Hold You Against Me: A Stripped Standalone

by Skye Warren

  Then again, she might have hoped I would go to the pool house. What would have been waiting for me there? Who would have been waiting?

  A short knock comes at the door.

  It opens to reveal Romero and, standing behind him, Juliette.

  My heart races. “Romero,” I say, my voice even despite my jangling nerves, “please call Giovanni. Now.”

  He wouldn’t love being ordered around by me, but he seems to recognize the note of urgency and danger. Swiftly he moves his hand to his pocket where I know he keeps his cell phone.

  And behind him, Juliette pulls something out of her pocket.

  “Romero!” I yell.

  He turns around, his hand going to the sidearm under his jacket. “You,” he breathes.

  Juliette holds a gun steady, eyes glistening. “I’m sorry.”

  A shot echoes through the room, so loud my eardrums feel like they burst.

  I watch as a dark stain forms on Romero’s white dress shirt. He looks down in shock before his large body slumps to the ground. A low, mournful whine comes from beneath the bed.

  “Oh God,” Juliette says. “Oh God. Oh God.”

  Maria and I are frozen by the bed.

  She looks at us, her eyes both shocked and remorseful. “Both of you. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Juliette directs us to the west exit where there’s no guard by the door. There are other men to meet us, some of whom I recognize from the old days. Men in suits, with those same soulless eyes. A white van idles near the supplies entrance, its back doors open. A dark-tinted limo is in front of it, engine purring softly.

  “Get in,” one of the men says, gesturing to the van.

  When neither Maria nor I move quickly enough, he shoves the butt of a gun into my back. Pain shoots through my spine, and my knees threaten to buckle. I force my lips together, determined not to make a sound. I accused Giovanni of being like my father, but he wasn’t. He’d never hurt me.

  These men are like my father—ruthless and cruel.

  I climb into the van and help Maria, who looks like she might be going into shock. Her face is extremely pale, her eyes not focusing on anything. I squeeze her cold hands in mine and whisper, “It will be okay.”

  Juliette steps into the back of the van with us, still holding the gun she used in the house.

  No silencer. So why didn’t Giovanni come running? Clearly this is a well-executed takeover. I just hope Gio got distracted—and that he isn’t hurt. My mind flashes to Romero’s bleeding body. God.

  The van rumbles as it turns on, but we idle there.

  “Why?” I whisper to Juliette.

  She looks despairing, helpless. “It was supposed to be Romero. He would be the head of the family, and he would marry me. My family would get the status we deserve.”

  I stare at her, shocked. He would have been her husband. “You shot him.”

  “I didn’t want to do that,” she says, hands trembling. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  Fairy tales were for girls who didn’t have a choice, ones bent over desks and locked in rooms. Stories we could believe in, when real life let us down. We didn’t have a choice, but Juliette did. And I had seen the way he looked at her. She had written her own tragedy.

  “Did you ever call Candy?”

  Her eyes fill with tears. “Yes. And they were taping it the whole time.”

  I don’t understand why she would betray both Giovanni and Romero. They were the two possible leaders of the Vegas operation. The New York family would back one of them or the other. “Who’s behind this?”

  Juliette’s pretty eyes flicker toward the limo in front of us. “Javier Markam is going to bring the family into the twenty-first century.”

  So that’s who is behind this. She’s on crack if she thought the family would accept an outsider. “And he’s going to repay you for your loyalty.”

  Fury flashes in her eyes. “Go ahead and judge me. You got to grow up the daughter of a capo, the biggest house, the best cars, the clothes. You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

  I never had flashy clothes or cars before Giovanni. And a big house feels very small when your door is locked. My birthright has always been more of a curse than a blessing, but I don’t bother to explain that to her.

  “The family will never accept Markam,” I say instead. “Especially once they learn he planned an attack on the mansion.”

  “They won’t ever know,” she says fiercely. “You and Giovanni will run away together while stealing the family’s money. You’ll never be found, but Markam will step in to save the operation.”

