“Santino, I want to have a word with Giada,” Naz mused in an eerily placid tone. “On the way over, Haley discovered she’d left her phone at home. I need you to run her back to the house while I visit with our … guest.”
The command gave Santino little option, but as a testament to his courage, he took a stand. “With all respect, sir, my orders were to stay with Giada.”
I glanced at Haley. She stared at me wide-eyed and terrified. Was she afraid of what he’d do about the fact that she’d left her phone at home? Had he threatened her when she realized the device was missing? It was heartbreaking to know that Haley had to cope on a daily basis with the sickening terror I was now experiencing.
Naz went inhumanly still, his eyes narrowing with barely restrained savagery. “Don’t you dare defy me!” he raged, an ugly blue vein bulging from his forehead. “Do as you’re fucking told, or I’ll send your severed head back to the filthy street where I found you.”
As he spoke, the tremors of his fury resounded through the room, and my eyes danced back and forth between Haley and Santino. Both of them were in danger when all Naz really wanted was me. I appreciated Santino’s efforts to protect me, but I couldn’t stand by and watch at Naz hurt him because of me. I’d rather risk my own death than live at the expense of someone else’s life.
“Go,” I blurted, drawing everyone’s attention. “You should go with Haley. Mr. Vargas and I can have a quick visit while you’re gone.” My gaze pleaded with him, and though he was visibly reluctant, he finally acquiesced.
“Of course. I’m sorry for any disrespect, sir. We’ll be back shortly.” He led Haley from the house, leaving me alone with a monster. The front door clicked shut like a cage closing a harmless sheep in with a hungry lion. In an instant, the air thickened with menace.
I had been trying to protect the others, but I started to regret my decision as fear and weakness muddied my resolve. My eyes drifted to Naz in time to see his smile twist smugness into cruelty.
He clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace slowly. “Did you honestly think you could weasel your way in here and take him from me?” His black voice wrapped around my throat and squeezed.
“I didn’t … I’m not taking anyone.” I tried to give strength to my words, but the fear he cast over me was too crippling to overcome.
“Did you think I didn’t have ears inside this house? That you could stand here in this very room and discuss severing ties with me like I was the fucking cable man?” His voice grew to a roar, face contorting with rage as he stepped closer.
How could he have known? No one was left in the house unless they’d been hiding. Then my stomach took a sickening plummet as the realization hit me.
He’d been listening.
He had microphones in Primo’s house. It was the only way he could know exactly what we’d said two nights ago. He’d heard every word, so there was no denying it. He knew our plans and was livid. Homicidal. And I was the target of his wrath.
I didn’t think; I just ran.
Darting behind the couch, I grabbed a vase and tossed it as hard as I could at him, but he was far more nimble than I could have imagined. He ducked and lunged, grabbing a handful of my hair and yanking me viciously backward. I cried out in pain, reaching back to grasp for his hand in a futile attempt to ease his grip.
“I don’t care if I send you back to your fucking father in tiny fucking pieces,” he hissed by my ear, spittle spraying my cheek. “I’ll sink the entire fucking shipment—ten million at the bottom of the ocean—before I let Primo throw everything away for a goddamn Italian whore.” He released me and spun me around, allowing me the briefest window of false relief before his fist collided with my face.
Pain exploded into my eye as I tumbled to the ground, a ragged cry ripping from my throat. That was when it hit me that if Santino didn’t come back to save me, this madman was going to kill me. I’d always been so fucking optimistic that the true nature of the dangers around me had never fully sunken in.
Naz was completely and totally unhinged, and he wouldn’t be happy until he choked the last breath from my body.
The rancid taste of regret mixed with the coppery tang of blood on my tongue. I suddenly wished I’d done so many things differently, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me weep. See me break and shatter into a million pieces on the Saltillo tile floor.
I drew myself up to my feet, standing on trembling legs, and glared at death. “You think you’re going to win by killing me? My family will destroy you, but only if Primo doesn’t do it first.”
