running before she finished her sentence.
Twenty-Eight
Ihad been so sure that my father didn’t know about the service tunnels that I was genuinely surprised when he and a group of his men stumbled out of it and into the small clearing where our vehicles were.
A rough hand dragged me out of the open car door and I opened my mouth to scream only to come face-to-face with Dale.
‘Run,’he mouthed.‘Hide.’
Then he was pushing me away from the clearing and into the thick underbrush.
‘Ranieri,’I said, trying to get the alpha’s attention but the sudden pain I felt down his thread of the bond told me I was too late.
Ducking behind a bush, I peeked through the leaves to assess the situation while desperately yanking on the quiet bonds of the rest of my pack.
I understood why they had blocked it off, needing to focus on the mission at hand, but this was an emergency.
Amante and the rest of his men were surrounding the van Ranieri had been in and I could just make out his form crumpled on the ground at their feet.
Rage filled me at the sight. How dare they touch what was mine?
I gave my bonds another hard yank.
The block melted away suddenly and I could feel them again.
‘They’re here,’I whispered even though no one would be able to hear me speaking.‘They came through the tunnel.’
‘Cini you need to get away from there,’Elio said, his panic sour on my tongue.
‘I can’t. They hurt Ranieri and if they find Dale, they’ll hurt him too.’My hand crept into the pocket of the sweatshirt I was wearing and I wrapped my fingers around the metal of the pistol Dante had given me.
And even if I had wanted to run away, I was fairly sure it would be a failure. I was terrified of moving even an inch and potentially giving away my location without realizing it.
