I stare at the scene before my eyes, my mind begging his body to show some signs of movement.
It’s a futile attempt.
He’s still as a—
No!
Blood pools around his shoulder and a tremor ripples through me, assaulting my heart.
Diego!
Oh, please no!
Chapter Thirteen
Diego
I open my eyes a crack, the throbbing pain over my right eye making me yelp. I try to raise myself off of the ground, and yell as my hand hits the concrete. A burning sensation shoots up my arm and explodes in my shoulder. My eyes fall to the ground, hitting the bloodstains streaked across the floor of the garage.
I bring a hand to my face and wipe away the gravel stuck to my cheek.
Face-planted.
Assaulted on my own property.
Because of my fucking brother.
Rage wins out over the pain, as excruciating as it is.
My head clears slightly, and I dart my eyes around the grounds.
How long have I been out? Minutes? Hours?
The air is silent and still. There are no voices, no screams, no—
Serena!
“You should have killed me when you had the chance, fucko,” a deep voice growls from behind me, yanking me off the ground and dragging me away from the house.
Without use of my left arm or a gun, I’m screwed. Powerless against this asshole.
And he knows it.
“Where is she?” I hiss, shrugging off his tight grip. At least, I try to. But he’s got me tight. And it doesn’t seem like this time he’s gonna let me get away.
“I think you should be more concerned about where you’re going,” he replies with a smirk I want to punch off of his smug ass face.
I stop short and swing my good side around, throwing him off balance. I drive my right hand right under his nose and his head flies backward. Blood pours from his nostrils, and he falls against my shot-up car.
Goddamn these bastards!
There are a few blacked-out SUVs in my driveway and doors open as my assailant hits the ground, moaning and writhing, clutching his face.
I don’t stop to admire my handiwork, though. I make a run for the house through the garage. If they took Serena, I need to find out where.
I need to call my family.
And I need to stay the fuck alive long enough to do it all!
Footsteps pound the pavement behind me as I race up the short flight of stairs and push open the door to the house, panting.
I slam the door shut and lock it, leaning my back against it. I squeeze my arm and peer at the wound. It wasn’t a kill shot. Maybe these assassins really are as bad as the guy in the café.
Or maybe it was him who took the shot outside, too.
He can’t hit a target for shit.
I should’ve thanked him for that after breaking his nose.
Unless…he really wasn’t trying to kill me.
I grit my teeth as I stand in the eerily silent kitchen. There’s a knife block in the center of the island, but I need guns. And bullets. Right now, I’m trapped like a rat in a cage, and I need to load up and find my girl. I run out of the kitchen, toward a safe I keep in the back of a hallway closet.
The door swings open and a paralyzing shot to the head follows, sending me flying against the refrigerator. I struggle to my feet, grabbing onto the wall, my eyes narrowed to slits. Dizziness assaults me, but I can still make out the menacing grin on the motherfucker’s face.
The face of Ant’s security guy.
Bastard! He fucking works for us!
“What the hell do you want?” I grunt, ducking out of the way of his next punch. Thankfully, he’s not super agile because of his size. But his massive fist feels like a block of cement when it makes contact.
“I wasn’t hired to have a conversation,” he seethes. “I was hired to deliver you to my boss.”
“Your fucking boss? You work for my brother, asshole!”
He smirks, inches closer and delivers a shot to my gut. I double over, gasping for breath as I fall onto my knees. This really isn’t going to work out well for me unless I find a weapon. “Think of me as a freelancer, yeah? I follow the dollar signs and get paid to deliver the goods.”
“Where is Serena? What did you do with her?” I pant.
“I should think you’d be more concerned about what we did to her.” The guy circles me as I struggle to catch my breath and plan an escape. Keep him talking, Diego. Get some information and then take his ass down!
“You realize what’s going to happen to you once my family finds out that you sold us out, don’t you?”
“Your family isn’t a threat anymore, Diego. Why the fuck do you think I jumped that sinking ship?” He grabs me by the collar and pulls me to my feet. “After your Pops was killed, you lost all of your power. Money, yeah. You’ve got some. But loyalty? Nobody in your organization has it. You know why? Because you’re all fucking stupid, that’s why.” He sticks a finger into my shoulder wound for good measure.
I let out a growl, rage swirling through my insides as he exposes the very thing that can make my family crumble. I know we’ve made unpopular choices. I know there are risks. And I know people resent our decisions. It’s one of the reasons why Dad was taken out in the first place.
Three years later, and we’re still putting the pieces back together.
That doesn’t end today.
It can’t.
Christ only knows, I’ve done my fair share of dumbass things in the past to cripple what we’ve tried to rebuild.
I won’t let my family pay for those mistakes.
My heart thuds, fists clenched tight. I don’t know if this guy has a gun and right now, I don’t fucking care. He stands there, his face scrunched up as he laughs at me.
At us.
I launch one of my fists straight up into his junk since it’s the only part of him not covered by layers of fat, the only part where I know if I make contact, he’ll actually feel it.
It’ll buy me some time.