His lip pulled up in a snarl. “If you live, you ruin everything I’ve worked for anyway. I might as well see you suffer.” His arm lashed out, backhanding me across the opposite cheek.
This time, I remained on my feet, using the motion after his strike to lunge to the side and grab a wooden statue of a naked torso. I immediately swung around toward him with perfect aim, striking him square in the head. He lurched to the side, hand reaching for his temple where blood began to trickle from his skull. When he turned back toward me, his eyes lit with rabid insanity.
He charged at me, tackling me to the ground with the bulk of his weight on my chest. I felt a sickening crack, and a searing pain ratcheted out from my rib cage. The agony was so severe that it stole the breath from my lungs, leaving me wheezing and gasping for air.
Naz sat back on his knees and peered down at me with twisted satisfaction just as the front door flung open. Thundering footsteps rang down the hall until Santino was standing in the entry to the living room.
For a second, time stood still.
Santino and Naz stared at one another while I struggled to breathe. Then everything happened at once. Santino reached inside his jacket at the same time Haley appeared out of nowhere, distracting him just long enough for Naz to reach for his own firearm.
A single shot blasted through the room, and I watched in horror as Santino stumbled backward into the wall. He slid to the ground, gun in hand, a bloody stain trailing behind him.
My lungs tried to gasp, but the resulting pain made my head swim.
This couldn’t be happening. It was worse than a nightmare. How could this wretched man win? It wasn’t fair. Angry tears dripped from my eyes, and my vision blurred as I peered up at Haley, standing dumbstruck next to Santino.
“It seems you’ve poisoned everyone around here,” Naz said to me, turning his back to his wife. He slowly stood and dusted off his slacks.
While he was distracted, I caught Haley’s attention and pointed at Santino’s gun. I begged and pleaded with my eyes for her to pick it up and shoot Naz. I only had a couple of seconds to get my point across, but she clearly glanced between me and the gun. Then her eyes drifted to her husband, and she stilled, almost as if going catatonic.
My face crumpled in crushing disappointment. He’d conditioned her in fear to a point she wouldn’t even fight back. She was too terrified that if her attempt didn’t work, her pain would never end.
Naz looked up in time to see me realize my defeat and glanced back at his broken wife, chuckling at her fragmentation. “I am king in this country,” he said, leering at me as he pulled out his gun and cocked it. “I don’t care who your family is or how love-sick Primo is for that wet cunt of yours. No fucking woman is going to take me down.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at where I lay, a sickening grin twisting his face.
My eyes fluttered shut just as the shot cracked through the room.
Chapter 25
Primo
“I don’t care what Naz or Giada say,” I yelled into the phone at Santino. “You get back there and stay with her. I chartered a flight and came straight back, so I’m in town and on my way to the house. I’ll be right behind you.” I hung up the phone and slammed my foot down on the accelerator of the car I’d just coerced from the airport manager.
My instincts had screamed at me to get back home as fast as I could. I skipped the meeting and paid twice the norm
al fare to charter an immediate flight back to Guaymas. When Santino called and told me about Naz’s appearance and his instructions to take Haley home, I lost it. I understood why Santino felt that he had to comply, but fuck if I was leaving Giada unprotected.
Once I got to the house, there would be hell to pay with Naz. I’d wanted to find a way to part on good terms—having the Sonora Cartel after us would make life incredibly difficult—now, I wasn’t sure peace was an option.
Santino had only been gone from the house for a few minutes. I held onto hope that he could defuse the situation until I got there and that I could still work through my differences with Naz.
I made the twenty-minute drive at breakneck speeds, running lights and only coming to a stop once when I nearly hit a boy running after a ball. I hauled up my long driveway and came to a screeching stop at the front entry. Just as I reached for the car door handle, a gunshot rang out from inside the house.
For two thudding heartbeats, I froze, and time around me ground to a halt. A wave of emotion threatened to crash over me, but I refused to let it drown me if there was any chance Giada was still alive.
