by K. J. Thomas
“Avery, Avery!” My grandfather’s hard voice gets my attention. “Go to Garrett’s office now and get to the panic room.” I just stand and look at him, unable to move. “Go, now!” He screams.
He doesn’t need to tell me again. I jump and turn in the direction I just came from, back toward the office I passed.
The men must’ve doubled in size, it seems like there’s so many of them running in all different directions.
I can hear Vito and Mac yelling and screaming orders. Guys are running around everywhere. I don’t know where Arya and Garrett are.
I slip inside the den, it’s peaceful and dark, quieter. The alarms are still blaring, but it’s not as bad in here. As soon as I turn on the light, so I can find the panic room easier, that’s when my world shifts again. I’m quickly grabbed from behind, and a huge, thick hand is placed over my mouth. This hand, and this person, smells nothing like Asher.
Luca.
My heart starts to pound instantly. I just wanna lay on the floor and curl into a ball, this can’t be happening. This can’t be the end of everything when things are going so good right now.
I know Luca can feel me shake with fear, and it’ll make him more excited. Sick fuck.
His hand is still covering my mouth, his other one starts to explore everywhere, greedy and rash. More for pain, not pleasure.
He bites my neck, making me cry out, no sounds are heard except my muffled ones from behind his hand.
He grabs my left boob and squeezes painfully then twists the nipple. He’s pressed hard against my back, excited as he keeps gyrating his hips into mine.
“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth, and if you scream, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t,” Luca growls in my ear. Just the way he tells me this, I know that he’s serious.
I nod, but all I know is that if I get one scream out, this nightmare will be over.
As soon as he releases me, I take a deep breath. He catches on immediately to what I’m gonna do. His hand slams against my mouth again, hard enough to knock my front teeth loose.
In the next moment, I realize that my few minutes of bravado might’ve cost me when the cold tip of a gun presses against my head.
Guns go off, and the sound echoes throughout the house as I hear yelling and stomping. Thankfully, Luca’s gun didn’t go off, it was from somewhere on the other side of this door. They’re not just yelling, some of the wounded are screaming.
This snaps Luca back to the reason why he came here. “Let’s go baby,” he says in a sickly-sweet voice. A total one-eighty from where he just was.
There is no way in hell I’m leaving this house with him. I imagine for a few days he’ll probably beat and rape me. Then, he’ll get bored and lose interest.
I silently apologize to Arya and Garrett, but I’d much rather die here around family at least. I just don’t want them to deal with losing me in their home.
Luca yanks on my hand. His other hand has the gun, and he looks out into the hallway carefully checking back and forth. Once he’s satisfied, I’m violently yanked forward again, and we keep walking.
My mouth is uncovered and all I wanna do is scream. Right now, that’s not the best thing to do. I’ll have an opening here soon, I just got to figure out when the right one will be. Before it’s too late.
Nine
AVERY
Even though we’re at the Stone’s house, if we were at the Romano compound it would take longer for Luca to get me out of the house. Here, the house is not nearly close in size. Even though it’s a good size, it’s still a smaller house.
He’s going to have us out of here in no time, but at least it’s not like the other compound, where he could force me in the room and do whatever he wants. My heart sinks a little bit as Luca continues to tug and pull on me, not caring if he pops my arm out of my socket or not.
It won’t be long till we get to the back door. We’re on the first floor, so I’d say within a minute will be out of this house.
Luca senses my nervousness and laughs quietly.
“Fuck Avery,” he growls, “I cannot wait to tie you to my fucking bed for a few days, and I can enjoy you like I should’ve already done. We should’ve been fucking like crazy all the damn time.”
My mouth opens a little in shock. I want to spit on him, scratch his eyes out or do whatever I can, but I need to keep quiet. This fucker killed my parents and he’s acting like I should’ve put out.
This might be the only chance that I have. This question has been plaguing me forever. “Why?”
I don’t need to go on about my question, he knows exactly what I mean.