  “And Romero?”

  Her lower lip trembles. “Oh God.”

  The gun she’s holding shakes so badly. She’s going to drop it. It could hit the metal floor and go off, shooting any one of us.

  One of the suits steps into the back with us and shuts the door. He mostly ignores us. As the van pulls away, he focuses on the mansion through the high tinted windows.

  “I won’t go back,” Maria whispers, holding my hands so tightly they ache.

  She must be remembering her time in that horrible brothel. I actually suspect there’s a worse fate planned for us, to make sure we’re truly never found. But I doubt that would be reassuring.

  I squeeze back. “We need to get out of this van before it goes too far. On my mark?”

  She stares at me blankly.

  Shit. I know it’s asking a lot of her, considering she seems close to a breakdown, but I need all the help I can get. I don’t have any special skill with fighting or a gun, and we’re working against trained killers here. Part of me wonders whether we should wait and see if Giovanni can find us, my fairy-tale white knight. Except I can’t be sure that he’s still conscious at the moment or even alive. The farther away from the mansion we get, the worse our chances.

  Fairy tales are the stories we tell ourselves when we need them. They serve their purpose. Hope. And I need all the hope I can get right now. I was raised a mafia princess, bred to marry a king. That makes me the queen, and I’ll be damned if I let Juliette ruin my ending.

  “Now,” I whisper.

  I go for Juliette’s hair, yanking hard. She screams, the gun clattering to the floor and sliding. I dive for the gun and grasp it, but she’s already on my back, clawing me. I get in a hard elbow to her stomach, and she falls back with a thunk on the metal bench. In the space that follows, I grasp the gun—ready to shoot the man at the back door.

  Except he’s already on the floor out cold. Maria stands over him, hyperventilating.

  “Wow,” I say, impressed. “You can fight.”

  “Learned,” she says, panting. “Can’t breathe.”

  “Okay, okay,” I try to soothe her. “Nice and slow. Focus on me. We’re going to get through this.”

  The brakes slam on the van, and we all slam into the divider. So much for nice and slow.

  We can hear the front doors open and shut, footsteps around the side. They’re coming for us. “Lock the doors,” I tell Maria.

  She locks them just as the handle creaks. Someone bangs hard on the outside. “Open the fuck up!”

  “They’ll get the key,” I mutter.

  This is a problem. I have a gun now, but so do they. I doubt Juliette or this unconscious guy would make a valuable hostage to them. Our best bet is staying out of their hands.

  A whistling sound fills the air while Maria pulls the belt from the guy’s slacks. She wraps it around the double handles with cold efficiency and pulls tight. More banging from the outside, but the makeshift lock seems to hold.

  “Remind me never to get on your bad side,” I tell her.

  “They’ll get in eventually.” She looks deathly pale now, leaning against the wall of the truck.

  I dig in Juliette’s designer clutch and pull out a cell phone. What would be really handy right now is Giovanni’s cell phone number, but I don’t see it listed in her contacts. I do see Romero. My heart squeezes,
remembering him lying on the floor. Maybe someone in the mansion has found him? They might be able to patch me through to Gio. But we only have minutes, seconds. Think, think.

  I dial a cell number I’ve called multiple times a week.

  My sister’s voice feels like a cool mist on a scorching hot day. “Hello?”

  “Honor?”

  “Oh my God, Clara! Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you?”

  I laugh, a little watery, at the rapid-fire questions. “Kind of in a tight spot, actually. Don’t suppose you’re anywhere near the mansion?”

  “No,” she says. “Oh no. Juliette said you were in New York. That the family had you for ransom.”

  A very terrifying burning smell seeps in through the cracks around the door. More banging on the metal. “Better come out,” a voice says.

  “Don’t believe anything she told you,” I say.

  “She said Giovanni is alive, that he kidnapped you.”

  “Okay, that part is true. But he’s also the only one who can help me right now. I need you to get ahold of him and tell him to look for a white van that left through the supplies entrance. Preferably as fast as possible.”