I wrenched open the car door and raced for the house. The front door was already wide open. Raising my gun, I cautiously stepped inside. The sight that greeted me across the foyer stunned me.
Santino lay bleeding against the wall, and Haley stood over him with a gun pointed into the living room. I could hardly make sense of what I was seeing. What the fuck was Haley doing with a gun? Had she shot Santino? How the hell had everything devolved in such a short span of time?
“Haley, put the gun down,” I ordered smoothly, my own weapon trained on her as I eased forward.
The delicate blonde didn’t move a muscle aside from a tremor in her outstretched hands. She didn’t startle or look my direction. She kept her eyes glued on her target.
Three more shots rang out in quick succession.
I charged forward, seizing the gun from her hand. Haley crumpled to the floor as if it had taken all her strength to fire those last shots. Inside the room, Naz lay in a bloody heap, riddled with bullet holes. Next to him was Giada, curled protectively inward, nasty bruises blossoming across her olive skin. Her eyes lifted to mine, and my vibrant warrior began to sob. She was hurt and upset, but alive.
Relief coursed through me as I rushed to her side. I started to lift her in my arms, but she winced and shook me off.
“I’m fine, but I think he broke a rib or two.” Her chin quivered as she looked past me to Santino, large salty tears running into the blood from her cut lip. “He came back and tried to save me. Help him, please. Don’t let him die.”
I placed a tender kiss on her forehead and hurried to assess Santino’s condition. He’d been shot but high enough in the shoulder that he might survive. I placed a call to my doctor, then grabbed a clean dish towel from the kitchen and pressed it against the wound. He stirred at the discomfort but didn’t fully wake.
I was only two years his senior, but he seemed so much younger to me. We’d both accepted the dangers of the life we’d chosen, but I’d still felt responsible for him. Seeing him bleeding out after following my orders gutted me.
“Hang in there, man. Doc is coming, and we’ll get you all stitched up.” I gritted my teeth, hating to admit that he needed more than a doctor. Hospitals complicated everything, but I couldn’t let him die if there was any hope of saving him.
Hunched protectively around her middle, Giada came up behind me and lowered herself to sit next to a quivering Haley, who had curled up against the wall with her knees pulled tightly against her chest. Giada grimaced, face taut with pain as she wrapped her arms around the other woman.
“You did so good,” she cooed to Haley like a mother comforting a small child. “I’m so proud of you. We’ll help get you back to the US, and you can start over, okay? Everything is going to be so much better, I promise.”
Haley’s trembling morphed into wailing sobs that echoed through the entry until the doctor arrived. He rushed over when he spotted us all clustered on the floor. When his eyes fell on Naz, he stilled, gaze turning warily back to me. The muscles in his throat flexed as he swallowed down his fear. Naz’s death would rain down chaos in our world, and the doctor knew it.
“Santino needs the most help. I’m afraid we’ll need to get him to the hospital. I’m not sure there’s much you can do,” I explained.
He examined the wound briefly. “He needs to get to an operating room as soon as possible.”
“That’s what I thought. Have a look at Giada and then I’ll help get him in your car. I’ll need you to take him to the hospital.”
The man had been on our payroll for years, so he knew the drill, nodding and moving on to Giada. He did his best not to hurt her, but any movement at all was clearly torturous.
“I’d say you need an X-ray to look at those ribs, but most likely, there’s nothing that can be done but allow time to heal. I don’t hear any wheezing to indicate there’s a punctured lung, so that’s good, but like I said, an X-ray would be wise. She’s mildly concussed, nothing to worry about there, and all the other damage appears superficial. I’d say right now, a warm bath and lots of rest is the best course.”
“Let me help you get Santino loaded up, and then I’ll attend to her.”
We gingerly lifted Santino and carried him out to the doctor’s car, maneuvering him into the back seat. The doc jumped in the driver’s seat and was off without further instruction. When I returned inside, I walked to Haley, who’d been staring at Naz vacantly. I took her hands and lifted her to stand, commanding her attention. “I want you to go upstairs. The first room on the right is a guest room. You can go and clean up or rest, whatever you need. You can’t go back to your house now, you understand that, right?”