Luca sighs and scratches his forehead with the gun as we slow down. “That was my biggest mistake.” He looks down at me and sees the shock on my face. He shakes his head at me. “Your parents still needed to die. They deserved that, for getting in our fucking way. The way I saw it, it wouldn’t have taken long before your dad offed me, so basically, I acted in defense.”
I continue to try and zone him out. I don’t want to listen to him talk about himself. Is this guy playing the fucking victim? I glance down at the gun and wish that it was in my hands just for two seconds.
“It was my father’s idea,” Luca keeps his voice low and yanks on my arm. The pain pulls me out of my wishful thinking. “Your dad was a stubborn old fuck, and so is Vito. Neither one of them would ever let us stay together.”
Luca slams to a halt, causing me to run into him, then looks at me. “My family should be fucking seated with the other heads during the meetings. We should fucking be there.”
He’s spitting, his face red and angry. I know I need to try to calm him down, but I’m not even sure how to anymore.
He drags us back down the hallway. “I was supposed to get close to you, close enough to where I could get rid of all of you.”
He doesn’t talk for a few more seconds as the tears start rolling down my face. My first real boyfriend, the one I gave my virginity to, was actually a set up.
“I didn’t think you’d be at the house that night, you kept talking about going over to your friends. You weren’t supposed to be there. After your parents died you would’ve come to me and been in my arms.” He shakes his head. I really don’t wanna hear about this shit, but this mood is a lot better than his other one.
“My heart sank after I found out you were there, and I thought I killed you. Things changed for me at the end, and all I know is that, Avery, you’re going to be with me.” Luca pushes us into the pantry in the kitchen. Several of my grandpa’s guards go running by. He stops talking, his mouth covers my mouth. I stay still as he kisses and nips trying to get me to open for him. I look at him and think, Oh God.
When I don’t hear anything anymore, I expect Luca to drag us back out, but he continues his assault on me. I don’t wanna do this and I try to push him away. I manage to punch his chest which makes him laugh and push harder.
Luca’s quietly laughing when we leave the pantry and walk towards the exit in the dark.
It hit me right then, I want to know how in hell does Luca know where everything is, this is not my house. We’re not in Chicago anymore. And I doubt he would’ve been able to move around in here, without being detected until now.
“How are you so familiar with this house?” I ask on a whisper. I wasn’t sure if I even said it out loud, but I did.
Luca gives me a big toothy smile. “That’s a very interesting story, one that I had planned on saving for later, but I think now is a good time.”
I wait, I’m not gonna beg the asshole to tell me.
“I know you met my cousin Mal.” He looks at me annoyed. “Yeah, fucker’s been doing jobs for me every now and then. He is damn good at what he does.”
“Oh my God.” How could we have been so stupid? When Tate finds out, this is going to break her heart. Even if Luca does manage to knock me off, eventually everything that happens will come to fruition.
Mal infiltrated our close-knit group of two. Within the fucking day h
e was already in my house and probably able to outline where everything was. I want to look around, but I’m not in a position to do so at the time. Did he install cameras? “Fuck,” I barely whisper so Luca doesn’t get the satisfaction of seeing how much this news upsets me.
I’ve been so afraid for myself and dying, but now I’m pissed. I hate the feeling of betrayal.
We are walking so slowly, we have to take our time to hide behind shit whenever anyone walks by. I want to shout out, but I know whose attention I get will be the end of them. I could get lucky and possibly get away, but the chances are slim to none. Luca is probably more trained than half the guards. Luca’s phone rings and he pushes us behind the door in the laundry room. He doesn’t shut it because it was open originally.
“What?” Luca snaps waiting impatiently.
He still has his grip on me when he screams. “Fuck!” His grip is painful, causing me to whimper and move to the side. I almost fall on my ass.
Luca looks at me and snaps, “this isn’t over by a fucking longshot.”
