He partnered with the wrong family and risked the lives of his daughters as a result, along with good soldiers who died in the Roselli revenge attack.I’ll never forgive him for what he’s done.As long as I live, I swear I will never be able to forgive what he’s caused by greed.
A tear of frustration runs down my face.I swipe at it in frustration, unwilling to completely break down.There has to be something we’re missing.A piece of the puzzle, a distant memory that could help, or something we could use to find Anna.
My mouth opens suddenly.“The boathouse!”I point farther down, so excited I can barely get the words out.Papa, he used to take us there for rides sometimes.He always picked something up.That’s where Barcelo is going!Papa used to keep our big boats there!”
Massimo turns to Leandro.“Switch vehicles.Get Mom and get her back to the house.I’m texting the doctor to meet you there.Keep half the soldiers with you.Vincenzo and his soldiers are moving in to help, they’ll follow us.We fucking need Barcelo.”
Leandro doesn’t waste time jumping out and racing to one of the SUVs full of soldiers, the helicopters above covering him as he makes his way to the vehicle.Massimo waits to make sure his brother is safe and his mom is with him before sending out his next orders.
“Move!”Massimo growls and Jimmy puts his foot on the gas, weaving in and around fitted warehouses and old abandoned buildings, running over two bodies strewn across the muddy road in his haste to catch the trail of Barcelo and get to the boathouse where I can only hope that Barcelo has taken Anna.
“Please, please, please,” I silently pray, repeating it in my mind over and over again until Massimo pulls me to him.“Breathe, kitten.”
I nod, inhaling a breath I didn’t realize I was holding until now.I squeeze his hand as he strokes the top of my palm,and my breathing begins to calm.But still, my mind doesn’t shut down.I run through the events in my mind, thinking about every little detail of tonight and something just doesn’t add up.“Massimo, how would Barcelo have known to get Anna out before the helicopters got there?”
Massimo doesn’t answer my question as Jimmy hits a pothole that without our seatbelts would have tossed us at least three feet into the air.Instead, it rattles the entire underbody of the car as it settles back onto the ground.
My mind just won’t leave it alone.“It doesn’t make sense.If he knew we were coming he would have gotten out at the same time, right?Why would he have risked going back to the warehouse where your mom was, where he knew we were coming if he’d already left your mom for dead and gotten Anna out?”
Massimo still doesn’t answer, just keeps running his fingerover my palm as he contemplates what I’ve said.But his jaw has tightened, and he looks every bit like the dark-hearted devil I was raised to fear and to hate.It hits us both at the very same time.He got Anna out but went back to kill Massimo’s mom.Either out of revenge or because she knew something that he didn’t want disclosed, getting back to take her out of the picture was important to him for some reason.
“She may have overheard something about their plans, something in the works that he can’t change or something along those lines.Maybe she heard something that will help us find the dirty fuck.I just want to keep my mother alive,” Massimo says quietly.
“I’m fucking trying, Massimo,” Leandro says, surprising us both that he’s still on the line at all.
“How’s she doing, Leandro?”Massimo asks.
“Not fucking good, Massimo.Not fucking good.”
Jimmy and the other soldiers pull up to the abandoned boathouse at the very same time, surrounding the door with AK-47s and assault rifles that were only created to take down their enemies.Jimmy turns to us.“Stay on the phone with Leandro, but get in the driver’s seat,” he tells Massimo.“I’m going in.And have our fucking soldiers cover me.The last thing I need is bullets riding up my ass.”
Massimo opens the door and switches seats.I crawl over the front seat before he’s even behind the driver’s wheel as Jimmy disappears into the night covered by a shit ton of fire power as the overhead whirring of helicopters make a beeline over the roof from their position in the sky.One of them lands right in front of the fucking front door surrounded by Massimo’s soldiers while another helicopter hovers with snipers leveling rifles, ready for anyone who plans to escape to get a bullet welcome instead.
“Tell them Jimmy’s in there and may come out,” I tell Massimo quietly.
He doesn’t hesitate, hitting the connection to the helicopter.“We have a friendly inside.Hold that fire until I tell you it’s not Jimmy.”
8
Massimo
Jimmy’s voice comes over Massimo’s phone.“Massimo, it’s like a fucking maze down here.I can’t see for shit, and there’s a hell of a lot of territory to cover.How the fuck did that bastard get away.Who fucking let him know we were coming?”
Sophia doesn’t say anything that hasn’t been running through my mind since seeing Barcelo run and learning Anna wasn’t left behind.“Rats gave him time to hurt Massimo’s mom and get Anna out.”
My jaw tightens with angst knowing she’s right.The only way Barcelo would have known we were coming and given him time is from a rat.One that we still haven’t flushed out.Even I thought we got them all.“Jimmy?”I ask, knowing he helped Leandro interrogate the rats we have at the warehouse.
“There’s only one answer, Massimo.Your dad’s said something to someone he trusts but we don’t have locked up.It’s Georgeo man, we’ve always known he was probably your father’s little snitch, but none of the guys gave him up when we asked.And it’s not like we weren’t putting a shit ton of pressure on them either,” he says, and I trust every word he says.
Our father has made one bad decision after another, even he knows it.“I’ll have one of the soldiers pick him up.It’s about time we cleaned house for good.We’ve allowed the situation with our father to go on far too long.It fucking ends tonight, Jimmy.”
“Boss, I might see something.Hang tight.”
Massimo’s cell buzzes and he gets on the other line, answering it, listening to Leandro who I can hear loud and clear.“We’re on our way home and breaking every fucking speed limit there is.The minute we moved her she started bleeding all over the fucking place, Mass.They fucking broke her nose, her lips, and sliced her sternum to navel.They fucking left her for dead.When I get my hands on those fuckers, they’re going to wish they had died in the gun fight tonight, because anyone who even touched her is going to die a slow and painful death.”
I hold Massimo’s hand as he talks, watching the darkness of his eyes, and the moisture he keeps from spilling from his eyes as he listens to his younger brother talk about his mother.He glances down as his phone beeps.“The doctor is ten minutes out.He’ll meet you at my house.It’s closer and I don’t want Dad to see her like this.You have the bleeding controlled?”
Leandro’s voice cracks.“As much as fucking possible, Mass, as much as fucking possible.So much fucking blood.”