  She speaks rapidly to someone else.

  Maria huddles on the hard bench, having gone from pale to faintly green. “They’re burning the truck,” she says. “They’re burning us. Alive.”

  I have to admit, it looks bad. Little tendrils of black smoke sneak in through the bottom of the doors. “All we have to do is hold out until Giovanni comes. Which will be soon.”

  Her eyes are wide like saucers. “How do you know?”

  “You were the one who said he wouldn’t hurt us. That goes for letting us get hurt too.”

  “That was before I saw him holding you down over a desk!”

  “There’s a story behind that,” I say, gesturing to the man on the floor. “Check him for other weapons? We might need a backup plan.”

  “Okay,” my sister says, breathless. “They contacted him. He’s on his way.”

  “Great. Listen, Honor. I love you. You’re the best big sister a girl could have.”

  Her voice is trembling. “Clara, what’s happening there?”

  The details would only freak her out worse than the vague things she can guess now. “We’ll hug later, I promise. But just in case I’m wrong, name the baby after me. Even if it’s a boy.”

  I hang up, knowing she’ll kick my ass for that later. I’m just praying that she actually gets to.

  Maria comes up with a knife from the man’s boot and pepper spray from Juliette’s clutch. Not exactly an arsenal, but it will have to do. At least there are only two of them. And we have the element of surprise.

  “Between the two of us, you’re the one who can fight, so you’re the one who needs to play dead.” I detail a short and sweet plan to Maria, who nods but doesn’t say much.

  Should I use pepper spray on my eyes? That’s probably overkill. Instead I slam the soft flesh of my arm into the corner of the bench, making tears spring to my eyes.

  Then I open the door.

  There are immediately two very large guns pointed at me by two very angry men. “I’m sorry,” I say, crying. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  One of them leers at me. “You’ll be wishing you hadn’t done this in about an hour.”

  I back up, almost tripping on Juliette’s body. “Giovanni Costas kidnapped me. I just want to go home.”

  One of the men follows me into the truck, reaching for me.

  That’s when Maria strikes, hitting him on the side of his knee in a way that sends him sprawling to the floor. I follow up with the pepper spray, making him howl and flail. I jump onto the bench to avoid being snatched by him and hop out of the van.

  The last man has his gun trained on Maria. I aim for him, but we’re at a stalemate.

  “Drop it,” he warns. “We don’t need this bitch. Just you.”

  Shit. I know I don’t have a choice. I’ve seen those eyes before. He won’t hesitate to shoot her. I couldn’t have stood by and let her get hurt even before she was going to help me escape.

  Reaching down, I slowly lower the gun to the floor.

  “No,” Maria says, snapping out of her trance. “It’s not worth it. Shoot him.”

  I set the gun on the ground and nudge it away with my foot. “And let you get hurt? I don’t think so.”

  The man gives a cruel smile. “Javier only needs you, sweetheart. I was going to have some fun with this one. But now I think the two of you are too much trouble.”

  My mind barely interprets his meaning before I see his finger twitch. Then I’m throwing myself onto Maria. A loud bang blasts through the air; pain blooms like crimson flowers as I land on the hard-packed dirt.

  Tires squeal, and I wonder if the van is leaving. From the corner of my eye I see the black limo speed away, filling the air with dust. It floats across my vision like glitter.

  More shots ring out.

  I stare at the blue, blue sky above us and wonder if it’s always been that wide. Where is the sun? It seems bright out, but it feels incredibly cold. I’m shivering.

  “Clara. Clara!” Giovanni’s face appears above mine.

  His hands are all over me. Doesn’t he know I’m not in the mood? Men. Then something sharp pierces the cloud I’m floating on. Ouch. Don’t like that.

  “Stay with me.” He sounds frantic. Panicked, really. It’s strange coming from him. He’s always so confident and composed. “Can you hear me?”

  “Nice and easy.” It seems like the thing to say.

  “Christ. She’s losing too much blood. Stay with me!”

