Chapter 21 #2
I’m dismissive as I get the last of the rope off my wrists.
I catch it, so it can’t fall to the floor.
I can’t look over at Vita without giving away where my attention shifts.
I don’t want Cosima or Zorzi wondering why I’m checking on her.
They obviously know we’re involved, but I won’t give away just how much she means to me.
I don’t think that’ll save her or me, but I don’t need to fuel our tormentors.
“Bastardo arrogante.”
Not exactly difficult to guess what Zorzi calls me. I pretend to pout as I mock him. He clenches his fists.
How the fuck did Vita ever date this hijueputa? Son of a bitch.
I suppose there’s a reason they broke up, and I suspect she dumped his sorry ass.
If it were just the two of us, I’d say something obscene about having more money, a bigger dick, and fucking his woman.
Instead, I switch to the most patronizing smile I can muster.
It pisses off most men and makes women think I’m aloof—and worth the chase.
Vita clears her throat softly. Zorzi and Cosima look in her direction.
I know it’s her signal to gain my attention.
I drop the rope and launch myself out of my seat as my hands slide into my pockets.
I whip out both knives, my muscle memory placing my index fingers over the triggers to release the blades.
I slash Zorzi’s throat before anyone realizes my intentions.
Hope Vita doesn’t mind.
I have Cosima in a chokehold with one blade at the back of her neck ready to hack my way to her spine, and the other gripped and positioned to drive it into her sternum.
Vita reaches out for a handful of her tía’s hair and yanks the woman’s head sideways, giving me room to move the blade to her jugular. The sound of Vita’s hand meeting Cosima’s cheek rings throughout the cavernous space.
Fuck!
She slapped the woman hard for it to be so loud in such an enormous area. Sensing my curiosity, Vita pulls Cosima’s hair even harder, making it possible for me to see the scarlet handprint on the older woman’s cheek. My woman isn’t playing.
“I don’t give a shit whether my parents ever forgive you for this. I don’t give a shit if they even sanctioned this. I will kill you for endangering my man.”
Her bone chilling tone warms my shriveled heart.
She cares about me. She really, really cares about me.
I’m having my Wednesday Addams’s goth girl moment.
My lips twitch, then purse as though I’m blowing Vita kiss. Her eyes widen for a moment before she laughs.
“Mwah.”
She makes a smacking kiss sound. I’m certain Cosima believes we’re equally psychotic or just hamming it up. I think Vita and I are a match made in heaven.
“What do you want me to do, chiquita?”
“Hold her.”
My arm tightens around her neck, shifting the blade away from her, favoring making her pass out rather than bleed out if she fights me.
I move the knife from her sternum and wrap my long arm around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides.
She isn’t moving unless I allow it. Vita releases Cosima’s hair and steps in front of her.
She reaches out her hand, palm up. I hand her the knife that’s near Cosima’s neck.
My heart lurches as I watch Vita spin the knife in the air, catching it by the tip.
The blade is wickedly sharp. It’s part of my morning routine to clean both knives and run them across a whetstone if I used them the previous day.
She flicks it again, catching it by the handle.
She pretends to balance it on her palm, as though finding the right place to grip it.
Then she turns her hand sideways and places the tip of the blade under her tía’s nose.
“It sure would be a shame to mark up your pretty face, Zia.”
“It would be a shame for you to be dead, Nipote.”
“I want her phone.”
I loosen my hold since I know the demand is perfunctory.
Vita snatches it from Cosima’s front pocket.
She holds it up, prying her tía’s eye open wider for the retina scan.
She taps the screen before putting the phone to her ear.
I wonder why she doesn’t want me to hear whatever the other person says.
I assume I won’t understand her since the call’s likely to be in Italian.
People say Italian and Spanish are close, but not close enough for me to understand a conversation well enough to keep up.
“Mamà, what the hell is going on?”
I guess she’s going with English as a favor to me. But I still don’t know what her mother’s saying. Maybe she doesn’t want Cosima to hear, so she can’t interject. I hate being left out, though.
My mother’s still trying to teach me that, as an only child, not everything is all about me all the time. Doubt I’ll ever learn that lesson.
“Do you know where Zia Cosima is right now?”
I don’t know what her mother said as an answer to the first question, but I have the answer to the second a moment later.