I’m silent and still, we’re standing face-to-face, and I have no clue what the hell he’s talking about. It takes me a second to piece it together when he cocks his arm back. It shoots forward striking me straight in the face. I can feel warmth on my skin right before my eyes roll in the back of my head and I drop.
I GROAN AS I SLOWLY come back. I remember exactly what happened. I’m still laying on my side, I know I need to get up and make sure that I’m safe and make sure that everybody else is safe, but the pain is killing me.
I put my hand up and touch my nose and my right eyebrow on the side where I can feel warmth trickling down my face. I shouldn’t be shocked by what happened. The pain is excruciating. I try to touch my nose, but that’s not happening. The fucker snapped my nose and there’s a huge split over my eye.
I groan more as I try to sit up, my head is just fucking killing me. Not only was I completely hung over, somebody rattled my brain around.
I quickly sit up and turn to the side, spilling the contents of more alcohol from the night before and some bile or air I guess, I couldn’t tell.
I push myself to get up using the wall for help. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to make sure that everything’s okay before I can even attempt to process my pain or what happened. It’s quiet now. I hear people moving fast, but nothing like the running and yelling from before. That horrible blaring fucking alarm has finally stopped, at least there’s some good news.
Better news is that Luca isn’t yanking me outside taking me to my demise. I would like to keep it that way, so I push myself a little harder crawling out from behind the door.
It takes me another minute before I am fully upright, using the wall for leverage, and I make my way toward the voices I can hear. I freeze momentarily as a thought passes through my head. What if, after Luca knocked me out, he went after my family?
It doesn’t get easier as I get my ass in gear and walk faster. The pounding is still there but I don’t feel like I’m dying. At least the house isn’t sitting on my head and I don’t need to violently puke anymore.
When I enter the dining room, I’m relieved when I spot Vito and Mac. My grandfather’s skin looks pasty and his clothes, the normally beautiful suits he wears, are rumpled. I don’t know how Mac manages to pull it off, that boy looks a shade lighter.
Arya and Garrett are in the corner with his arms wrapped around her. I can hear the sniffles of crying.
“God damnit!” My grandfather slams his hand down on the dining room table causing me to whimper and groan out as I grab my head quickly.
Arya screams and I can hear footsteps running in my direction. Mac is the first one that reaches me.
He moves my hand away from my head and starts analyzing my wounds. He backs off for a second, pulling out his phone as Vito runs up and engulfs me in a huge hug.
“I thought that son of a bitch got you,” my big bad ass mafia boss grandfather chokes as he says this to me, making me start to cry. I know the situation I was in, it’s rearing its ugly head pointing out just how bad things were. I could’ve died, almost again, at the hands of the same asshole who tried to kill me in the first place.
Arya has herself wrapped around me. I look up at Garrett and notice unshed tears still in his eyes. He’s fighting to be strong right now, to not let go. I don’t know what makes me do it, but I step forward and wrap myself around them, letting go of Vito. These people have done so much for me and he’s not even blood. He never had to do any of this and he did.
I hear sniffles as he hugs me tightly. Tighter than he ever has. I know he’s happy I’m safe.
FIVE MINUTES LATER the doctor shows up. Apparently that’s who Mac was calling. I guess grandpa has a doc on retainer, that doesn’t shock me. I’ve heard stories and I’ve seen the TV shows where a guy gets shot and they take him to the vet or have some shady looking guy who lost his license work on him. I chuckle to myself.
I am also on pain medicine, which is freaking awesome. My head isn’t killing me, and I can actually hear when people talk to me. Plus, the dial-a-doctor bandaged my nose. It has some splint thing on it with a bunch of white tape. Honestly, I don’t care. As soon as he put it back in place it felt so much better. I had to have stitches on my eye, but that didn’t faze me after I took the pain medicine.
The doctor left a few minutes ago, and at the same time Tate and Mal come running in. I’m not exactly sure how they knew something happened, maybe my grandpa used my phone and called them, or they just came back to check on me. Who knows, who cares.
