Divided (Unguarded #2)

by Ivy Stone

  First floor, clear.

  Elevator, clear.

  The elevator dings. The doors open up and time slows down. Cassidy’s pain stricken face greets us with a whole new nightmare.

  Her breathing is shallow and her chest heaves. Her shoulders droop and her voice tremors. “We’re too late. They’re gone.”

  Bumps. One after another.

  I slide, as whatever I’m in turns.

  We’re moving. We must be moving.

  My head throbs. My breathing is labored. My lungs struggle for breath thanks to the material covering my head. Every part of my body aches. Especially my cheek and my arms. My arms are tied up. Around something metal, maybe a pole. I groan as I try to move. Everything is slowly becoming clearer. I can hear faint voices in the light, but I’m still in darkness. I try to open my eyes but my lids are too heavy.

  Banging starts. Frantic clanking against something metal and I whimper, the throb in my head thumping at the sound.

  “Alison. Is that you?”

  My ears perk up. “Lindsey.”

  “Alison, oh… thank God. You’re alive.”

  Her voice loosens the grip on my heart. She’s alive. I’m alive. We’re not gone yet which means there’s time. Cassidy would have been on her way over. When she finds us gone, she’ll call Roamyn and the others. I just have to pray they can somehow find us. Before we end up dead.

  “Barely. My arms are going to fall off. I can’t move.” I groan as I try to sit up, my back protesting as it cracks.

  “Ali, listen to me. Can you see anything, feel anything nearby? Are your hands tied up? I can’t move. I—”

  A door slides open, the cool wind brushes against my skin. A shiver trembles through me, but it’s not from the weather.

  “Well, well, you’re both awake. Just in time for your deaths.” Lucio’s indifferent tone sends me sprawling back into the corner of the vehicle. I hear a pull on chains and Lindsey grunt. Of course, she’s fighting back. She’s strong, confident, nothing can tear her down. I tuck my head low and Lucio laughs at me for retreating or Lindsey for fighting, I’m not sure. Either way, he’s a cold-blooded asshole.

  “Oh, little Lindsey, give up now. Fighting will only make it worse.” Lucio mocks her with the nickname he’s always used for her, despite him being the younger of the two.

  “I will never stop fighting,” she spits back while I stay silent. I’ve grown so much over the past few months, but being in Lucio’s presence binds me with hopelessness and sends me straight back into the dark hole I tried so hard to crawl out from.

  Someone rips the material off of my head. Light blinds me. I squint to adjust to the brightness. The cuffs around my wrists are undone and I breathe relief when my arms are free. My eyes scan for Lindsey, panic ripping through me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, a tremble in her tone. I don’t have time to answer before I’m yanked out of the vehicle by one of Lucio’s men.

  He and Lindsey argue until he’s had enough taunting her and reaches for me. Pulling me forward, we draw near to an abandoned warehouse made up of glass and graffitied rusted steel. Sirens echo through the factory district. Please be coming to save us. Optimism subsides, fast. A shiver jolts through me like a lightning strike sent to kill me. Giuseppe Marino walks out of the shadows. His presence validates everything I’ve been trying to convince myself won’t happen. Panic retches nausea from me. I heave. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die now. Giuseppe sneers at me, cigarette in one hand, and a gun in the other. Beside him, two associates with big guns—huge guns, scary guns—that cause my heart to work faster as my breathing becomes shallower. God, Cassidy hurry up. Please? Smoke fills my lungs as Lucio pushes me toward him. Lindsey comes up beside me, shoulders heaving, fury behind her big blue eyes. If looks could kill, every man in this building would be dead.

  “Lucio, about time, boy. Took you long enough. Girls, come in.” He throws his cigarette to the ground and steps to the side, gesturing a hand out in front of him for us.

  “Come on,” Lucio mutters to me. But my feet refuse to move.

  Lucio squeezes my arm, tight and bruising, and whispers in my ear, “Get moving, Ali. Don’t make this worse for yourself.”

  I protest every word and scowl at him through the sweaty, damp hair sticking to my forehead and falling across my face. I grit my teeth. “What do you care?”

