When I was finished and sat there in a puddle of my tears, she got up and came back with the box of tissues, which she handed to me. "Gino won't be alive much longer. Will that upset you?"
I looked up at her, surprised. I'd expected sympathy. A hug. The usual girly bullshit. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Luca's going to kill him. He told me the other night that's always been his plan. He's just had to wait for the right time."
CHAPTER6
Tristan
Something clenched in my chest, a mixture of relief and dread washing over me as Luna and her brother made it outside without anyone stopping them. She was safe.
But at what cost?
I turned back to Gino. His eyes glinted with sadistic glee, reveling in my surrender. "Well, well, well," he sneered. "So thereisa heart in there, after all."
I remained silent, steeling myself for the inevitable terrors that awaited me. Gino stepped closer, his breath hot against my face. "You know what this means, don't you, boy? You're mine now. Just like old times."
Old times.The words echoed in my mind, conjuring a flood of painful memories. The beatings, the rapes, the humiliation, the scars that marred my body and soul. I had escaped that hell once before, vowing never to return. Yet here I stood, willingly offering myself up to the devil himself.
For her.
For Luna.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I'd just sacrificed everything—my body, my freedom, my sanity, possibly even my life—for a woman I barely knew if you really thought about it. A woman who had somehow managed to pierce through the impenetrable walls I had built around myself.
Jesus Christ. What the fuck was wrong with me?
She was beautiful, and fierce, and I couldn't get enough of her body. But was that all it took for me to sacrifice myself? Or was it the way she looked at me, as if she saw past the monster and glimpsed the broken man beneath?
I didn't have time to ponder the answers. Gino's men surrounded me, their guns trained on my every move. "Take him to the car," Gino commanded. "And don't trust him for a second.È furbo, questo qui." He's smart, this one.
As they dragged me away, the weight of my decision settled heavily upon my shoulders, threatening to crush me under its burden.
But a flicker of something else burned within me. Something I had thought long dead.
Hope.
Hope that, somehow, I would find my way back to her. That I would survive whatever Gino had planned for me until either Luca and Enzo could find me or I could escape.
Until then, I would endure. For Luna, it seemed, I would endure anything.
The car ride was a blur of pain. Gino's men had taken his words to heart and decided to do what they could to incapacitate me before they threw me into the back seat of one of the cars. Every bump in the road sent a sharp jolt of agony to my aching head, where the butt of one of their pistols had smashed into my temple. For a few minutes, I drifted in and out of consciousness, my mind conjuring images of Luna to keep me sane.
Her smile. The little sounds of pleasure she made when I touched her. The way she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, as if she could see into the darkest, ugliest depths of my soul.
I clung to those memories like a lifeline as Gino took me farther and farther away from her.
The car finally came to a stop, and two of Gino's men dragged me unceremoniously out of the back seat. I had no idea how long we'd been driving, but I'd been fully conscious for a while now. I blinked against the harsh glare of the sun, trying to get my bearings. We were at a large ranch house, surrounded by nothing but barren Texas desert as far as the eye could see. There were no trees, no hills. Just dirt and scrub brush. There was nowhere anyone could hide. And even if they could, the dust clouds it would kick up would give away any vehicles heading this way, if by some miracle the guys on top of the house didn't spot them first.
There was no way Luca and Enzo would be able to get anywhere near this place. They'd have to bring an army with them to even have a chance.
I was hauled across the dirt yard and thrown into a dank, musty outbuilding. The door slammed shut behind me, plunging me into darkness. I lay there on the hard concrete floor, shivering from the cold, my shoulders throbbing with pain from my hands being tied so tight behind my back as a fucking freight train ran through my head.
Now that I had a moment to myself, the weight of what I’d done truly began to hit me. Did I regret giving up my life for hers? Honestly, I couldn't say. In that moment, all I could think about was doing whatever I had to do to get Luna the fuck out of there.
In the short time I'd had with Luna, I'd felt something I never thought possible. I felt alive for the first time in my life. Really, truly alive. Like there was something in life to look forward to.
And it appeared I would endure a thousand lifetimes of pain and suffering just to feel that way again.
