Adriano & Cam

by Soraya Naomi

  I see no terror in hers, only willpower and ire. It’s her Calderone mafia blood that has her clamping her jaw while I practically see her mind spinning with escape scenarios. Her determination fuels my own as I glance sideways at Luca, who’s wearily observing Fallon.

  But my worst nightmare becomes reality, and determination transforms into a cold fury when Cam’s zipper is being slid down. I squeeze my eyes shut for just a second, attempting to block it out, before they fly back open with my rage. Darkness that resides inside of me crawls out and suffocates me whenever she’s in danger. Someone will pay dearly for this little mission.

  “If anyone touches her,” I warn Maxim, “I will show you evil in this world that you’ve never even imagined.”

  He doesn’t waver a beat. “Then just accept my business. Again, this is not personal, gentlemen.”

  Maxim is texting with his three men downstairs, who are waiting for their next command. Cam struggles as she’s pinned on her back with her hands above her head, her zipper down so far that her breasts are almost on display. Astonishingly, Fallon looks calm, and I zero in on her hand, which is at her side and seems to be moving inside her dress pocket.

  “I said no,” Luca repeats this time.

  “What’s your plan? How are you even going to get out of here?” I point out.

  “That’s not for you to worry about. You have the power to end all of this now, and we’ll leave in peace—”

  “Peace?” I snort, and he loses his patience with Luca and me because we’re not budging. “You lost your chance to leave in peace a long time ago, Ukrainian.” On the outside, I remain stoic while blood is rushing heatedly through my ears, and I keep studying the screen.

  “You’re not in a position to be so arrogant, Italian.”

  “You just declared war,” I counter.

  “No. You don’t threaten us.” Maxim comes at me, hitting my temple with the butt of his gun. “Your smug smirk is annoying me.”

  Searing pain blurs my vision, but I clear my mind easily when I hear Cam shouting.

  On the screen, I have to watch her thrashing on the bed while one man grips her arms and another orders Santino, “Kiss her!” And he digs his fingers into her cheeks, presenting her face to Santino.

  “We were quite fortunate to encounter this Santino in the cell and have a little chat with your captive. I think he has a soft spot for your lady...” Maxim taunts me.

  “You motherfucker!” I twist my wrists, trying to get free, to no avail.

  “Last chance, Montesi.”

  I stall, shooting daggers at the screen while Cam kicks and writhes. But when Santino’s forced onto her and his face is pressed into her cleavage as she screams bloody murder, I lose my composure and reveal how much this is affecting me. She’s in pain with her arms stretched above her head, her breathing ragged. When the one I love most dearly in this world is in jeopardy, an undisputable strength awakens inside of me. It’s a beast, clawing to get loose.

  “You’ll never leave this place alive,” I growl in a low voice.

  “Oh, yes, I will. We can keep going all night until one of you surrenders.” Maxim types on his phone just as Cam’s being fully exposed, her zipper completely open.

  “I’ll fucking cut you when I’m free,” Cam screams and spits in the man’s face as he looms over her.

  No, I’m going to torture each and every one of them for daring to touch my Cam. But as much as what they’re doing to her guts me, I have to concentrate and conjure a plan for how to get us all out of this mess. I can tell by the amount of time it’s taking for the Ukrainians to communicate with each other that this isn’t a well thought out mission. Perhaps they had to deviate from their original scheme at some point; maybe when they found Santino? While they’re taking so much time to figure out exactly what they’re going to do, I need my guards to discover either the breach on this floor or the underground floor and move into action since the Ukrainians didn’t manage to disrupt the dance club because of the tight security there.

  As I’m forming a strategy in my mind, a mocking laugh ensues from Maxim. “She is feisty.”

  Luca’s been calm so far, but I know him, and he’s on the verge of blowing up too. For a second, our gazes clash as I grit my teeth and continue to work my wrists in the duct tape while Maxim peers at the screen.

  “I told you that we rule this part of the underworld,” Maxim chides, looking at the screen. “Not you. You chose to do this the hard way. Do you want both of them to be assaulted down there?”