She nodded in quick, jerky movements.
“Good. Like Giada said, we’ll get you taken care of soon enough. Rest for now.” I stepped back, allowing her to retreat upstairs away from the carnage, then carefully lifted Giada in my arms and carried her up to my master bath.
“What will you do now?” she asked once we were alone.
“I’ll have to deal with the fallout. I’ll take the blame for his death. If Juan Carlos learned that Haley killed his brother, he’d never let her live.” I set Giada on her feet and eased her jeans down her hips.
“What about you? Will he come after you?”
“Possibly, but first he’ll need to come back here to claim his brother’s throne. Before he does, we’ll be long gone.”
“Where will we go?”
“To New York and the safety of your family.” I looked at her long-sleeve shirt and realized we’d need to cut it off. “Let me run downstairs and get some scissors.”
“Wait,” she said, reaching for my hand and grimacing. “My family thinks you kidnapped me—they hate you. I’m not sure they’ll ever get over that.”
I gently swept a tendril of her hair back behind her ear and admired the determined spirit of this woman. Even broken and bloody, she was thinking about someone other than herself.
“It’s a risk worth taking to get you to safety. Besides, there is information I can offer to help gain their trust. Try not to worry about that. First, we need to get out of here before Naz’s men discover what’s happened.” I lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, then hurried downstairs to find scissors.
On my way back from my office, scissors in hand, I spotted Alma staring agape at Naz’s bloody corpse. She’d been a part of my life for so long, I could hardly imagine her betraying me, but she’d worked for Naz before I ever arrived. I needed to give us as much time as possible, and that meant ensuring no one alerted Naz’s loyal soldiers before we had the chance to flee.
“Alma, can I speak with you?”
She jumped at the sound of my voice, hurrying over. “I just went to the market for food, and when I got back … what happened? Where is Giada? Why is there blood on the wall?” She was frantic with wor
ry.
“Giada is all right, but Nazario tried to kill her. Santino was shot trying to protect her. I got here in time and killed Naz. We’ll need to get out of the country, and I need to know if I can count on you to stay quiet until we do. We need a few hours to get away before Nazario’s men come for us.”
Her wrinkled face softened, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Mijo, you were like one of my own. Of course, I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
I squeezed her hand, desperately relieved I didn’t have to hurt her. “I’m afraid this means you’re out of a job, though. I’m sorry for that.”
“Don’t worry about me. You take care of that lovely girl of yours. All I’ve ever wanted for you was to see you happy.”
I placed a heartfelt kiss on one cheek, then the other. “The battle’s only just begun, but I’ll do my best.” And that was the truth. Naz may be dead, but our struggles were far from over.
Chapter 26
Giada
My head felt like it had been batted around by two semi-trucks, and my ribs screamed every time I moved, but it was all manageable, knowing how close I’d come to death. Haley was the reason I was still alive. I’d closed my eyes, resigned to accept my fate, but when the gun went off, I didn’t feel a thing. No slamming force or searing pain. I opened my eyes, wondering if I’d died and my mind just didn’t know it yet. Then Naz crashed to the ground beside me.
I thought he’d broken her—beat her and caged her until she had no fight left—but I’d been wrong. Her blue eyes, wide and feral, were locked on Naz’s motionless body as though he might reanimate and come after her. As if she were replaying every excruciating, humiliating thing he’d ever done to her. It was no wonder she put three more bullets into him.
A half hour later, up to my neck in a tub full of steaming hot water, and I still couldn’t believe all that had happened.
“I grabbed some food for you,” Primo said when he came back to the bathroom. He’d let me soak for a bit while he’d made some calls and managed things downstairs. I’d needed the time alone to process.
Impossible Odds: A Mafia Romance (The Five Families Book 4) Page 18