  His eyes soften for a brief moment and for a second my heart lifts with a possible out. But I should have known better.

  His lips curve into a smirk and his eyes harden. “I don’t, baby.”

  A shudder ripples through me and I cringe.

  He laughs and shoves me forward into a big room with plaster peeling off the walls and concrete beams scattered throughout the level. His gun digging into the center of my back until he shunts it down on my shoulder, sending me straight to my knees. I cry out in pain and Lindsey smacks down beside me.

  “You asshole. Want to be any rougher?” she snaps back at the man who roughed her up, but he says nothing. He must know to say nothing if he wants to keep his job.

  “Ah, so good to see you in fine form, Lindsey. I see nothing has changed over the past few months.” I kink my neck back to find Giuseppe’s smug face, smiling down at Lindsey.

  “Fuck. You,” she hisses. All breath escapes me, waiting for the hit. The slap. Maybe a bullet for her backchat, but no retaliation comes which serves to confuse me more. I’ve never known what it was my sister did for him, I just knew it wasn’t legal. But it’s clear Giuseppe actually… respects her. I narrow in on my sister, and my hair lifts on the back of my neck at her bared teeth, flaring nostrils, and tightness in her eyes. I gulp, fear clogging my airways because I’ve never seen this side of Lindsey. The side where emotion is a foreign concept, never seen, never felt—always a weakness. Where one second could be the difference between being killed and her killing. I glance back at Giuseppe, who’s grinning, loving every second of riling my sister up. My heart cracks at the realization of just how much I don’t know about Lindsey. We’d grown apart over the years. Both of us had reasons and played our roles in our lives dividing, but one thing is for sure, she’s more badass than I was ever aware of. I pray she can save us if the police can’t. Giuseppe runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair, which is perfectly aligned as it is every day. He bends down, undoing the button on his suit jacket as he moves. For a man who kills for leisure on a daily basis, there isn’t a drop of stained blood on his expensive suit.

  “You ungrateful bitch… after everything I’ve done for you. After all these years of leading you down the right path, setting you up for a future in our world, you go and fuck it all up over your junkie sister who can’t stay clean.” A chuckle falls from his lips as he stands back up and he pulls a gun from inside his jacket, waving it around as he continues speaking, my heart sinking with the echo of his words in my head.

  Your junkie sister.

  “You know, I always thought you were a smart girl, Lindsey. But what you did in court, not so smart. Now you will pay, both of you will.”

  A cry rips from somewhere deep inside of me. A strength I didn’t know I had pulls from me, unrelenting because I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not a junkie. I’m not a whore and refuse to fall victim to these men again.

  “No. Please. You can’t. Not now, you can’t kill me now.” My body rocks with the sobs coming from me. I yell, I scream, I try, striving for a future that’s no longer just a dream. I try for me, for Lindsey, for Roamyn. I won’t give up.

  “Oh, enough already. Come on, Papa, just get this done. I have to go meet Cannon in ten minutes.”

  “Would you shut your fucking mouth, boy? Listen to yourself. You talk too fucking much in front of people,” Giuseppe yells at his son, his Italian accent thick and loud.

  “They’re about to die. What the fuck does it matter what they hear?”

  The men quip back and forth, but I barely hear them over my heart smacking against my ribs, loud a
nd harrowing.

  A soft touch soothes my back and I lift my head from my knees. Lindsey tries to calm me with a tight smile but it doesn’t relieve any fear.

  “All right. Enough! It’s time.”

  Lindsey and I both jump at Giuseppe’s tone, but when he trains his gun to my forehead, I turn to stone. Pain attacks my lungs, stealing air. I shake my head furiously. My chin trembles. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out because I can hardly breathe and my body fails me at the thought I’m about to die.

  His lips curl into a smile, bringing on more tears. I whimper.

  Lindsey reaches out, surrendering. Her voice is loud, scratchy, racking with fear for the first time since we entered the warehouse. “No! Don’t. Don’t kill her.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not yet.” Giuseppe tilts his head to the side, something snide in his tone ripples a chill over my clammy skin.