  At that moment, I make eye contact with Luca. Then, with all my strength, I wrench my wrists free as Luca and my guard tumble their chairs back against the men standing behind them. During the commotion, I snatch the gun from the guard behind me and shoot Maxim in the leg while bending down and grabbing my knife from my ankle holster and using it to cut the tape loose from Luca’s feet. Then I release a bullet into the shoulder of Luca’s guard so that I can free Luca’s wrists, but the guard who was working at the control panel jumps on me as I duck down and roll, taking the chair with me since my feet are still bound to it, and we wrestle for the gun. His knee hits my stomach, and I grunt while keeping the barrel of the gun pointed at him until he lunges for it and redirects my aim so that when I manage to pull the trigger, the bullet hits the wall.

  I relax my hold on the gun for a split-second, catching him off guard long enough for me to move my aim onto him and fire at his throat, his blood spraying on my face as I push him away. Hurriedly glancing at the screen, terror overcomes me when I see Cam still struggling.

  Meanwhile, Luca jams his boot into the stomach of the guard that’s manhandling him and is able to jerk free just as he’s smashed in the jaw. Luca leaps to his feet while Maxim, who’s lying on the ground with blood seeping from his leg, takes hold of his own weapon and raises it at him.

  My vision is too impaired from the blood on my face for me to get a clear shot, so I warn Luca as Maxim directs his pistol on him, “Luca!”

  Luca ducks just in time so that the bullet misses him.

  Fortunately, back-up finally shows up when Wade bursts into the room and shouts, “Drop it!”

  More of my guards barge inside and seize the intruders.

  Before Luca’s able to cut my feet entirely loose, I stagger up, my mood savage. “Give me your earpiece,” I command my main guard. “And, Wade, get me into that fucking underground or I’ll shut this club down and there will be hell to pay in all of Chicago. Do you hear me?!”

  CHAPTER 19

  Camilla

  Out of breath, I kick my legs and scream when Santino’s mouth is pushed onto my breast, and I’m helpless to do anything because my gun has fallen onto the floor beside the bed. But I was cut and abused when Sal held me captive for five months as a slave three years ago, so I can handle this. I spit in the guard’s face, and in reaction, he backhands my cheek and pounces on me. Throbbing pain stings my skin, but a piercing voice gives me a chance to break free.

  “Get the hell off her!” Fallon yells.

  Santino manages to pull back and push himself off me just in time for me to see Fallon gripping the knife Rosalia gave her and plunging it into her guard’s lower stomach behind her with all her power.

  Olek hands a small, rectangular device to his guard and says, “Get out of here now, and take this to Yakiv asap.”

  The guard Fallon stabbed whines in misery and doubles over while Fallon hurls herself onto Olek’s back. He’s much stronger than she is, and as she grabs his hair, he stumbles backward, slamming Fallon against the wall with a loud grunt.

  “Ah, shit!” she yells but tries to gouge her fingers into his eyes as he recklessly aims his gun and starts shooting.

  Bullets ricochet off the walls, and I dodge them to get to him, knocking the weapon from his hand as he bangs Fallon against the wall.

  I snatch his gun off the floor, breathing frantically. “Stop moving! Are you okay, Fallon?” I ask and finally zip up my suit.

&
nbsp; Fallon nods, yanking his hair as he holds up his palms in surrender.

  She jumps off his back and rushes to Santino, who’s flat on his back with a red halo forming on his chest, checking his pulse with two fingers against his neck. “He’s dead.”

  Footsteps come closer from down the hall; it must be the second guard that Olek sent out of here.

  “Fallon, search the man you stabbed for another weapon for you. Hurry.”

  The guard is lying motionless on the floor, and without hesitation, she pats down his pant legs and finds a holstered handgun, stealing it from him. Suddenly, I feel the ground vibrating and hear the steel walls opening. The footsteps retreat, probably because the second guard sees his means of escape.

  “Shit, the other guard’s going to run if our team hasn’t discovered the breach,” I mutter.

  “Then go follow him and I’ll stay here.”