“She’s holding my boyfriend and me captive. She had us attacked, beaten, drugged, then tied up.”
It’s muffled, but I hear a string of what must be Italian curses because Vita holds the phone away from her ear.
She taps the screen, and I see the call switch to video.
She flips the camera and pans around what we can now see is an empty warehouse.
It looks more like a fucking bunker. She walks over to the chairs and tilts the phone to show the ropes on the ground.
Then she returns to Cosima and me. She holds up the camera, and I turn my head from side to side before she flips the camera back around to face her.
She does the same thing so her mother can see the bruise over Vita’s left cheekbone.
I will cut off each finger of the hand that touched her, then I’ll disembowel the fucker.
“Toria, are you injured more than I can see?”
“No, Mamà. But I have no idea how long Alejandro and I were unconscious. We don’t know where we are either. Who did this? Zia won’t say. We wasted enough time that Alejandro and I got free, but we’re no closer to understanding what’s happening than when the attack started.”
She flips the camera yet again, so the sisters stare at each other.
“I don’t know, but you can be sure I’ll find out. Cosima, you hurt my daughter. If there were any chance you’d survive this, I’d kill you myself. You will not take my last child from me.”
I’d forgotten Vita lost her two brothers. I know how Tío Luis and Tía Margherita still silently grieve Juan, both his death and the man he could’ve been. That was one child. To have lost two and have a third in an occupation where she could die at any time? What a fucked-up world we live in.
“Orsa, you’ve gotten too soft on your daughter.”
“Our parents may have named you for beauty, but I’m named for a bear. You’ve come after my child. You will learn what kind of mamà I am. I’m having lunch with Aurelia and Iseppo today. Take one from me, and I’ll take both from you.”
I assume those are Cosima’s daughter and son.
I can’t see her reaction, but I can see the pure hatred on Vita’s mother’s face.
It’s the expression only a mother could master when her child’s in danger.
I’ve seen my father and tío when my cousins and I have been in danger.
They’re fierce as fuck. They’re both big guys who intimidate most people just by walking by.
My mamá and tías are tiny compared to the men in our family, but even their sweetest smiles can be terrifying. If this woman’s going to be my mother-in-law, I’ll remember what it means to run afoul of her.
“You wouldn’t.” Cosima couldn’t convince a nun to say a prayer.
“Wouldn’t I?”
The sisters glower at each other for a protracted moment before Vita steps in again.
“Mamà, get her to tell you who’s behind this.”
“Cosima.”
When the woman says nothing, I steer her to the chairs and force her to sit. I’m quick to secure her to one. My bindings aren’t coming undone unless I do them. I doubt even Vita could figure out how to release these knots.
I pull the second chair over and place it facing Cosima.
I figure since we’re going to be here a while, at least Vita should be comfortable.
I usher her to the seat, and she holds out the phone so her mother can see all of us.
I notice Orsa’s gaze darts to me over Vita’s shoulder.
She shoots me an appreciative smile, and I see approval.
“There’s nothing any of you can do. Things are too far gone.”
As though on cue, an explosion rattles the entire building. Heat rushes forward as doors at the far end blow open.
Well, shit.
“Vita, what do you want me to do?”
With my knives, I can get Cosima loose in time, but I need to know right now.
“Zia, choose. Tell me what the fuck I need to know, or Mamà will plan your memorial.”
The woman shoots her niece a defiant glare, and I see the family resemblance. Except Vita’s expression won’t get her killed.
“Mamà?”
I hear the doubt in Vita’s voice as she asks her mother whether she should save the woman’s sister.
“Alejandro, save my daughter.”
Her daughter’s just as likely to save me as I am her, but this isn’t the time for semantics. Vita and I back away from a screaming Cosima as we both search our surroundings. There aren’t any doors besides the ones we can see through. Flames block the view of anything beyond them.
“Stay here, chiquita.”
“What? No!”
“I can promise you I’m faster.”
I don’t wait for my Vita—mi vida—to argue.
My life is nothing if I lose her. I’ve saved my papá’s, tíos’, and primos’ lives more times than I ever should have needed to.
I would run into that fire for them without reservation.
But the drive to keep Vita alive and unharmed is like I’ve been possessed.