  “One last person wants to see you, Alison,” he announces, his voice so smooth, without care that he’s about to kill me.

  A woman’s heels travel toward me and as I spin around my heart fights to find balance between relief and revulsion.

  “Oh, shit,” Lindsey whispers.

  “Adriana,” her name falls from my lips, barely above a whisper.

  She smiles at her father, greeting him the same way she would at any family gathering. “Princess.” Giuseppe envelopes his daughter with care and love he had once shown myself and Lindsey. Bile rises in my throat imagining those years.

  “Papa, why don’t you let me do the honors with these two? After all, Ali was my best friend.” Adriana gives me a sweet smile, laced with evil, and it’s a blow worse than any Lucio or his father could have laid on me because this is Adriana. My best friend, putting out the palm of her hand for Giuseppe to slip her his gun. A gun she’ll use to kill me.

  How could she?

  Why would she?

  “Make it clean, Adriana. We don’t need a big mess to clean up.”

  My pulse speeds up. The adrenaline pushes me to fight.

  “Adriana no, please. Don’t do this. I’m sorry, okay? So sorry I betrayed our family,” I beg and plead. Every part of me trembling worse with every passing second. Adriana never meets my pleas with a response or look. I sit back down, my chest caves in.

  Adriana coughs and sits her shoulders back. She stands tall, posture stiff, legs apart, eyeing Lindsey while turning the gun on me.

  I meet the barrel of the gun.

  I meet the end.

  I make peace with the present.

  “Are you ready, Lindsey?” she asks and Lindsey frowns.

  I close my eyes and Roamyn appears.

  I whisper, “I love you,” even though he won’t hear it.

  I still.

  Bang.

  I wait for it, for the moment where my soul is sucked from my body. When everything goes dark. When I leave this life and enter the next. But my heart still pounds heavily in my chest. Hot wet tears stain my cheeks. Gasps and rustling fill the air around me. My eyes fly open and everything slows. I soak in the fog of delirium while it lasts. Giuseppe is sprawled out on the ground, blood and brains splattered on his face and suit from a bullet wound to his skull. Adriana and Lindsey are fighting off Giuseppe and Lucio’s men, one by one. Another man comes from nowhere, shooting off bullets into the air and my panic deepens until I recognize the deep brown eyes behind his murderous stare. No. It couldn’t be.

  My eyes must deceive me. I blink again and my stomach flutters because I wasn’t imagining the madness I thought I saw. Lorenzo Baccarelli, Adriana’s childhood crush. Prince of the Baccarelli crime family. A boy whose death broke my best friend’s heart. A boy we mourned when his life was taken in retribution for the sins of his family. There he stands over a sight I’ve dreamt of since I was fifteen years old.

  Giuseppe Marino.

  Cold.

  Lifeless.

  And so very dead.

  He’s gone.

  Relief floods me like a tsunami until the waves pull me down when Lucio comes marching toward me. I scramble to my feet just in time for his gun to kiss my cheek and hand to grab my hair.

  He yanks me into his chest and two gunshots ring out. I twist around to see where they came from but I’m not fast enough.

  His hands bruise my neck as he yanks me around. His lips descend, too close to my ear. “Walk now. Scream, and I pull the trigger.”

  Like hell, I won’t scream.

  I open my mouth and Lucio realizes what I’m about to do. His hand clamps down over my mouth, muffling my cry for help.

  “Lindsey!”

  It’s barely audible but catches her attention. It takes her all but a second to run in my direction, her feet pounding the pavement. Lucio hooks an arm under my chest and drags me away. I kick at his legs. I punch him as hard as I can, but it’s as successful as hitting a brick wall. He’s too strong. Too built. Like the man who rips Lindsey back by her hair. The light at the end of the tunnel dims the further Lucio drags me away from my sister.

  “Ali!” she yells, fighting off her attackers, but it’s not enough. The man pins her to the ground with his body and hits her across the face.

  Blow after blow.