I can’t seem to keep my eyes off Mal. When he looks at me, he winces, and I see guilt written all over his face. Dammit, he knows exactly what he did and that hurts, really fucking hurts.
Tate looks shocked and scared and very confused, she still doesn’t know who I am and doesn’t know my history. Her and Vito are very cordial to each other, even nice, so I’m fairly sure they don’t even know who each other are.
Vito has got to know who Tate is, he has to know everybody. He’s not gonna say anything. He knows she’s a Mancini, and that she’s my very dear best friend. I’m just grateful that she hasn’t recognized him, she wanted out of this world, so she went across the country. She’s not gonna waste her time looking up pictures of everybody.
Most of the guards leave the room, stationing themselves around the house. My grandfather told me that they knocked out over half of Luca’s men and were closing in on them fast. If he tried to take me, there’s a good chance he would’ve been caught.
I’m incredibly grateful but at the same time I’m shocked because it was too easy. If not that one little mistake on the Delano’s part, I wouldn’t be here, shit, I might not even be living anymore.
I sit on the couch in the middle with Arya and Garrett at one side and Tate on my other. Mal is standing next to the end of the couch right by Tate. My grandfather sits right in front of me with Mac next to him. They want to know the whole story.
I tell him everything I can, not the really graphic scenes about what Luca plans to do to me and him grabbing me. I can tell my grandfather knows I’m not giving all the details on certain things. Thankfully, he doesn’t make me, I know this is hurting the hell out of him.
“He’s told me everything about why he killed my parents.” My grandfather’s head snaps up. “His father had sent him to do it because they feel that they weren’t justified on their lower level in the family.”
I don’t even get finished before my grandfather stands up and screams. “Fuck!” as loud as he can, shocking all of us.
I know he’s emotional, not thinking where he’s at, but he looks over to Mac and growls. “This is war,” Mac doesn’t even think, he nods and agrees.
I keep answering any questions he has, but there’s really nothing more, except for one huge bomb to lay on them, one I’ve been trying to avoid. I keep glancing at Mal, he knows it’s coming and he looks so disheartened, as he should be.
I start to talk again, and everybody listens, so my grandfather sits back down. This time I face Mal the whole time I talk. “He had an insider, somebody that was doing all of his dirty work for him. Basically, mapping out our house to make everything easier.”
It doesn’t take my family more than a few seconds to realize I’m not even looking at them, they put two-and-two together. Mac snaps his fingers and nods in Mal’s direction. The guards quickly engage him, he doesn’t even fight.
“I’m so sorry, Avery and Tate. I had no choice.” A single tear leaks from his eye.
I keep glancing at Tate. I know she’s hurting, she’s been on the phone this whole time I’ve been telling the story. I want to ask her who she’s talking to, but she dropped the phone in her lap not even caring anymore. “I’m so sorry.”
She snaps her attention to me and asks. “Why the fuck would you be sorry? I invited him into our group, I let him in.” She waves her hand in Mal’s direction which is only a few feet away. The guards have his hands cuffed behind his back as they put him in the dining room chair, so the rest of us can watch while he explains everything.
“Never again. We will thoroughly check everybody from now on.” Mac looks over at me. He feels bad, it’s only been one day since I asked him for info. I give him a small smile, letting him know not to worry, there’s no way he could’ve found out information that fast.
The boss side of my grandfather is taking over. He took off the suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He still has on his pants, his belt, and his button down. He looks like one scary fucker. I could see the anger flowing through his blood, I could feel it.
“Talk,” he snaps at Mal. My heart is just breaking. I don’t even want to see Mal like this, what he did to us was horrible. He can’t even look at my face without knowing it.
He blinks his eyes and looks down at my aunt’s beautiful carpet that is covered in blood spots, most likely from me.
“Luca has been blackmailing me for the past three years.” Tate and I weren’t expecting that, so we listen more closely. “I’m gay and being gay in this life is not allowed.” Mal looks over at me and then my grandfather.