For what, I still don’t know.
He lets out a scream rivaling that of a little girl as he collapses onto the tile floor. I swear the foundation shakes as he pitches forward. He rolls onto his side, holding his groin and cursing at me in Italian.
But something else makes my skin prickle.
I strain my ears to listen since this dickhead is so fucking loud with his bitching and whining.
Voices from the garage get louder.
There’s no time for me to get to my safe.
They’re coming.
I don’t know who, but they’re here.
I grab the cordless phone from the charger and run for the living room. I dial Ant’s number. It rings once, twice, three times.
I’m going to kill him!
“Yeah? What’s up, D?” He yawns.
Blood boils in my veins. “Your fucking brilliant plan to escape the hotel yesterday? Almost got me fucking killed, and the threat it still hanging out there, asshole! Your security guy is a fucking mole and they tracked me and Serena to my house! She’s gone and they’re coming for me!”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Who is he working for?” Oh, yeah. He sounds alert now.
Too little, too fucking late.
“Look, I don’t know! But they’ve got Serena. Whoever was working for you is working against the Vitales. And us.” I take a deep breath and grab a pen from the coffee table. “I don’t have much longer. They’re here, and I can only hold them off for so long. They waited until we were leaving the house for the event. They knew we were on the move somehow. Figure it out, Ant. Figure out where the fuck they took her and where the hell they’re gonna take me. If they don’t leave me here for dead.”
“Hold them off. I’m on my way!”
Click!
I toss the phone onto the couch and creep toward the doorway, tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
Only one person knew we were on our way out of the house at that time.
Sophia is the only person I texted.
My fucking assistant.
Is there anyone who can be trusted anymore?
For what I pay her, she should be ready to drop to my knees at any given second to suck my dick!
And then I make a decision.
I’m not fucking hiding.
I’m definitely not running.
When the first guy appears in the doorway to my living room, I hurl a lamp at his head. It shatters against his skull and he drops to the carpet like a bag of rocks. I don’t even take a breath before launching a wooden block at the next douchebag who dares follow his dipshit friend in here.
I grab a small marble sculpture and hurl it at the third guy who stumbles over the ones lying on the carpet, groaning and holding their heads.
“You know what, assholes?” I yell. “If you guys are supposed the be the fucking A team for your new boss, I’m glad as hell you aren’t working for us anymore!” I swivel around, looking for another makeshift weapon, but something catches me off-balance…
A thick arm that snakes around my neck, cutting off my air supply.
It lifts me off of the floor just enough for me to know that it could choke me to death.
Goddammit! Why didn’t I look behind me?
I kick my legs around, teeth clenched. I jab at the arm as if that alone is going to get it to release me. Who the fuck does it belong to, anyway?
“Let him go.”
Just as suddenly as it almost claimed my life, the arm releases and I fall to the ground, sputtering and clutching my neck. A sharp, searing pain explodes out of my shoulder once I hit the floor, but I ignore it to get a look at the person who just saved my life.
At least, saved for the moment.
My chest heaves, eyes widening when they meet her caramel-colored ones. “Via,” I rasp.
“Diego, you big, beautiful dummy.” She shakes her head and folds her arms over a tight black cocktail dress. “We obviously don’t want to kill you. Why are you fighting us so hard?”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I stagger to my feet and another beefy guy starts to walk toward me, but Via raises a hand to him, motioning for him to stop.
“Not yet. I need to have a few words with him first.”
She looks back at me and smiles, her lips a sharp contrast to her murderous gaze. “I feel like we were really on the same wavelength for a while, Diego. We wanted the same things, we really understood each other, you know?” She takes a few steps toward me, her hands now on her slim hips. “And of course, the sex was incredible, too, remember?” she murmurs against my face. “I thought we’d really be quite the power couple. Uniting our families would make us invincible. The whole world would bow to us.” She recoils, her heavily made-up face twisting into a grimace. “But then you went and fucked it all up. All of our plans, all of the work we did to eliminate our enemies, the empire we could have created together.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” I seethe, cringing as my shoulder continues to throb.
“Am I?” she asks, tapping a finger against her cheek. “I don’t know about that. Let’s examine the evidence, shall we? When you got back from Monaco, you realized that your father’s enemies were still out there, waiting to launch their next strike against your family. The people you killed when you teamed up with your big bad Russian in-laws may have played a part in his death, but they didn’t pull the trigger.” Her smile widens. “You had so much anger. You let that fury rule you. And when I showed up on the scene, you didn’t think twice about pulling me into your plan to kill them all, especially Salvatore Chiaza. You still think about that last one, am I right? How good it felt to finally get that revenge, to make him suffer the way you and your family suffered. Especially poor Gianna who had to witness her own father’s murder.” Via presses her forehead against mine. “You wanted his life as payment for the way he destroyed yours.”
I swallow hard, because she’s right. I’d been so blinded by the need to avenge my father’s death that I didn’t think about what would happen afterward.
I didn’t think.
I just acted.
Killed.
Maimed.
Devastated.