  I gasp. My hands fly to my mouth but a cry still racks through. My lungs constrict, the pain—stabbing. And not just from Lucio holding me tight. What I’m witnessing twists up my insides far worse than Lucio’s body strength ever could. Sirens grow louder in the distance, but my hope remains fragile as we drift further away from Lindsey and the others, and closer to my last moments of freedom.

  “Ahh.” I stub my toe on the concrete as Lucio forces me to run down the street at gunpoint. We flee the quiet main road turning at the first corner, and as we do, blue and red flashing lights fly toward us. Police officers jump out and Lucio wastes no time shooting open the door of the closest building. I stumble on my feet on the way into another abandoned factory, nearly face-planting the floor. My hands save me on the way down. They sting from smacking the ground.

  “Get up,” Lucio grunts. I try to stand, but I’m slow. My legs are weak. He yanks me up by the arm and we’re off again. Movement comes from behind us, followed by a voice I don’t recognize.

  “NYPD. Stop where you are and put down the weapon.”

  Lucio and I look back at the same time and find Elias gaining on us and Roamyn not far behind him. Relief springs from my heavy chest. This is it. Freedom is close, so close, but an enormous risk away. If I can slow Lucio down, the guys will get to us. Roamyn will save me. If I can break away I can save myself or, at least, die trying. At least, I could go with pride and my dignity intact.

  I take a deep breath and channel my anger. My hope. I imagine my dreams. My love and when I draw in that strength pulling free of Lucio’s hold. My chest rises and falls fast as I try to catch my breath, but time is running out. I make myself run in the opposite direction and within a few steps, I fly into Roamyn’s big arms. He tightens them around me. His hand caresses the back of my head, the other bunches around the back of my tank top.

  He murmurs into my hair. “Thank God you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay,” I rasp out.

  I’m okay.

  I’m okay.

  He sets me back with a kiss on the forehead and gives me a once over. His body still tense with alarm and breathing heavy, matching my own.

  “You good?”

  I nod my head, unable to speak as my lungs work in overdrive.

  “Good, I have to go find Eli—”

  Bang.

  Another gunshot rings out.

  Our heads turn toward the echoing of the shot. The sound following the path Elias and Lucio took. Everything slows as I turn back to Roamyn, and as I do he runs at the speed of a man with everything to lose. He takes off around the corner of the empty building. I stand still, unsure where to run, whether to wait for Roamyn or run like hell towards the police. Toward my sister. Without another second to decide the decision is made for me whe
n men in swat uniforms swarm around me.

  One greets me, dressed all in black gear. He drops the large gun in his grip to his side. “Miss, you need to come with us now.”

  “But Roamyn, he’s back there with—”

  He puts a hand on my back and gently pushes me forward. “We know. We’ll get them. We need you safe, it’s time to get you out of here.”

  I look back and protest. “Please. I don’t want to leave him.”

  He ignores my plea. Fresh air whips through me as we make it out of the building.

  “Roamyn!” I call out, so loud my throat becomes hoarse.

  Please be okay. Please get out alive.

  Sirens blast around me from multiple police vehicles, drowning out my voice. They block off the street with the help of SWAT and NYPD officers who are scattered everywhere in my line of sight. The officer who brought me out is now talking to a paramedic.

  I turn to both of them. “Lindsey Jenkins. My sister. Did she get out? Have you seen her?” I ask, my tone frantic.

  The paramedic smiles and the knots in my stomach untangle. “She’s okay. The police just got her.”

  My heart skips a beat. “Oh, thank God.”

  Easing some of the worry I turn back to the building.

  Come on. Come on, Roamyn.

  My palms sweat. I link my trembling hands together. My eyes never leave the door as I wait in fear. I can’t lose him. I can’t lose him even if he isn’t mine to lose.

  I bite my nails and begin pacing when a voice slashes through my nerves.

  “We need more help here!”

  His deep throaty voice sends me running toward him through the thick commotion as he wheels out Elias on a gurney, SWAT team and two paramedics beside him.

  “Roamyn!” I yell.

  He turns at my voice and scoops me up. I bury my face in his neck and his scent invades me, warming my body. He’s okay. He’s alive. I’m alive. I soak in the comfort it brings my heart until reality smothers my reprieve.