  “I’m not leaving you with him.” Without having any time to waste, I shoot Olek in both knees.

  “Oh my god,” Fallon mumbles with round eyes.

  “Fucking bitch!” Olek falls forward and to the side with a girly yelp.

  “That’s for your game. I didn’t enjoy it,” I hiss and tug Fallon out with me.

  Straining to hear footsteps, we quietly trail the guard to a passageway that leads away from the sex club, but we have trouble keeping up because she’s barefoot and I’m in these freaking heels that slow me down.

  “Shit, this rough floor’s hurting my feet,” Fallon says.

  “Where’s he going?” Abruptly, I remember the floorplans from the raid and realize there’s an exit that leads to the L train station.

  I hate being down here and vow to never return. After we turn down another corridor, everything’s black in the distance, but I clearly hear boots thumping off the concrete, moving farther and farther away. Speculating about how unsafe it is for me to continue with Fallon in the dark when we don’t know what’s waiting at the end, I decide to return to the hallway where the cells are located, hoping that the party upstairs hasn’t been disturbed. However, when I turn around, I’m alone.

  “Fallon?” I glance left and right, wondering where the hell she’s gone to. “Fallon?”

  Rushing back, it takes me forever until I find a familiar passageway – the cells. I get back there just in time as our guards are running about and Adriano and Luca are pushing through them to get to me. Mercifully, I’m not alone anymore.

  “Cam, are you okay?” Adriano cups my face, and I nod as he rubs my cheekbones tenderly and releases an anguished sigh.

  “Oh my god. Are you?” I ask, seeing that his face and throat are covered in blood.

  “Yeah, it’s not my blood.” He looks over my shoulder. “Where’s Fallon?”

  “I have no idea. She was just with me, and then she was gone the next second. You have to go back with me.”

  Panic blisters across Luca’s face. “Lead the way, Cam. Now!”

  But before we can get going, Fallon appears and Luca rushes to her, meeting her halfway. “What happened? Are you hurt?” He holds her at arm’s length, examining her for injuries.

  “Where were you?” I question.

  “I lost you. You were too fast.”

  I frown because that’s obviously a lie since she was right behind me, but if I’m not mistaken, she sends me a pointed look telling me to drop it.

  “I’m okay.” She holds up her finger. “Let me catch my breath.”

  Adriano barks orders into his earpiece, “Is everything contained in the sex club?”

  He signals something to Luca as we walk back, past Santino’s cell where I discover that Olek has been killed and soldiers are cleaning up the evidence.

  “Did you get any of the members of the Ukrainian crew?” Adriano waits for the answer and then informs us, “Everything’s clear. Five extra guards remain down here. I want additional security on this floor the entire night.”

  Luca and Adriano whisper back and forth, so I softly ask Fallon, “What really happened?”

  “I’ll tell you upstairs,” she answers, piquing my interest even more.

  We’re interrupted by Adriano, who pulls me into his side as we take the elevator up to the first floor and go behind the bar and upstairs to his office. The Halloween party is still going strong, and no one notices our disheveled state.

  Adriano’s positively vibrating with rage as he holds me tightly to him, but we don’t have time to talk because he needs to take care of business first. Nonetheless, I’m afraid Olek was telling the truth when he said that Adriano had been forced to watch what they did to me.

  When we reach the hallway to Adriano’s office, it’s filled with our guards.

  “Bring me salt,” Adriano orders one of them as he enters the office that’s now occupied by three main guards, James, Carmine, Tez, Wade, Luca, Fallon, Adriano, and me.

  One of the Ukrainians is bleeding from his thigh, sitting white-faced on the chair, and dead bodies are piled in the security room when I stop next to Fallon.

  Adriano swings around and pins his men with a hard-edged glare. “This is our first major party, and we get breached. This is unacceptable! Looks like I have to beef up the security detail, yet again. I thought I had a faultless system. I did pay a fortune for it, Wade.”