“You had just as much to gain from that hit as I did.”
Via nods. “I did. I used your anger for my own purposes because I am a smart businesswoman. I knew who I’d need to battle if I wanted to expand my family’s businesses. I figured, why not just kill two birds with one stone?” She snickers. “Or one bullet. Whatever. It happened, and now our path is almost clear.”
Her family’s businesses.
Her threats.
Her fucking father, Nic Fortunato.
The Fortunatos don’t only need my family to create their empire.
They need to eliminate another one first.
He’s behind the hits on the Vitales, exactly as I’d thought.
Via flips her long blonde hair over her bare shoulder. “See, one thing I can tell you is this, Diego. It’s something I learned a long time ago. Never fucking trust anyone. You never know when someone will turn on you and crush your plans. Maybe crush your life while they’re at it.” She lifts an eyebrow and nods. “Two months ago, we knew there was chatter between your family and the Vitales. Everyone knows what your brother-in-law did to Sofia Rojas, how he crippled her cartel when he killed her back in Monaco. But what you probably didn’t know was that it paved the way for my family to take over her place. Sofia was a total bitch, anyway. She had no idea how to run a business, and when she went up against Alek Severinov, she really screwed herself. But it was a happy fucking day for us!”
“Where is Serena?” I growl through clenched teeth.
Via clasps her hands together. “That is the best part! Because you people were all too fucking stupid not to realize that nobody can be trusted! And more importantly, everyone can be bought!”
I muster every ounce of strength in my body because the blood loss is really taking a toll, and I have to pay close attention if I have any hopes of saving Serena.
And myself.
I grip her arms and back her against a wall. But she doesn’t even look scared, crazy bitch that she is.
Come to think of it, she and Sofia would have really hit it off in another life.
Via winks at me. “You’re getting heated, I can tell. And I know what happens when you get heated, Diego. What do you say? For old times’ sake? Wanna fuck me in the solarium, too?”
“How the fuck did you know?” I yell.
“Because we’ve been tracking you both, dipshit. You think we didn’t know where Franco and Serena were staying in Palermo? They tried to keep that quiet, yes, but they trusted and that trust fucked them hard! Harder still as the night goes on, too.” An excited giggle escapes her mouth. “And you think we didn’t know your sister and brother-in-law were staying at the same hotel, too? Well, guess again, love! We know everything! We control every fucking thing!” Via yells, throwing her hands into the air. “I mean, we’ve proven it once before. Surely you remember. The night Alessia Vitale was killed. Remember? The foundation gala?”
Tiny beads of sweat pop up along the back of my neck.
“Yeah, but that was just a teaser. Just a little something to get the ball rolling. We couldn’t wait around for Franco to sit around on his ass and decimate every money-making opportunity out there! It was time to act. So we invested in our plans, paid off a few key people in the know, and boom! Here we are.”
“So you’re just going to kill the Vitales? You think that’s not going to create a shitstorm for your father?”
“No, no.” Via says. “If we wanted to kill the Vitales, they’d be dead. We needed them to scatter. We knew Serena would find her way to you, especially since Vince set a meeting for you and Franco Vitale early yesterday morning.” She winks at me. “See? Money can buy everything!”
“And where is Franco?
” I say in a low voice. Jesus Christ, how much longer is it going to take Ant to fucking get here? This one-armed, no gun bullshit is really setting me back!
“That’s the best part! You’re going to see them both alive very soon, Diego.” She traces a finger down the front of my shirt and I grab her wrist, flipping her around and slamming my arm against her throat. She doesn’t even flinch.
“I know you won’t kill me. I know you want to get back to your little crusader girlfriend. I have to say, though. I am a little disappointed that you decided to fuck Serena in our spot. I really was hoping that cock would find its way back to me.” She takes a hand and cups my balls, then squeezes them tight, way tighter than necessary.
Fucking whore.
If I had a gun, I’d shoot her between the eyes.
Someone gave us up. Someone knew about Vince’s meeting with Vitale. And someone was paid very fucking well to deliver.
“You really need to think bigger, especially as a business owner. For example, knowing who is actually hosting an event you manage is key. You should never assume it’s the people paying you and giving you the instructions. And thank God for us your dipshit assistant is so…trusting.” she says.
The blood bubbles in my veins. “Tell me you didn’t hurt her.”
“Hurt her?” Via snickers. “I should think you’d be more upset that we were able to use her to get to you. For a price, of course.” She leans closer. “Did you fuck her, too, Diego? Because there seems to be a pattern here. Girls you fuck seem to fuck you back harder. And just wait until the star of the show gets her turn to give it to you good.” Via nods at one of the guys behind her who is holding a gun aimed right at my forehead. “Take him out to the car. It’s time to party!” She turns on her high heel and walks toward the front door. But before she reaches for the knob, she turns back around with a nasty smirk on her face. “I hope you’ve got some lube on you, babe. You’re gonna need it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Serena
Wanted: A Dark Italian Mafia Romance (Men Of Mayhem Book 1) Page 16