  Is he still talking to me? It’s not clear. Everything is pretty fuzzy, like I’m looking through a stained glass window. I hope my sister doesn’t take me seriously about naming her baby boy Clara. “I love you, by the way.”

  Then I close my eyes and rest.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Kip likes the name Alfred. It was his grandfather’s name. I think it kind of sounds like a grandfather’s name, don’t you? I can’t imagine a baby face named Alfred. Like he’d need a tiny butler suit.”

  My sister’s voice drifts over me, comforting as the artificial haze of whatever medication wears off. There’s a sharp pain in my shoulder that I don’t really want to think about right now, so instead I focus on what she’s saying.

  “I’m thinking of Alessandro. What do you think? It’s pretty, right?”

  Another thoughtful pause.

  “Not as pretty as Clara, mind you. But I hope you weren’t serious about that, if it’s a boy. I suppose we could have gone with Claro, but that’s worse than Alfred.” Her words grow thick. “If it’s a girl we are definitely going to name her Clara. If she gets even half your strength, we’ll be glad.”

  “Strength,” I manage to say, my voice rusty. “I remember you calling it stubbornness.”

  She appears above me, her eyes shining with tears. “You’re awake.”

  “Especially when I wanted to move out.”

  “The world is a very scary place.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you just now.”

  She bites her lip, worry infusing her brown eyes. “How do you feel?”

  “My shoulder hurts. Tell me I just landed on it wrong.”

  “You probably did,” she says. “After you got shot.”

  I groan. “I’m going to need harder drugs.”

  I’m back in the bedroom—Giovanni’s bedroom, with the expansive vista of the Red Rock Canyon painted on one wall. My limbs are heavy, my eyelids somehow sore. Honor has pulled up one of the wooden chairs from the table to my bedside, a small basket bursting with pink and blue and pastel green yarn bundles at her feet.

  “I’ll get the doctor. And I’ll tell Giovanni you’re awake.”

  “Wait.” I grasp her arm with my good hand, the one that doesn’t feel like it’s weighted down by two tons of cement. “You’re okay with him?”

  Her eyes
flash. “I’m furious with him. But he did save your life. You know…after drugging you, kidnapping you, and forcing you to marry him.”

  “Oh. You heard about that.” I’m picturing an explosion when someone told her. Followed by a nuclear winter. It might have been good to be unconscious for that.

  “I had some things to say to Gio about that, I can promise you. And that sham ceremony is absolutely not a real marriage. But I’ve watched the way he’s been these past two days.”

  I’m a little afraid to ask. “How has he been?”

  “He’s been outside the room nonstop since you’ve been in here. He won’t even leave to eat or shower. He’s a mess. But he won’t come inside the room either.”

  As much as I love my sister, I’m honestly a little disappointed not to find him here. “Why not?”

  “I think…he thinks he’s responsible for what happened to you.” A delicate flush paints Honor’s cheeks. “I might have said that to him, actually. Repeatedly.”

  I can imagine. “I want to see him.”

  Honor studies me. “Are you sure? Because if you’re afraid of him, or if you just don’t want to see him for any reason, you don’t have to. You don’t owe him anything.”

  She’s such a fierce protector. I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “Thank you for that. But please. I want to see my husband.”

  * * *

  I first met Giovanni as an eighteen-year-old boy, with lean muscles and beautiful eyes.

  Then I saw him again as a grown man. His chest and shoulders had filled out with muscle. He seemed taller even though that shouldn’t have been possible. The biggest changes were the hard angles of his face—and the harsh scars on his back.

  When Giovanni walks into the bedroom, he’s aged ten years.

  There’s a beard growing on his face, in only two days’ time. His eyes are bloodshot, rimmed with red. His clothes hang rumpled on his large frame.

  He approaches the bed the way a man faces his execution. “Clara.”

  I reach for his hand. After staring at it for a beat, he takes it. His hand is cool and dry, loosely framed around mine. “Are you okay?” I ask, hesitant.