“Mija, been waiting for your call. Are they finished with the will?”
“Si, Papi. Uh…”
“What happened? Are you all right? Where are you?”
“Papi, I’m screwed. I thought I could stay and make them pay, but… I need to run away. I have no other option.”
“Just tell me where you are, and I’ll pick you up. Everything is arranged.”
“No. I don’t want you involved. They’d kill you. I can’t.”
“Mija—”
“I just need a ride. How fast can you send a car to the back exit of the penthouse building?” I didn’t know if Enzio bought my lie or how long it’d take before he’d track the Maserati and set his hounds on me.
Alfarez huffed. “It’ll be waiting for you before you get there. Just…get there.”
Chapter20
Bianca
My chest contracted as I entered the penthouse. The place where I had everything and lost everything.
It was scrubbed clean of any evidence of the raid. Even the windows that were shattered and holed with bullets had been replaced. They could clean it all up, erase their crime from the police records, from the minds of the whole world, but they could never wipe it from mine.
“Your father was a brave man, Mario. He wasn’t a traitor. They are. They betrayed him, alive and dead,” I said, the image of Cosimo as he fought the bastards in the middle of this room, bullets raining down on him, blood splattering everywhere, tearing at me. “I wish I could make them pay, but if I don’t get you out now, his sacrifice will be for nothing.”
Not a second to waste, I dashed inside the bedroom. Enzio could be here any minute. I locked the door and pressed the pin code to the dressing room. Inside, I laid Mario on his stomach on the floor, grabbed a duffle bag and went to the safe.
I used my fingerprint to unlock it. There was enough cash to get me and Mario out of the country. Fake passports had already been made for the three of us. I grabbed mine and Mario’s along with the money, my heart aching. I’d have done anything so Cosimo would have been the one here, doing what I was doing now. But I’d leave his passport and try to escape, just like I’d left him alone that day and ran.
As I shoved everything in the bag, my eyes fell on Cosimo’s will copy. How it lay peacefully in the bottom taunted me. Fury pulsed through my fingers as I snatched it, the back of my hand brushing against the gun he’d bought me.
I held the piece of paper in one hand, the other felt the weight of the gun. The dark impulses crammed in my head.
You’re a coward. You need to go back and kill those fuckers.
Didn’t you run the first time? Did that get you anywhere?
Take that gun, go back to that house and shoot them all.
My hand squeezed the metal, heart and breath racing.
What if they find you? What if they discover Alfarez helped you? You have to kill them. You have to kill Marta and Enzio.
I wanted to do it. So fucking much. I knew it could jeopardize everything, but what if I, before leaving, emptied the bullets in the skulls of some Lanzas?
The bloody, dead faces of Marta and Enzio flashed in my head, so tempting, so—
Something grabbed my ankle, and I yelped, almost dropping the gun. Then I glanced down. The little hands of my baby were wrapped around my ankle, his mouth drooling with a smile.
“God, Mario.” I breathed, cursing myself. What the fuck was I thinking? I had to get out of here. “Mommy is stupid, baby. I know. I’m sorry.”
I put the gun and the piece of paper in the bag and zipped it. Then I found Mario’s carrier in one of the drawers, clasped it around me and set him in it. “Okay. Let’s leave all this behind us and start over.”
Ditching my cellphone here in case Enzio would use it to find me, I took one final gaze at Cosimo’s dressing room, his hanging suits, his shirts, his shoes…
Tears choked me, so I exhaled a hot, rough breath and punched in the pin code. “I’m so sorry. Ciao, amore.”
