Chapter 1 Aerin #2
I wanted him to take me to the best clubs, find the best cocktails, and go dancing until my feet bled. I wanted to go and make friends, find people to share things with, start driving, and even go to the movies.
All of that burst the moment Dad made his decision.
“At first it does.” Giacomo nods slowly, his smile turning sympathetic. “But I meant what I said. I’m still going to take you out and show you everything.”
“Like Dad will let you now. He’s tripled my security since my birthday. I have a maid that follows me now like a lost puppy.”
“A maid?” His brows dart upward.
“I think she’s some kind of soldier, though, because I saw a gun under her skirts when I was trying to push her out of my room.”
“Ahhh.” Giacomo nods knowingly. “Undercover security designed to be your friend.”
“I don’t want to talk about that anymore. Tell me where you’ve been!” I clutch at his arm. “You’re literally my only source of anything that happens outside the estate.”
As Giacomo starts to delve into his latest conquest of drinks and cars, movement at the end of the table catches my eye.
I glance there for a brief second, then catch myself, and before I know it I’m staring.
He’s handsome. Not in the traditional pretty boy sense.
He reminds me more of those old movies where the sun-soaked rancher or sexy older pirate sweeps in to save the day.
The man slowly walks up the length of the table, taking languid steps that almost make it seem like he’s floating by.
Broad shoulders cause the olive t-shirt he’s wearing to strain across his muscular chest, thick arms threaten to burst the fabric at the seams, and his thick, black hair shimmers in the restaurant light due to the streaks of silver at his temples.
His face is deeply tanned, like a man who’s spent far too long in the sun, given how weathered he looks, and deep-set wrinkles along his brow shift as he reaches the lieutenant next to my father.
Giacomo’s voice drones on and on as I watch the stranger lean down and whisper something in the lieutenant’s ear.
They must know him since no one has reacted to his presence, but I’ve never seen him before.
I thought I knew all the men cleared to approach my father. Clearly not.
“Anyway,” Giacomo sighs loudly, dragging me away from my gawking session. “I was going to call her, but she was the wrong kind of clingy, y’know? They say bigger girls are always grateful for those sorts of things, but I was—”
“Dick!” I elbow him sharply in the ribs. “How can you say something so horrible?”
He immediately bursts out laughing. “I knew you weren’t listening to me.”
“I was!”
“No, you weren’t. You didn’t even look at me until I started spewing the shit you hate. Where did I lose you?”
“Uhm…” The memories of our conversation don’t come.
Behind Giacomo’s head, I watch as the father at the birthday table suddenly lunges up in his seat, pulls an Uzi from his back and opens fire at our table.
He moves in slow motion, his mouth wide as he yells. Each muzzle flash of the weapon blinds me as rapid fire bullets fly at our table.
Glasses shatter into thousands of pieces, the flowers are torn to shreds, plates crack and split, and all the men on the opposite side of the table are hit instantly.
“Aerin!” Giacomo yells my name, but the words reach me so slowly that I barely hear him.
A hand grabs my upper arm and drags me out of my chair and away from the table.
As the chair legs catch in my ankles, I trip and yell, throwing out my other hand to try to brace my fall.
I glimpse Dad throwing himself over Mom and the two of them tumbling to the ground out of sight.
Giacomo hauls me back, keeping me upright even as I trip, then he’s in front of me with both hands painfully clasping my arms.
“Run, Aerin!” he yells in my face. “Run!”
He shoves me away and pulls his gun from his hip, aiming at the maniac on the table and opening fire while our guards swarm the tables, tackling the gunman’s wife as she fights to get her own weapon up.
I can’t move.
Each violent pop of gunfire makes me flinch, the entire restaurant is screaming and yelling, a fire starts at one table where candles are knocked over by bullets, and the air floods with the scent of gunpowder and blood.
People run and scramble in all directions, and I watch them scurry until someone’s shoulder slams hard into me, sending me spinning around and barely keeping my balance.
As I steady myself, I find I’m face-to-face with a black handgun, and my heart stops dead in my chest.
Behind the gun stands the fourteen-year-old girl who just blew out her candles, her face completely void of emotion and her eyes dark.
“Wait!” It’s all I can think to say, but she just raises the gun higher, aiming at my chest.
In the exact second that the gun goes off, someone grabs me and spins me around so quickly that my stomach lurches and my head whips to the side, sending agony spiraling down my neck.
The force dislodges the pin in my hair, sending my curls cascading down over my face, but through the strands I see him.
I’m face-to-face with him, barely an inch apart.
The sun-kissed, older man with eyes as gold as morning sunlight. Somehow, he’s between me and that girl.
His hardened face melts into nothing but pain.
He stumbles forward and his lips part, but nothing comes out except one word barked with complete urgency.
“Run.”
His hands fall from my arms, and he collapses face down on the ground in front of me.
Blood spreads across the lower back of his shirt, spreading out so fast that the red quickly swallows all the green.
I barely have time to breathe before my father’s guards sweep me up like a river catching a stick and drag me away from him.
They yell at one another, gunfire continuing like popcorn in the microwave, and my father’s voice booms furiously through the air.
But I don’t look away.
He saved my life.
And I don’t even know his name.