  “You do have the best system. That wasn’t at fault here,” Wade defends in his gladiator attire. “The question is, how did the Ukrainians know about it? They had access codes, they had the knowledge to trigger the lock-down, and they came in via the L train station, so there has to be someone on the inside. You have a spy in here, so it’s not the system. They’ve been planning this for months. I contacted Henry, and he reset everything and lifted the walls within seconds – but they knew we’d override them.”

  “And Olek was inside Santino’s cell and his men were inside this office, which means they somehow got duplicates of one of our fingerprints,” I add and mouth to Luca, “Serena.”

  Luca acknowledges my suspicion by affirming, “Get Serena. She’s the only outsider who’s been working at the club.”

  “That fucking bitch!” Adriano roars and goes to his captive, who’s apparently named Maxim. “What was your plan, Maxim?”

  A bowl of salt is delivered by one of the guards.

  Maxim takes a deep breath, and his words are slow. “You’re out of your league, Italian.”

  “Don’t pretend to be some great evil I should be shivering over,” Adriano mocks dryly, dipping his hand into the bowl and letting the salt fall between his fingers. Then he takes his knife that was on his desk and slices open Maxim’s pant leg in one fluid motion, exposing his bleeding thigh wound. “What. Was. Your. Plan?”

  It’s dead silent as we all watch Adriano playing with the salt while eying it. The calm before the storm. His contained fury about to be set free. At once and aggressively, he scrubs a generous amount of salt into Maxim’s wound, making him thrash and cry out in pain.

  “We are the new authority here, and you’ll never leave this place alive, because you hurt Cam. You thought you were so tough ordering your man to touch her. But no one lives after touching what’s mine.” Adriano drops his knife, pins down Maxim’s arms with one of his, and grabs more salt, forcefully rubbing it into the wound. As Maxim wails and slurs, Adriano yanks his hair and hits him in the eye with a thunderous groan. “What was your fucking plan?”

  Suddenly, the door is opened, and Serena’s brought in with her wrists secured behind her back.

  “Ah, just in time for the show.” Adriano glances at me and nods, giving me the signal to take my role as Capo.

  Grabbing her hair, I shove her forward to stand next to Maxim. “Why are you working with the Ukrainians?”

  “What?” she shrieks as I tighten my fist in her hair.

  “Someone helped the Ukrainians get access to the underground floor and our security system. And it just so happens to have occurred on the same day that you tried to kiss Adriano.”

  “Why w
ould I help the Ukrainians when it would mean no more work for my girls?” Serena retorts.

  A statement that has me quiet because there’s truth in it. This entire plan of the Ukrainians makes no sense to me, so I tilt my head to Adriano.

  Then Serena addresses Adriano, “There are over fifty guards working here. I can’t be your only suspect? And my girls have it good here. Why would I want to lose that?”

  “Since you care so much about your girls,” Adriano replies. “I’ll give you one chance to live. Tez will take you downstairs to your girls now, and you will order them to sign with us; tell them that you’re taking a leave and they’ll be well protected by us.”

  If she does this, Adriano has solved one problem easily, and Serena’s frightened expression tells me she’ll give in.

  Luca has lost all patience by this point – he probably wants to be alone with Fallon, just like I want to talk to Adriano about what he actually saw since he’s extremely on edge.

  “Or...”—Luca snatches his gun and points it at Serena—“I could also murder you right now, Serena. I don’t care about the damn sex club or your girls. Cam has been assaulted. Fallon was in danger! Choose now!”

  Adriano finally releases a weakened Maxim, who’s in agony, and stares at Serena, waiting for her to respond.

  “Fine, I’ll talk to them. I have no business with the Ukrainians. And then you’ll release me?”

  “You have my word,” Luca vows and lies.

  “Tez, watch her every move,” Adriano tells him, and he says to his brother, “Carmine, you assist Tez with the papers.”

  “Do we just continue to go through the club to get to the underground? Isn’t that dangerous with so many people around?” Carmine asks as Tez tugs Serena with him.

  “Godammit, I need a direct route from this office to the underground floor,” Adriano states. “And we need to brick over that route that leads to the train station.”

  “There’s an elevator shaft that passes this office, but it’s inactive and the door’s behind the drywall,” one of the guards explains.